Financial Services: Achieving Continued Growth without Compromise

The financial industry may have reached record profits last year but despite that good news, institutions are still facing some major challenges that could impede their continued growth. Chief among them is the lack of revenue loans now bring in, caused by almost a decade of near-zero interest rates. This issue has particularly impacted community and midsize financial institutions, who also have been struggling, more so than their larger counterparts, to recover from the heavy legal costs they incurred from Dodd-Frank. To address these growth obstacles, banks and credit unions need to find new revenue sources, while also being mindful of consumers’ value perception of those new sources and its potential impact on their brand trust and loyalty.

While public trust in banks and credit unions has risen in recent years from a five-year low, 15 to 40 percent of consumers still say they do not have much or any trust in financial institutions. Recent headlines about banks overcharging for various fees and services have threatened to undermine consumer trust levels further and make potential customers more sensitive to the charges their institutions levy on them. In fact, at least 79 percent of consumers revealed that the amount and number of fees banks and credit unions charge have a major impact on their trust in an organization. This further complicates institutions’ ability to find revenue drivers that will continue to fuel their growth. So, how can financial services organizations continue to grow without making their customers feel like they are compromising by paying unnecessary fees for little value – and risking them jumping ship to a competitor as nearly 20 percent of consumers reported they are likely to do?

Growth without Compromise

The good news is that not only are financial institutions looking for new products and services that can drive revenue and retention, but consumers also are looking to those institutions to offer them. More than 40 percent of consumers said they believe banks and credit unions should offer more products and services in the next five years than they currently do. The key though in making sure an added service drives revenue more than it undermines retention is to make sure it is: high quality, actually meets customers’ needs, its value is consistently communicated, and – ideally – customers are already looking to your organization to purchase it.

Consumers are not looking to organizations like yours to offer just any product and service – they are looking to them to offer high quality ones. At least 80 percent of consumers said that offering such services would positively impact their trust in a financial organization. One litmus test institutions should use to determine if their customers would consider a product or service they are evaluating to be “high quality” is to determine if its features align with what customers ranked as important to them. Two top ranking factors that affect consumers’ trust in a financial organization are their communications with them and the quality of their customer service. So, organizations should carefully evaluate not only if any product or service they are considering offering address these needs, but how good the selected provider is at offering them. A lot of providers can tell you their service checks the boxes of features you ask about, but not many can tell you they have won awards for those features. But at Generali Global Assistance (GGA), we are proud to say we can.

Identity Protection without Compromise Means Your Institution and Customers Can Have it All

GGA Identity & Digital Protection is a product and service that financial companies like yours have trusted to meet these customer needs – and more – for 15 years. Our easy-to-use, parent approved online dashboard sends customers monthly risk status emails developed by our award-winning Marketing Team which proactively help customers manage their financial wellness and serve as a positive, recurring communication from your institution. In addition, we send customers email and dashboard alerts when suspicious activity is detected and recommended next steps to resolve it, including calling our award-winning Resolution Team to resolve the issues for them. Best of all, we can offer our portal and service to your customers under your brand, a co-brand, or our brand and are one of the most competitively priced solutions on the market – so you offer the products to your members, at the price point and under the branding that you think will best help you build customer trust and loyalty to your institution.

You can be sure identity protection is a service your customers will see the value in – and won’t feel nickel-and-dimed by being charged for – because it’s a service they are already looking to your institution to purchase. Over 50% of consumers are looking to purchase identity protection in the next two years, and the majority of them say they will look to their trusted financial institutions to buy it. If your organization is not offering the products and services your customers are looking for, your company is missing a key growth opportunity, which is sure to have negative consequences. Consumers ranked financial institutions offering them products and services that are customized to their needs as the most important product feature, ahead of even innovation and lower cost. There has never been a better time to request a demo today to learn about how offering our identity protection without compromise can help your financial institution achieve its revenue and retention growth goals.