1、NEXTNOWOUTMANEUVER UNCERTAINTY THE EMPOWERED COMMERCIAL BANKING RELATIONSHIP MANAGER COVID-19: Commercial banks can quickly transform the role of relationship managers (RMs), digitally enabling them with rich insights and innovative engagement tools to understand, relate to and support clients in mo

2、re personal waysat a time when their customers need it most. We call this the empowered RM. COVID-19: THE EMPOWERED COMMERCIAL BANKING RELATIONSHIP MANAGER2 HYPER-PERSONALIZED COMMERCIAL BANKING IS NOW MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER Navigating the economic impact of COVID-19 is a continuing struggle for b

3、usinesses, particularly small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that are under considerable distress right now. Commercial banks and their relationship managers are needed and relied on, now more than ever before. In the US, for example, nearly 75 percent of small businesses surveyed in June have less t

4、han three months cash on hand.1 A study by MetLife and the US Chamber of Commerce suggests that more than 40 percent of small businesses in the US could close permanently over the next six months due to the coronavirus pandemic.2 Though 51 percent of businesses in Canada are fully open, 46 percent o

5、f them are making half or less than half of their normal, pre-COVID-19 sales.3 Similarly, two-thirds of businesses in Australia saw revenue declines compared to last year; nearly one-third of those businesses say that their revenue fell by 50 percent or more.4 In the UK, 42 percent of businesses pol

6、led in May had less than six months of cash reserves.5 In some cases, long-standing commercial banking customers could face insolvency. The Economist expects a tidal wave of bankruptcies to occur by the end of 2020.6 SMEs and other businesses navigating such challenges are looking to commercial bank

7、ing RMs to step up their level of support. Consider that pre-COVID, most SME customers would not give up their RM for a digital-only offering, even if offered at a cheaper price.7 More than 60 percent of SMEs consider the RMs understanding of their business, advice, responsiveness and the personal r

8、elationship to be valuable.8 COVID-19: THE EMPOWERED COMMERCIAL BANKING RELATIONSHIP MANAGER3 “In their struggle to stay afloat and emerge stronger after COVID-19, small and mid-size companies want, and desperately need, attention from their banks relationship managers right nowalong with competent

9、advice, hyper-relevant ideas, actions and solutions.” Jared Rorrer, Managing Director Global Commercial Banking Lead Relationship managersnow doing from home what was an intensely in-person jobneed to be more strategic in the way that they relate to and support their customers in hyper-personalized

10、ways. It is a pivotal moment where banks can rise to the occasion and show their understanding, empathy and lending expertise; an opportunity to find ways to help SME customers stay in business and grow. Every customer that gets such assistance will likely be a customer for life; those that dont, mi

11、ght leave and never come back. RMs are key to making the customer-for-life approach an important cornerstone of commercial banking. Transforming the RM role towards this aim, however, calls for new digital servicing and relationship management approaches that make it easier to engage with customers

12、in smarter, more meaningful wayswhenever, however and wherever. The empowered RM can reshape the role into a strategic and insightful advisor, whether in person, over a phone chat or via the small screen of a virtual video conference call. The instinctive response of businesses to COVID-19from nearl

13、y 100 percent remote work to instant digital adoptionhas in our estimation already accelerated the digital transformation and servicing of banks by about five years. This is a prime opportunity for commercial banks to enable their RMs with new digital-driven insights and tools that, used correctly,

14、can have an immediate impact while also catapulting RMs into the future. Based on our experience, we believe that banks can take three key actions to revolutionize the antiquated RM role and enable the banking relationships that business customers want and need. These actions are to: create adaptive

15、 capacity, equip with insights and transform the service model. This paper discusses these actions and how banks can rapidly shift their legacy RM tools and relationship management methods towards a digital-first mentality and, in the process, add value, differentiation and growth. COVID-19: THE EMP

16、OWERED COMMERCIAL BANKING RELATIONSHIP MANAGER4 We expect leading commercial banks to take three key actions to shift the role of their RMs to that of strategic advisors (Figure 1): 1. Create adaptive capacity: streamline, digitize and automate core workflows and supporting processes to scale and re

17、deploy capacity to higher-value customer engagements. 2. Equip with insights: give front-line resources the data-driven insights to more effectively prioritize leads, identify cross- and up-sell opportunities and personalize their interactions with customers. 3. Transform the service model: use soph

18、isticated customer segmentation techniques to reshape the coverage model, account loading and interaction strategy, resulting in solutions that meet customer needs more effectively. Investments in these key actions will help maximize customer lifetime value and lay the foundation for future growth.

