Owing to similar financial services and products, effective marketing and exceptional service provision are the most effective ways for banks and financial services firms to distinguish themselves from competitors, says global information technology firm Wipro Africa and Europe banking VP Shailendra Singh.

This can be achieved through the deployment of analytics engines to provide good-quality information for sales and service employees, which helps to improve customers’ experience and, consequently, their propensity to subscribe to services or products.

“Providing sales staff with appropriate and timely information utilising analytics can improve efficiency down the line. Besides the basic information of probable customers, their preferences and a list of products they do not yet own, customer information can be greatly augmented using analytical capability,” he says.

Incorporating analytics into every stage of the customer life cycle is the solution, and financial services institutions need to gear themselves to take advantage of the benefits delivered by this powerful tool.

The sales cycle is fairly simple, but can be greatly enhanced during the first stages to improve effectiveness throughout. Customer identification and acquisition can be improved through acquisition analytics and intelligent campaign design. Customer relationship management can be enhanced through improved portfolio management and meeting transactional needs.

“Cross-selling can be enhanced using needs analysis, family demographics and credit history analysis. Customer retention can be improved using churn prediction and lifetime value modelling. Customer value can be enhanced and wallet share increased using behavioural segmentation, product affinity modelling and differentiated pricing,” he says.

Analytics can provide senior management with valuable inputs at each stage in the customer life cycle. This translates to a better customer experience and a competitive edge, enabling banks to differentiate on service rather than product.

Further, analytics deployments are iterative processes that address specific business problems. For example, analytics systems can be used to ensure improved performance of operational areas, such as risk, compliance and fraud, and help to improve decision-making of users and timeframes.