Three Key Ways to Build Greater Loyalty Among Business Banking Clients

Customer experience has become a key competitive differentiator in virtually every industry – and commercial and business banking is no exception. Customer satisfaction among small business banking customers is on the rise, according to a study by JD Power and Associates.  Other recent research show similar trends among larger business banking clients.  

How can financial institutions keep the momentum going, in a landscape that is increasingly competitive and rapidly changing?

Business banking clients value the same basic customer service principles as their retail counterparts – quality, convenience, flexibility, ease of use, etc.  And, like retail customers, business banking clients are increasingly tapping into mobile and digital services so they can better leverage their data to improve their overall financial health.  

But simple data access through an online banking portal is no longer enough to meet the needs of today’s business customer. Here are three ways commercial banks can take advantage of open banking to ensure a stellar experience and drive higher levels of satisfaction and retention:

1) Business Clients are Becoming More Data-Centric – and That Includes Banking Data

We live in a data-driven world, and businesses of all sizes are investing in ways to make information more accessible, with the goal of exploiting its value for smarter decision making.  While internal operational data is usually the focal point of these initiatives, it’s important to remember that external banking data plays a big role as well.  

Tremendous insights can be derived from current and complete account and transaction information – even more so when it’s combined with operational data.  It’s vital for banks to give businesses secure, efficient ways to bring that data directly into the accounting, ERP, and treasury management solutions they use each day to streamline and automate their critical processes and workflows.  This will help them take a more data-driven approach to everything from basic accounting tasks to more strategic financial functions like cash and liquidity management.  

2) Customer Insight is Key

When it comes to open banking and sharing of consumer-permissioned financial data, it’s important to understand what information your customers are accessing as well as which solutions they’re accessing it through (we’ll delve much deeper into this in a future post).  This will ensure you are focusing your attention on the right services and integrations, and that positive experiences are being achieved through the solutions your customers use most frequently. 

3) Embrace A Rapidly-Growing Ecosystem

The financial data ecosystem is changing quickly.  As we mentioned in our last post, we anticipate that business banking customers will continue to invest heavily in ERP and business accounting solutions. But we also see new applications emerging – particularly those designed to support the unique operations and processes of specific vertical industries.  As they adopt these solutions, business customers will require secure access to real-time financial data from directly within them – which means, banks need to be prepared to enable the necessary secure integration.  Customer satisfaction will depend on the bank’s ability to enable data sharing with these applications as rapidly as possible.  

With more and more business banking customers embracing mobile and digital technologies, commercial banks need to tap into open banking to keep satisfaction levels on an upward trajectory. Secure, efficient, reliable sharing of real-time financial data can help banks provide a rich, valuable digital experience to their business banking customers – one that enhances experiences and increase loyalty.