Leveraging Technology to Optimize Customer Relationships

Bank Director spoke with Jim Sizemore, senior vice president and CIO of the Information Technology Inc. unit of Fiserv, about strategies.

What are some of the most progressive banks doing with their technology strategies today?
They are listening to their customers, and not just the most profitable ones—but the up-and-comers as well, many of whom will be their high-margin customers in the future. As these banks listen, they continually look for ways to deploy technologies that provide the products their customers demand, offer the highest levels of service, and maximize profitability.

This approach works in unison with the customer-centric strategies used by the industry’s leading technology vendors, who define and deliver a scalable, integrated, and seamless technology platform. This integrated design, which includes core product management, customer relationship management, e-commerce, document management, business intelligence, and professional services, offers these banks the modularity and scalability they require to unfold a technology strategy that can be quickly and easily tailored to meet the dynamic needs of their customers.

Taking the fullest advantage of business intelligence capabilities to analyze customer expectations, demands, and satisfaction allows these banks to create the best products and services to reach their profit goals. They also recognize every customer touchpoint as an opportunity to sell, leveraging integrated technology solutions to deliver and track these opportunities. Whether it be cross-selling new products and services or reaffirming an existing relationship, every customer contact is important, from Internet banking to the teller line.

How does a bank maintain a leading-edge technology strategy while operating under a conservative fiscal strategy?
The most successful banks focus on those technologies that best serve the customer while simultaneously reducing operational costs. Again, it comes down to having smooth, seamless integration of data and applications, the scalability to handle future growth, and vendor expertise to help the bank make the most of its technology systems.

A bank can generally find or write a piece of software to accomplish a specific task, but it is only through the integration of all the pieces that it can stay ahead of the competition with the lowest total cost of ownership.

Continuing technology education is another key to getting the best performance and greatest results from a bank’s technology investment. Vendor seminars, Web conferences, and training classes (many are available via the Internet) provide a valuable opportunity for banks to get the most from their technology dollars.

Progressive banks are reducing the number of vendors they work with and are concentrating on partners that offer comprehensive, integrated solutions. This approach nurtures a holistic technology strategy and eliminates the often high costs of trying to fit together disparate systems. It also helps the bank focus its training and invest in a true partnership with a vendor that has a track record of profitability, experience, growth, and penetration into all segments of the banking market. |BD|

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