How banks are using BI platforms to create better customer experiences

In banking, timely and accurate decision-making means lower risk, streamlined operations, increased profit, and better customer experiences. 

So, how can bank directors and executives make more insightful decisions in real-time? It comes down to business intelligence (BI). Banks that invest in the right BI technology will gain the insights they need to adapt to the marketplace, meet changing customer demands, and grow their business.

What is business intelligence?

Business intelligence refers to technologies and tools that are used to gain deeper insights about an organization to help it make better strategic decisions. BI goes beyond just analytics and numbers. It shares insights that can be understood (and quickly acted upon) by decision-makers - without needing a degree in maths or statistics.

But let’s talk more specifically about BI in banks.

How Business Intelligence is used in banks

Because of the sheer volume of transactional and customer data available in banking, it isn’t practical for banks to manually sift through and analyze this information. In recent years, technology has made it possible for banks to gain BI insights from their data and automate many Business Intelligence processes. BI solutions now offer banks better ways to manage their assets, marketing campaigns, and risks.  

But Business Intelligence isn’t only about statistics and reports. The most advanced BI systems for banks include live dashboards, allowing managers to monitor performance in real-time in order to act immediately. Here are some of the main benefits of using live Business Intelligence dashboards:

• Real-time monitoring of your branches - Keep your finger on the pulse with live data on all your bank branches. Check average queue wait times and other insights that track performance and impact the customer experience.
• Performance monitoring: See real-time rankings and performance comparisons between your employees and branches.  
• Counters usage - Access data on how your counters and tellers are being utilized in real-time.
• Appointments tracking - See a live snapshot of appointments booked, most recently checked-in appointments, and more. 
• Current queue status - View data about queues in your branches all in one place. Filter by region, city, branch, and even transaction type (e.g. personal banking, business banking, loans, and foreign currency exchange). See how many customers are currently in the queue, average wait times, and more. 

The live dashboards, together with advanced reports, statistics, and analytics provide a powerful tool for your banking executives to transform the customer experience. 

What are the benefits of Business Intelligence for your bank?

Business Intelligence brings tremendous benefits to banks and financial institutions, including: 

• Proven, measurable ROI - The average 5-year ROI on Business Intelligence is 112%.
• Improved competitiveness - Banks who don’t invest in BI solutions risk getting left behind.
• Attract new customers - Data-driven companies are 23 times more likely to acquire new customers (in the competitive banking industry, this is critical).
• Manage risk - While some BI tools are used by banks keep track of the financial market, others analyze the risks involved in lending to individuals. This means that decision makers can use these insights to manage and reduce risk.
• Understand the numbers - Turn your data into visuals that are easy to understand and then convert into strategic plans and actions that help you meet your objectives.
• Accurately forecast - The system’s artificial intelligence (AI) can help you find patterns in customers’ behavior and service requests, forecast customer acquisition growth rates, predict branch traffic, see the correlation between customer satisfaction and service level, and more. When you know what’s coming, you can plan ahead to maximize any opportunities and deliver exceptional customer experiences.
• Be more agile - When you have live, real-time dashboard monitoring integrated with your bank’s queue management system, you can make quick decisions about resources. And as a result, you can shorten wait times, adjust staffing in real-time, improve service efficiency, increase customer satisfaction, boost average spends, and increase repeat sales.
• Personalize your customer experiences - With the data and intelligence at their fingertips, your service agents can personally welcome each customer, better understand their needs and concerns, and cross-sell appropriate products based on their profile and history.
• Transform your branch - Use your BI insights to support your transformation from a physical branch to a digital branch, offering a range of omnichannel experiences to suit each individual customer.
• Leverage AI to solve problems - The built-in AI within the BI system suggests practical solutions to any issues as they arise. That means you can often pick up on (and solve) problems from your head office before customers in your branches even notice.
• Efficiently distribute resources - Map your performance and transaction demand based on location, time, segment, and more. With insights on services, workloads, availability, and usage, you can deploy resources where they’re needed and efficiently deliver better customer experiences, while maximizing profit.
• Measure customer satisfaction - Integrate customer feedback and see how the customer experience impacts your goals and where you need to focus your improvements.
• Make more sales - With a deeper understanding of your customers, you’ll be able to deliver the kinds of customer experiences they want and recommend the products they need. As a result, you’ll increase the chance of making the sale - whether it’s the first sale, or they’ve been a customer for decades.

But of course, not all BI platforms are created equal. The specific benefits for your bank will depend on what features come with your BI tools and how you apply them. 

SEDCO’s advanced Business Intelligence system empowers your banking executives to make better decisions. 

With easy to understand insights, you can analyze regions, locations, branches, services, transaction types, and even individual tellers to so you know what areas to focus on. You can measure performance, find areas of weakness, and decide where to invest resources for maximum effectiveness. Plus, you can spot trends to improve the customer experience, increase cross-selling, and drive more business.

What does the future of BI in banking look like?

In 2020 and beyond, you can expect to see more artificial intelligence (AI) being used in banking. With machine learning integrated into your system, you’ll get more powerful insights that are easier to understand and put into action. 

Expect to see more of your data integrated into a single platform so you can get more powerful, rich insights in real-time for faster, more strategic decision-making. As more physical branches transform into smart digital branches, BI solutions will integrate with and show insights from your queue management solution, customer feedback systems, self-service machines, and other parts of your customer experience and banking ecosystem.

Don’t want to wait? The future of BI in banking is here now when you partner with a company that offers the latest digital branch transformation solutions.

Get the best BI solutions for your bank with SEDCO

With SEDCO, you get the insights, services, and tools you need for your bank to thrive and grow in 2020 and beyond. 

With over 35 years’ experience, 80 trusted partners, and 60,000+ installations worldwide, we’re leaders in designing, developing, and implementing customer experience solutions for banks. We optimize customer journeys through Business Intelligence, which is integrated in the queue management system, digital branch transformations, self-service kiosks, omni-channel customer feedback, digital signage, and more.

If you’d like to chat about how we can help your bank deliver better customer experiences, contact our team to set up a chat.