Much of the investment research highlighted the need for omnichannel interaction, and the incumbent’s Presence Advantage is a significant asset that should be leveraged to address CX disruption. We outlined several potential actions based on the investment management, but incumbents should do their research to see how it applies to their customer base.
Simply put, we believe the mindset should be “Channels don’t choose customers, customers choose channels.”
Hortz: That is good advice on mindset but what specific actions do you recommend for investment management firms in response to these findings?
Sheldon: We suggested several actions for consideration in the report as examples of the types of actions that incumbents should consider in responding to disruption in their markets.
You will see that many of them focus on improving channel choice and customer experience for their customers, such as: enhance digital presence and digital options; invest in text/chat and match human presence alongside technology enhancements.
While our initial research suggests that these are the types of tactics incumbent investment management firms should consider to mitigate disruption from FinTech entrants, firms will need to do the research with their customer and prospects.
The Perceptivity Advantage refers to the advantage incumbents have over what entrants have in understanding their buyer audiences. Often, however, there are organizational barriers that prevent incumbent firms from tapping into this rich source of data and taking full advantage of it. The main ways to leverage Perceptivity are to actively manage perceptions, fully leverage and activate insights, and to focus on the whole customer experience.
Practical ways to do this are:
• Feedback—Ensure customer feedback is collected, leveraged, and demonstrate action based on this input―across the buyer journey.
• Personalization—Connect better with customers and prospect by providing them an experience tailored to their individual preferences.
• Segmentation—Incumbent firms should have established segmentation models of customers and prospects―care must be taken to ensure their ongoing relevance and actionability.
Hortz: Any other thoughts you would like to share about how research can help hone strategy?
Sheldon: Per my earlier comments above, we believe that coming out of the current pandemic, with fundamental shifts occurring in customer buying behavior, incumbent firms must invest in the research with their customers and prospects to:
• identify comprehensive and agile insights to align around the most important buyer changes.
• redefine post COVID-19 preference-based journey maps by key persona with prescriptive activation.
• develop buyer engagement scorecards that allow them to track the right mix of big and small data metrics to align (and re-align) to customer preferences over time.
Now is a time for radical customer-centricity and commercial agility as incumbents need to leverage their go-to-market advantage factors coming out of the current pandemic.
The Institute for Innovation Development is an educational and business development catalyst for growth-oriented financial advisors and financial services firms determined to lead their businesses in an operating environment of accelerating business and cultural change. We position our members with the necessary ongoing innovation resources and best practices to drive and facilitate their next-generation growth, differentiation, and unique client/community engagement strategies. The institute was launched with the support and foresight of our founding sponsors—Pershing, NASDAQ, Ultimus Fund Solutions, Fidelity, Voya Financial, and Charter Financial Publishing (publisher of Financial Advisor magazine).