NEXT GENERATION BANKINGWhy Customer Journeys Matter

A Zafin Whitepaper

Alexandra Roddy

Chief Marketing Officer

Chief Marketing Officer

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zafin.com

Introduction

“Customer journeys” have gone from marketing buzzword to boardroom imperative. If you still

doubt the power of a positive customer experience, talk to Jeff Bezos about what he considers to

be the primary driver of Amazon’s stratospheric success:

And for banks? According to Accenture, four out of five consumers describe their relationship

with their primary financial institution as purely transactional.

Which implies most of your customers—including even your most profitable—will shop the

competition when they have new financial needs, will leave your bank for a better offer, and will

not forgive or forget when you make a mistake.

Transactional or Relational? 4 out of 5 Consumers Call Their Banking Relationship Transactional

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In an increasingly digital world, transactions are transformed into relationships through the

timely application of data-driven insights. What does this particular customer want? Need?

Prefer?

When humans think about their finances, do they think about financial products? Or do they

think about financial goals and what it will take to achieve them?

For a consumer, is the point the mortgage? Or is it the home?

For a business owner, is the point a credit line? Or is it capacity for investment and growth?

Financial products are a means to an end, not an end in and of themselves. But that’s not how

banks work. For the most part, banks are organized in silos, centering products not customers.

The card division and the deposits team may serve the same customer, but they report to

different executives, rely on separate business processes, operate on their own technology

stacks, and align around distinct KPIs. Not always, but too often.

Products vs. Goals? How Do People Think About Their Finances?

Banks Are Typically Organized in Silos

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Why focus on customer journeys? BCG estimates that for every $100 billion in assets that a bank

has, it can achieve as much as $300 million in revenue growth by personalizing its customer

interactions.

Top Line Value of Personalization

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And a 2020 Zafin survey found that 63% of consumers are looking for a personalized banking

experience, 67% prefer to consolidate with a single provider, and 75% would switch banks for a

rewards program that aligned with their personal financial goals.

Seeking a Personalized Banking Experience

Prefer to Consolidate With a Single Bank

Switch for a Rewards Program Aligned With Personal Financial Goals

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So, what does it take to capitalize on the growth and profitability opportunities inherent to

customer-journey-centric banking? Three things:

Accurate data

Banks have access to all kinds of useful data about their customers. Many have created

architectures and repositories to aggregate that data at the customer level for analytical and

experience purposes. Data is what allows a bank to differentiate one customer from another in

meaningful ways.

Timely insights

The trick is to go beyond the bank’s perimeter to understand where the customer is in terms

of life stage, needs and aspirations. The foundation for any relationship is understanding. So,

relevant customer-level insights are essential for any bank seeking to upgrade from transactions

to relationships.

Dynamic product and pricing execution

What value are insights if your bank cannot act upon them? This is where legacy technologies are

a significant inhibitor to market impact. When your customer is making key financial decisions,

your bank needs to be prepared to sell and serve in a timely, relevant way—through any channel

the customer prefers.

How Banks See Their Customers

Insights from Data Within and Outside the Bank

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Dynamic Product and Pricing Execution in ActionZafin’s product and pricing management platform turns insights into action, serving the right

product, price or offer to a customer or prospect through the right channel at the right time, and

then executing flawlessly and automatically for the full product and customer lifecycle.

Consider a customer’s mortgage journey without Zafin:

Home Loan Journey Without Zafin

Now, consider a customer’s mortgage journey fueled by data, insights plus dynamic product and

pricing capabilities.

Home Loan Journey With Zafin

Transactions turn into relationships, and the customer’s loyalty to the bank grows.

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Now consider a savings and investing journey.

Saving and Investing Journey Without Zafin

Had the bank organized around journeys and adopted Zafin’s product and pricing platform,

outcomes would have been very different.

Saving and Investing Journey With Zafin

Dynamically serving products and offers based on a customer’s unique behaviors and preferred

channels, life stage, digital footprint and more is what makes digital interactions non-

transactional, creating sticky relationships that progress over time.

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The small business value proposition is a powerful one. Every business has a growth lifecycle.

Every business is on a journey.

Without attention to that journey, the bank’s tie to the customer is transactional.

Small Business Journey Without Zafin

With data and insights that drive product and pricing executions that are highly relevant to the

current needs of the business, the bank and the customer have a meaningful relationship that

grows and changes over time.

Small Business Journey With Zafin

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How does Zafin’s product and pricing management platform work? Zafin decouples product and pricing from core systems to create flexibility, consistency, efficiency,

transparency and speed.

Zafin ingests data from bank systems, matches customers with products, packages and offers

based on business rules including eligibility and suitability, then calculates even the most intricate

pricing rules with ease and accuracy, down to a segment of one.

Because product and pricing are decoupled from core systems, information to support the full

product lifecycle—from offer and onboarding through servicing and offboarding—is provisioned

quickly, accurately and consistently across all banking channels.

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We’ve Made the Customer Journey BeforeOur roster of clients reads like a who’s who of global financial institutions.

But, when it comes to demonstrating the power of the Zafin platform for customer journeys, a

few stories stand out.

Case Study 1The financial institution struggled to harmonize client experiences globally and create a “one bank experience”. It implemented Zafin’s platform to streamline its technology stack, centralize product information and establish pricing controls. With Zafin, the financial institution can now:

• Design and tailor products based on customer behaviors

• Offer pricing based on the customer’s total relationship with the bank

• Expose products through a variety of channels, with customers getting specific price points after logging into those channels

Case Study 2The financial institution struggled with commoditized, product-centric offerings that created sub-optimal customer experiences. It also faced increasing pressure from digital banks and fintechs who were wooing away customers with new products, offers and experiences. By leveraging Zafin’s platform as part of its cloud technoloy stack, the financial institution can:

• Create customer-centric cross-channel journeys for key goals and moments in their customers’ financial lives, such as managing money or buying a home

• Use eligibility and suitability rules to present the right offer to the right client across all channels

• Rationalize 300 deposit products and 127 lending structures down to 10 each

Case Study 3As part of its expansion strategy, the financial institution was preparing to launch a new digital bank in the U.S. With Zafin, it can now support four innovative use cases to support various customer journeys:

• Deposit retention: Offer customers incentives to retain deposits and limit withdrawals

• Merchant-funded boosters: Work with local merchants to deliver targeted offers

• Savings goals: Offer the ability to define a series of goals within a single savings account

• Cash back credit card bundle: Offer a unique bundle that combines a credit card with a savings account

A Zafin Whitepaper © 2021 Zafin. All rights reserved.

About ZafinZafin is the world’s leading cloud-based SaaS product and pricing management platform.

Throughout Zafin’s journey of customer-centric innovation and growth, we’ve helped banks across

the globe re-architect to separate product and pricing capabilities from core processors.

Talk to Zafin today at www.zafin.com