An expert’s take on the state of personalization in banking

Consumers everywhere are getting used to amazing personal experiences, which means it’s more crucial than ever for financial services firms to not just follow suit. They need to lead the way. And although firms have been reaping the benefits of their personalization efforts, there is still plenty of work and opportunity ahead. Organizations across industries that are delivering on the promise of personalization — we call them Experience Makers — are blazing trails by adopting a mindset of one-to-one consumer engagements. That is, using real-time data to create connected, contextually relevant experiences for every consumer, no matter what channel or interaction.

To get an idea of what this means for the financial services industry, we met with Jess Murray, managing director at Accenture. She brought a wealth of knowledge and industry experience to the conversation, and she offered compelling insights and responses to Personalization at Scale: Financial Services Spotlight, a Forrester Consulting paper commissioned by Adobe. Read on to dive into what Murray had to say.

Let’s kick this off by having you give a bit of background about yourself. What do you do at Accenture, and why do you love it?

The reason I joined Accenture is the same reason I have stayed — because of the people. I enjoyed the connections I made at the firm while interviewing during my MBA. To this day, I love these relationships, from my team to our amazing clients and partners. I’ve always worked in digital innovations, and when it comes to digital experience, I’m particularly interested in how disruptive product innovations can make financial advice and investing more accessible. This passion led me to specialize in financial services when I joined Accenture in 2009. Since then, I’ve focused on experience transformations in the banking industry. I now lead banking and capital markets for Accenture Song.

To get going, let’s discuss the state of the industry itself. The Forrester study calls out that financial firms are exceeding targets for personalization programs in revenue, consumer experience, and consumer acquisition. But both B2C and B2B consumers say financial firms aren’t meeting their expectations. What do you believe could be causing this disconnect?

Before the pandemic, personalization at scale was a massive priority for banks. However, the pandemic was a beneficial tipping point for the industry. It accelerated digital transformation while pushing consumers to reevaluate their values. As a result, today’s consumers expect much more from their banks. It’s about being able to meet a consumer where they want to be met — and meeting them with genuine advice.

But the pace of change within financial services organizations hasn’t kept up with consumer expectations. The targets banks set for personalization before the pandemic are now not even a table stake or a nice to have. Now, it has to be personalization at scale, and banks must accelerate the way they use ecosystem partnerships to get these capabilities out faster.

That leads to the next question. From the report, it looked like 38% of firms were prioritizing personalization and connecting the digital and physical experience. Why do you think that number is so low? Why are so few banks prioritizing it when it sounds like such a must have?

For the banking industry, disruption has become business as usual, and banks must balance many priorities.

For personalization and connecting experiences across digital and physical, the reality is that it’s increasingly difficult for banks to optimize ways to grow. Bank marketers have to do much more and meet new levels of consumer expectations with a lot less. They have to get much more creative. In the early days of the pandemic, banks had to digitize quickly, boosting the number of consumer touchpoints and changing expectations around seamless experiences. At the same time, banks were cutting into marketers’ budgets.

And now we’re seeing embedded finance, digital currency, and the Metaverse. The exponential growth in channels, platforms, and tools is putting significant pressure on bank marketers trying to orchestrate seamless experiences across an increasingly fragmented ecosystem. On top of that, they’re facing the first rising rate environment in about 17 years — in other words, before the iPhone came out.

Ultimately, there’s growing pressure to personalize faster and orchestrate content across more channels, but resources keep getting cut.

And while in-person experiences are making a comeback, connecting experiences across digital and physical has become much more complex. We’re seeing that these in-person experiences are becoming more valued by younger demographics. I think there’s a huge opportunity to connect the digital insights you get through analytics with in-person experiences.

Let’s shift away from challenges and talk about opportunities. What do you think are some of the biggest opportunities ahead for banks?

Banks now have an opportunity in the current economic climate to consider the consumer as a whole and drive growth by rewarding consumers for their relationship across the bank. In the past, the zero-rate environment kept them focused on products. This resulted in a lot of offer disparities.

