A perceptive article by Cameron Cooper in the current edition of Connexus (p24-32) discusses the challenge facing the Mutual Bank/Credit Society sector in expanding their customer base into younger generations. I won’t attempt to paraphrase the article…..it’s really worth reading for yourself.

However I will make the observation that “engagement” with customers of financial services is becoming increasingly sophisticated and spread across multiple channels irrespective of the age of the customer. Old and young alike are increasingly exposed to options for engagement in social and work-based situations and they are choosing in increasing numbers to use those preferred means to engage with their financial institution. To meet that need, any financial services provider be they big bank or single branch mutual will need to develop effective channels of engagement beyond the traditional branch and call centre options.

All is not lost! The perception that the investment needed to deploy the technology and processes for these channels “may stretch the budget of smaller credit unions” is not accurate. The solutions supporting these new channels are typically delivered via the cloud with innovative pricing models that permit them to be deployed cost effectively even for a small number of users.

A typical multi-channel approach will include a combination of any of:

• Web Self Service: where customers can find the answers to even sophisticated questions intuitively and quickly 24×7. These interactions can be costly to your organisation when they find their way into the higher value channels like call centres & branches but worse, they impact negatively on the customer experience who’s increasing expectation is seamless self service at their convenience.

• Email management: which enables even large volumes of emails to be “smart-routed” to appropriate resources to answer promptly, productively and accurately even across a distributed branch network. An auto-response to a customer’s email suggesting “we’ll get back to you in 5 working days” is no longer acceptable.

• Social Media management: where monitoring tools enable your customer service people  to address customer issues or questions that are raised in social sites like FaceBook, Twitter or perhaps a financial services blog. Not only can you “nip in the bud” potentially damaging negative sentiment but you can add substantial value through more mass communication to customers with similar issues. (see the Qantas volcano story)

• Live (Web) Chat: either as a “reactive” response to a request from a customer visiting the website  for immediate, personal service or (& this is where it can be really interesting for business growth) in a “proactive” mode where website visitors trigger business rules created by the business that indicate that customer (or potential customer) could do with some personal service eg filling out an online form, visiting an online saver product page. By addressing low value interactions via efficient methods above, you free up limited well trained people to interact productively with customers at critical value-adding crossroads & dramatically improve new business conversions.

As Cooper’s article suggests, it is no longer optional to ignore the engagement preferences of customers irrespective of their generation. However the answer to the challenge is also within the reach of all Mutuals no matter their size.