{"id":3600,"date":"2020-03-19T13:29:30","date_gmt":"2020-03-19T03:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sap.com\/australia\/?p=3600"},"modified":"2023-08-17T04:47:48","modified_gmt":"2023-08-16T18:47:48","slug":"consumer-data-creating-confidence-trust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.sap.com\/australia\/2020\/03\/19\/consumer-data-creating-confidence-trust\/","title":{"rendered":"Consumer Data: Creating Confidence & Trust"},"content":{"rendered":"
Consumer Data Rights (CDR) are looming for the Australian banking sector. CDR is comparable to GDPR in Europe. At a high level, three key challenges come to mind when contemplating the path forward for Australian banks in how to create confidence and trust in working with consumer data.<\/p>\n
The first challenge is technical, since most banks have a myriad of systems containing customer data. A key challenge lies in orchestrating customer data across these disparate systems, reconciling datasets to ensure accuracy across the organisation and enabling customers with self-service controls. Imagine the overhead of customers contacting a call centre to execute CDR requests. Furthermore, data insights cannot be actionable if they\u2019re unreliable, so financial service providers need to take a most holistic approach to how they orchestrate and govern consumer data.<\/p>\n
The second key challenge comes from an institution\u2019s own staff and their confidence in how their day-to-day roles comply with consumer data rights \u2013 particularly with marketers. Customer-facing teams that aren\u2019t confident about the compliancy of their consumer data will fear the implications of misusing customer data, which impacts their ability to connect with and service customers.<\/p>\n
The third challenge is to be prepared for the future. As technology evolves, expect continuous changes in data usage, data sources, and data rights. These evolutions are frightening because however any bank solves for today\u2019s requirements, ideally the same capability must also be agile enough to support the removal and addition of data sources, features, and connectivity over time.<\/p>\n
As consumer data rights evolve \u2013 potentially with updates to legislation and further scrutiny \u2013 banks will need to respond to customer expectations, compliance requirements, and market-service levels. The agenda will be forced by legacy free nimble neo-banks, fintechs, and potentially digitally savvy market leaders, so consumer data confidence solutions must be mindful of how to respond to future change.<\/p>\n
Financial industry shortcomings<\/strong> For example, have you tried to subscribe to product updates, or a bank\u2019s blog, or even a simple and informative market update? You can\u2019t do it unless you do a full application and identity check to actually open an account.<\/p>\n For example, download an app for any bank that you do not have a product with. Can you sign up for the app without opening a product? No. It\u2019s quite uncommon and begs the question, \u2018why would you want to download a banking app if you weren\u2019t a customer\u2019. If the app were a useful source of information, such as being able to easily find out their home loan interest rates, or had good articles on how to manage my money that I could share with my friends, then why not download the app.<\/p>\n Banks launch new products regularly, a recent common example being home-loan offers with cash back. Since I\u2019ve just re-financed \u2013 now might not be the right time for me, but I\u2019d sure be interested in a regular update and would happily to give my consent to a forward-thinking bank to keep me alerted of their rate changes or product changes. First-mover advantage, anyone? Alas, at this time, a bank won\u2019t let you start a relationship with them unless you open an account. I imagine many must be the same, but I\u2019d also guess most people don\u2019t want to have bank accounts all over the place.<\/p>\n It just takes a little rethinking in terms of how banks utilise customer data to demonstrate value, add convenience, remove friction, and create new benefits for customer and employees alike.<\/p>\n Learning from Other Industries<\/strong> A potential customer may not purchase anything initially, but the media company welcomes the opportunity to connect and establish a relationship to remain in the potential customer\u2019s mind, so one day the potential customer willingly converts their relationship into a paying customer.<\/p>\n
\nFinancial services organisations are generally highly regulated, highly visible, and often reactive to the changes and trends of customer experience and legislation. I\u2019ve yet to observe any visionary industry innovation. Most banks are investing in digital and there is some added convenience, but mostly it is just traditional banking via a digital channel. Professionals from outside the industry could easily observe the barriers between banks and customers in terms of relationship building, potentially offering straight-forward solutions the financial sector is yet to see.<\/p>\n
\nFrom my perspective, the media industry is a leader in this kind of customer-centric approach that creates value from customer relationships. If you think about a typical media company, they often have multiple brands with unique brand identities across the market. Customers want to engage with those brands, so media companies give customers the opportunity to have micro-level control over their relationship in terms of how often they will hear from the company and the kind of content they\u2019ll receive.<\/p>\n