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Improved Customer Service Increases Corporate Banking

By Carolyn J Dawson
TMCnet Contributor

According to a joint survey conducted by Finextra Research and Pegasystems polling banks and corporations, the results highlight the growing importance of customer service in corporate banking. The survey report shows that around 57 percent of corporations are ready to pay a higher price for a sophisticated self-service Web portal that allows efficient management of their entire portfolio online. At the annual SIBOS Conference, the survey results comprising responses from 98 respondents from banks and corporations in Europe, Asia and the U.S. will be presented.

Around 46 percent of the corporations are in need of consistent services serving different regions, channels and lines of business. Almost 53 percent would increase business with banks if they are ensured quicker turnaround time for request and inquiries. Initially, two key competitive advantages for banking firms were fees and interest rates. However, the recent survey reports otherwise, with ease of access to service and information channels becoming the critical elements for increased banking businesses.

The survey also found that almost 64 percent of financial services institutions plans to improve and automate on-boarding and service processes with significant investment. Although many firms are keen to make the transition towards automated customer service operations, few are still skeptical because of outdated information systems that are not flexible enough to accommodate new service requirements. As per the survey, 68 percent would choose banks based on improved customer service such as on-boarding, account maintenance and query handling. Around 84 percent of banks are planning to invest in improving and automating on-boarding and service processes in the year 2011, which is a significant 20 percent increase from last year results. Lastly, financial stability was found to the second most important selling point by which corporations judged a new bank.

As the leader in Business Process Management software solutions and a leading provider of customer relationship management solutions, Pegasystems (News - Alert) provides a wide range of financial-services specific solutions by leveraging dynamic, intelligent decision management to improve business outcomes. Banking firms can efficiently use these solutions to reduce costs and improve customer service across all channels. The innovative solution are not only extensible and configurable but also includes built-in support for multi-channel servicing, thus enabling business users to accommodate changing business and market needs.