19、THREE ACTIONS TO DEVELOP THE EMPOWERED RM COVID-19: THE EMPOWERED COMMERCIAL BANKING RELATIONSHIP MANAGER5 EQUIP WITH INSIGHTS TRANSFORM SERVICE MODEL PEOPLE TOOLS PROCESS CREATE ADAPTIVE CAPACITY Figure 1. Three key actions to develop the empowered relationship manager Source: Accenture 1. Create a

20、daptive capacity RMs typically spend a lot of time on administrative activities, such as job training, preparing for calls, servicing and onboarding. Our pre-COVID-19 research showed that 60 percent of banking sales leaders believe their salespeople spend insufficient time with customers, while 73 p

21、ercent think the process used by their salespeople to uncover customers needs is ineffective.9 And according to a CSO Insights study,10 given their ad-hoc lead-generation processes, nearly three-fourths of banking sales leaders believe their salespeople fail to adhere to a formal sales process. This

22、 highlights the need for banks to explore new processes, capabilities and technologies to develop a relationship management workforce that is flexible and efficient. This would allow RMs to spend more of their time giving customers the ideas and support they need to better manage and grow their busi

23、nesses. We see this happening already in the COVID-19 context, given that RMs will likely no longer be on the road for the foreseeable future. Our estimate is that RM productivity is up 25 percent. Banks can take advantage of this excess capacity to work on redefining the future of their RMsfocusing

24、 them on todays context and the needs of SME customers, tackling major inefficiencies, unlocking necessary capacity and increasing agility. COVID-19: THE EMPOWERED COMMERCIAL BANKING RELATIONSHIP MANAGER6 Banks can work now to: Streamline necessary but inefficient processes, reducing friction where

25、possible. This may involve simplifying the data elements and documentation required to complete customer onboarding, assess communication methods used for common customer interactions, launch training to shift behavior and revamp the way banks triage inbound requests to match the request to the righ

26、t service level and channel. Many banks already have the tools to do so. The nCino Commercial Loan Origination System, for example, provides an automated and streamlined loan origination process powerful enough to free up the time that workforces spend on manual work. Based on our experience, more t

27、han two-thirds of the top 25 banks in North America are already moving to nCino. Automate repeatable tasks. For example, a bank may implement a secure self- service platform and/or enhance its existing banking customer portals with shared editing capabilities that allow the customer and banker to in

28、put and request information seamlessly. This may also include upgrading customer support channels with an AI-enabled interactive voice response system that addresses simple, high-frequency requests. Assist RMs in managing their time and enable them to play a more strategic role by augmenting their w

29、ork with appropriate tools, support structures and predictive capabilities. Cross-sell propensity models, for example, can help identify next best actions. Predictive retention capabilities can anticipate and mitigate attrition. Certain AI solutions can gather and validate information across interna

30、l and external systems to help RMs prepare for customer calls. At the start of the day, for example, RMs might review their AI-enabled dashboards to better allocate their scarce time and make smarter decisions on what actions to takea capability we discuss further below in the second action, Equip w

31、ith Insights. Streamlined and automated workflows, coupled with innovative communications and analytics tools, free up RMs to “be there” for their customers. They can become more customer-oriented, productive and flexible in delivering a high-value customer experience, giving customers the tailored

32、advice they need while differentiating the banks value proposition. Of course, delivering such a distinguishable customer experience is easier said than done. It has been elusive for many banks. The crux of the challenge is two-fold: creating the capacity as weve discussed here and then equipping th

33、e freed-up RMs with the new skillsets, insights and tools to use the new capacity in high-value ways. COVID-19: THE EMPOWERED COMMERCIAL BANKING RELATIONSHIP MANAGER7 Create Adaptive Capacity Innovation Spotlight: A European multinational bank uses a virtual assistant app to empower its RMs This ban

