In Focus Consumer Credit
Your attention please!
Truly engaging with customers is a vital first step in resolving difficulties, but how can it be achieved?
Eric Leenders Managing director, retail and commercial banking, British Bankers’ Association
eric.leenders@bba.org.uk
Eight seconds. This is how long research says our attention span is, and that is shorter than the attention span of a goldfish. Whether it is a text, e-mail, whatsapp, or an old- fashioned letter or telephone call, friends, family, vloggers and businesses are all vying for our attention.
Access to information Digitalisation has brought benefits, allowing clients to have access to more information, delivered instantly. However, the volume of information that they are getting from numerous sources is making it harder to get
testing contact strategies to identify the best approach for specific customer segments or actions. The previous strategies of letters and
outbound calling have been supplemented with text alerts, apps and online messaging. Customer engagement is a long-standing
challenge in the debt-advice sector, despite research showing that early engagement results in better outcomes and reduces the anxiety of money problems. Banks have worked in partnership with
trusted independent debt-advice charities to improve engagement.
delivered – to stimulate customer interaction in a number of areas, including products such as current accounts, overdrafts and credit cards. Developments in APIs and open banking
will present more opportunities to help customers through the timely delivery of information generated by automatic triggers. This innovation will, itself, present options
to customers to enable them to make an informed decision. Signing up for text alerts and using mobile-phone apps has resulted in a 24% reduction in customers’ monthly overdraft charges.
The regulator is going to work with the financial- services industry to look at what messaging works best and how it is best delivered to stimulate customer interaction
their attention, and getting their attention is the first priority for effective communication. And, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfelds’
comment about ‘unknown unknowns’, customers ‘do not know what they do not know’. So how do banks raise awareness of important information to customers, which is in their best interest, and then get them to take action? How can they be helped to help themselves, such as by avoiding unauthorised overdraft fees or seeking debt advice?
Behaviour analytics Banks are using behavioural analytics to identify customers most at risk of entering financial difficulty, and then continually
24 However research says that only one in
five people, who need debt advice, are taking debt advice. A significantly higher number would have been signposted to support agencies, but are either not paying attention, or are ignoring them.
Smarter communications The Financial Conduct Authority recognises that smarter communications – rather than more communications – is the key to achieving better engagement and, therefore, better outcomes. The regulator is going to work with the
financial-services industry to look at what messaging works best – and how it is best
www.CCRMagazine.co.uk
Conclusion The best way to grab the attention of those customers who ‘do not know what they do not know’, and how to get them to really engage, is going to be the objective of the upcoming research. The Competition and Markets Authority
took a more direct approach with their own retail-banking market investigation and, as a result, imposed a requirement to send an alert to customers entering into an unauthorised overdraft. Could similar impositions be required in
other areas, with the intent of changing customer behaviours? And will they be the most effective approach? CCR
January 2017
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