CRM Family Vacation

Customer relationship management has become the banking industry’s big family vacation. Nobody can agree on where to go, the frustrating topic is habitually postponed, and, in the end, nobody goes anywhere.

For many, an equally frustrating memory is of the remnants of the first attempts at CRM years ago that resulted in the equivalent of an electronic paperweight. How is it possible that an exciting idea with unanimous support year after year never materializes?

According to CEOs of community-based financial institutions surveyed for Cornerstone’s What’s Going On in Banking 2018 report, 61% of FIs of plan to add, replace or improve CRM capabilities. That number might look familiar because it’s the exact same as in our 2017 study. The investment into CRM has been easy to pass over year after year because there are easier problems to address with much less risk at a fraction of the price tag. But ever-increasing customer experience expectations are forcing the hands of financial institutions – whether they have the organizational maturity or not.

Competing with the Big Banks

Meanwhile, the big banks have experienced tremendous success in recent years due to their massive investments in digital banking. These enhancements have virtually closed the customer satisfaction gap that used to represent a key competitive advantage for community and regional banks.

To be blunt, the diminished gap in satisfaction should be downright terrifying for mid-size and regional banks. The planned system investments for 2018 according What’s Going On in Banking are intended to keep smaller players competitive.

While the focus on account opening and digital banking in particular is absolutely warranted, the sad truth is that big banks will always be ahead of the curve. CRM is arguably the only platform on the list that enables enough configurable creativity to offer any hope of differentiated experience.

Exploring the CRM Graveyard

Looking back on a slew of unsuccessful CRM attempts, I commonly find some combination of the same problems:

• “We rolled out minimal functionality across multiple lines of business.”
• “We tried to do too much, resulting in a long list of functionalities that don’t work.”
• “We designed it for management reporting, but the data is worthless because there’s no user adoption.”

Why are these problems so persistent? My conversations consistently come back to gaps at the earliest stages of planning. It’s common for a team to jump directly into selecting a system – or just calling the first Salesforce number they can find – without establishing effective (albeit boring) CRM goals, core capabilities based on use cases, or a thoughtful timeline. The development of core capabilities is an especially critical step that is too often left in the hands of external implementation partners. In hindsight, it seems obvious: who would build a downtown skyscraper without providing the construction crew with a blueprint?

A Boring Approach Leads to Exciting Success

The relatively simple solution of hosting a CRM planning session may sound boring, but if it works, who freakin’ cares? The agenda should be focused on accomplishing three tasks:

1. Collectively establish strategic CRM goals and corresponding success metrics.
   a. Goal: We will improve the mortgage origination gap.
       Metric: A 20% increase in closed originations by developing deeper relationships with real estate agents and builders.
   b. Goal: We will have efficient and equipped contact center agents.
       Metric: Decrease average call handle time by 30 seconds with a target Net Promoter Score of 75 accomplished through improved access to loan status and detailed card data.
2. Identify and prioritize core capabilities that are critical to achieving those goals.
   a. Ability to store, view and actively manage real estate agents and builder profiles and interactions with reminders integrated to Outlook calendars.
   b. Click-of-a-button ability to convert prospect information into an application with triggers for integrated credit pulls and income verification.
3. Establish a realistic, phased timeline for selecting the most appropriate platform and developing the core capabilities.
   a. Vendor review and system selection by end of Q3.
   b. Mortgage capabilities in production by Q1 of next year with contact center and marketing capabilities scheduled for Q2.

The broad internal scope, meaningful customer impact, and huge costs of a CRM should easily warrant one day of executive discussion. With the help of a defined plan, post-session use case development and execution discipline, GonzoBankers will find themselves on the road to enjoying the industry’s long overdue CRM-style family vacation.