34、k partnered with a UK-based startup that specializes in natural-language processing to create a voice-first virtual assistant to support its RMs. The AI tool enables relationship directors and managers to narrate business customer contact reports, rather than record them manually. With it, bankers c

35、an optimize the time they spend preparing for and reporting on customer meetings. The voice-to-text AI tool is trained to understand banking terminology and the banks own acronyms, promoting a more natural dialogue and quick narration. It is fully integrated with productivity tools, such as Microsof

36、t Teams and Planner. A pilot study, in which some 200 of the banks relationship directors and managers tested the virtual assistant app, resulted in an 83 percent reduction in time spent generating reports. This added up to a potential saving of one month a year spent by each RM on mundane tasks. 2.

37、 Equip with insights The typical RM works with limited customer insight, relying mostly on their intuition and experience. Sixty-three percent of banking sales leaders said, in a Gartner Research study,11 that their CRM tools fail to help them understand their customers. Todays RMs need to have the

38、right insights at the right time to address the highest-priority items in ways that deliver the most value to their customers. Yet, how do banks effectively tap into the massive amounts of data they have available, and then present meaningful insights to RMs that help them satisfy customer needs, gr

39、ow share of wallet and expand their book? We believe the first step is to create and fuel an intelligent engine, building an actionable view of the customer by enhancing internal datasets with the right external data sources, adapted for each markets nuances. For example, a bank might seamlessly int

40、egrate its own customer transaction data with Greenwichs wallet share sizing, customer satisfaction insights and product recommendations. Together they can provide powerful insights into customer needs. Another useful third-party provider is Bitvore, whose capability eliminates time-consuming manual

41、 Googling, web scraping and sifting through noisy feeds from other digital news providers. The second step is to convert data into action through the use of advanced analytics, propensity models and similar approaches. This allows banks to identify and score relevant digital signals across interacti

42、on points and stages of a customers life cycle to generate propositions for the next best offer (Figure 2). Its how banks can give RMs the license to be creative while still being prudent about future credit risk. COVID-19: THE EMPOWERED COMMERCIAL BANKING RELATIONSHIP MANAGER8 Figure 2. Converting

43、data into action for RMs Source: Accenture Enriched View of Customer Data foundation creates signals universe Personalized, real-time recommendations AI/ML models drive decisioning ClusteringForecasting RM Predictive models Optimization DATAACTION AI/ML-Driven Insights INSIGHT Customer product needs

44、 in COVID-19 situation Personalized real-time customer experience Prioritized list of customers impacted New prospect targeting 1st Party Data Transactions Account profiles Transaction support 3rd Party Data Demographics Firmographics Web browsing Untapped Data E-commerce stack Social Device-level c

45、ookies COVID-19: THE EMPOWERED COMMERCIAL BANKING RELATIONSHIP MANAGER9 Equip with Insight Innovation Spotlight: An Asian bank empowers its RMs by putting intelligent cross-sell capabilities at their fingertips A leading commercial bank in Asia aimed to expand its lending business within the SME seg

46、ment, increasing cross-sales as part of its three-year growth strategy. To identify opportunities, the bank developed machine learning models to capture signals (such as search criteria and business performance indicators) coming from both internal and external data sources. It set up the Accenture

47、Applied Intelligence Platform infrastructure which seamlessly integrates multiple tools and functions to process and analyze more than two terabytes of external data at scale. A pilot was designed to test the models effectiveness in predicting cross- and up-sell opportunities, as well as conversions

48、. The solution generated more than four million leads, for existing customers as well as new prospects. The bank achieved a 40 percent increase in identified cross-sell opportunities and a 46 percent increase in loan applications. The third step is to hyper-personalize the customer experience. Banks

49、 can use digital signals emitted by various interaction points to paint a holistic picture of a customers banking needs. This can help them craft focused, highly-tailored and relevant solutions. Empowering the RM, then, requires the seamless integration of rich insights into their day-to-day ways of working. By embedding extensive data into their CRM tools, banks can generate predictive and prescriptive insights that are powerful enough to convince RMs to draw on them throughout their day to better