Customer onboarding in retail financial services
Getting the first 90 days right
Tick, tick, tick… An invisible clock starts ticking the moment a customer takes a new product with a retail bank, insurer or credit card company.
The clock may be imaginary but it’s relevance is all too real. Research has shown over and over again, that by the time the clock has ticked for 90 days – the Customer Onboarding Period – the customer’s lifetime value and profitability will have been practically set in stone.
The first 90 days after any new account opening are an especially sensitive period characterized by several important customer experience factors:
- Customers expect high levels of interaction
- They expect to be asked for personal information
- They are in ‘switch mode’ and open to new offers
- They are much more likely to defect before ‘bedding in’
Clearly, the customer onboarding period represents both a unique opportunity to expand wallet share as well as a powerful threat to loyalty and lifetime value, even the account as a whole.
The critical nature of this first 90 days has been known to financial services companies for years but there have been significant obstacles preventing them from doing anything about it.
Today, the world’s most progressive banks are discovering new ways to manage and measure the onboarding process to optimize lifetime values, accelerate cross selling, inspire customer loyalty and maximize profits.
This paper reviews the current state of customer onboarding, the obstacles to improvement and the essentials of a better way. It also introduces a technology framework for strategically managing the entire customer onboarding process for every customer as they interact through all business channels.
Customer onboarding means faster profits and higher lifetime customer value
