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DIGITAL BANKING Tips - Tip 1: Using System Error Messages for Selling

It sounds a little bit strange but checking out the system error messages customer gets could produce quite interesting results and leads. 

Let me explain how this could be possible: if a customer gets such a message it means s/he wants to do something but we do not allow this action for a valid reason. Some examples of such messages are "insufficient funds, over limit transactions, blocked password, your electric bill is not paid or can not be paid etc.." It is very easy to find out how many clients receive such messages each and every day.

So let's go to more details for "insufficient funds" error message.Who gets this message and why? Probably a customer who would like to perform a money transfer or purchase a financial product. Well.. some of the clients who receive such messages could also be eligible for loan offering for sure and this could be an excellent opportunity to sell the credit product to him/her at the moment of need. Of course, some propensity model work at your CRM, or at least some profiling may give you the clue who can be eligible for such an offer. It works quite well, I can tell you this from 1st hand experience! Not necessarily for online banking only, but also for ATMs and Contact Centers too.

Actually we discovered this by chance, once we experienced a system interruption and we had to check how many clients were influenced. Considering there are millions active users (thanks God only a small percent of them trying to access to the system at the time of the interruption - but even so it was a big number), it was quite tiring and boring task. So adversity triggered the intelligence (!) - and the idea came to our mind, decided to give a try - organized a pilot and amazed with the results.

Most of the time, micro loans would be good and simple products to sell in such occasions.

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Comments: (4)

Ketharaman Swaminathan
Ketharaman Swaminathan - GTM360 Marketing Solutions - Pune 09 May, 2015, 13:151 like 1 like

Brilliant idea. This is the Holy Grail of targeted offers - right proposition to the right person at the right time on the right medium. But to make it happen by design and more ubiquitously would require IT and Marketing to work together at the product specification stage. That's another - and, arguably, more difficult - Holy Grail to crack:)

Ketharaman Swaminathan
Ketharaman Swaminathan - GTM360 Marketing Solutions - Pune 09 May, 2015, 13:17Be the first to give this comment the thumbs up 0 likes

On a another note, is the "101" in the title of your post metaphorical or do you literally plan to come out with 100 more such tips?

A Finextra member
A Finextra member 09 May, 2015, 19:24Be the first to give this comment the thumbs up 0 likes

Many thanks for the feedback Kethamaran, good to know that you find it useful! You are quite right, in digital age IT & Business should work together and the teams use Agile development methods to become flexible for customer and market demands.

About 101 thing, I am not sure how long it would take and how difficult it would be but the target is 101 - only 99 left so far! :)

Ketharaman Swaminathan
Ketharaman Swaminathan - GTM360 Marketing Solutions - Pune 12 May, 2015, 14:241 like 1 like

@TolgaT:

I'm frankly sick and tired of reading irrelevant and misguided advice for banks from the digerati and finsurgents. Your practical tips are absolutely the way to go. Best wishes for continuing your journey and reaching your destination. That said, even if you just reach the halfway mark and banks implement just half of your guidance until then, they'd have a good shot at improving their financial performance and I, of enjoying a better CX in my banking life.

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