Today, if banks can break down these internal product silos and focus on the consumer’s need across the bank, they can build a single view of the consumer and offer a suite of services that match that person’s life and their unique needs. They can deliver offers that actually make sense to people.

I’ll use myself as an example. My bank recently offered me a credit card that had a high fee. But if they knew me and my needs and what was good for me, they wouldn’t be offering me a credit card. They would know I’m searching for a house and might send me advice on how to get the best rates based on my financial behavior.

It comes down to getting that connected view of the consumer across the bank. Once you have that, you can pull in their life events, offer guidance and advice in response, and build a deeper relationship over their lifetime. In short, you motivate them to build loyalty with the bank.

Let’s talk strategy now. The report mentioned these personalization centers of excellence — 59% of firms said they were one of the most important steps toward getting started with a personalization program. But only 39% were getting buy-in to do it. What strategies can these firms use to start building that buy-in?

In the world we’re living in right now, experience is everything. Marketing plays a critical role in a bank’s future, acting as the voice of the consumer and driving engagement across the bank.

That said, buy-in for the role of personalization can be hard to grasp as stakeholders want to understand value and growth. Personalization centers of excellence should articulate the value they’re driving and use language that finance will understand. They need to break down the fact that they’re boosting consumer acquisition as well as deepening existing consumer relationships.

Ultimately, stakeholders want to understand growth and bottom-line numbers. My recommendation to these personalization centers of excellence is to articulate the value they’re driving and use language that you know finance will understand. Pivot from words like “journey” to words like “lifetime value of the consumer.” That would help quite a bit with the buy-in.

Sticking with the idea of strategy, what insights do you have regarding where firms should focus first so that they can make the biggest impact for their business when it comes to content?

For banks to stay relevant in the evolving needs of consumers while accelerating real growth through change, they must reinvent the role of the marketer itself — from planning experiences to operating them, from managing capabilities to building them, and from collaborating with partners to orchestrating them.

While many banks have made significant investments to take advantage of the acceleration in capabilities in marketing, technology, and analytics, addressing the challenge of doing more with less requires an efficient operating model.

Bank marketers need to release organizational energy through scaled operations that can improve marketing performance and speed to market. Marketers must look to create an extended ecosystem that addresses talent and capability gaps while improving the bank’s ability to flex capacity in a changing market. They should also invest in innovation for growth, including build, buy, borrow strategies to adapt and address portfolio gaps.

Let’s shift one more time and talk about benefits. In your opinion, what are some of the main benefits banks can see when they prioritize the consumer experience?

Consumer experience is a huge growth engine. Whether it be through attracting new consumers, retaining the ones you have, or growing share of wallet or share of mind, the benefit is growth.

The challenge with being really focused on the experience is that banks have a bit of a trust paradox. They have consumers that trust banks with their money, but those consumers don’t always trust the advice they get from banks.

To share another personal example, during the pandemic I left a bank and moved all my products to another bank because I had a bad experience. Again, experience is everything. Banks need to provide proactive advice to support their consumers’ big moments in life, and they need to show up authentically to understand their consumers.

As we wrap up, what thoughts do you have on the future of the industry?

On top of the rising rate environment, we’ve seen so many new competitive threats. There are so many “non-bank” options that offer banking products and services, and they can use consumer data to differentiate experiences from incumbent banks or offer seamless innovations like buy now, pay later. This means that banks are no longer just competing with other banks for consumer experience.

Bank marketers must also keep up with the next generation of banking consumers that are rewriting the playbook on brand engagement. This younger generation is going to social media platforms for financial advice — and it’s advice that feels more authentic. As they become more aware of their options, marketers are going to have to adjust from marketing to them to marketing with them.

When it comes to personalized experiences at scale, there’s so much opportunity across all these pressures. There has never been a more exciting time to work in the banking industry.

Get the tools you need to face the future of finance

We’re so grateful for Jess Murray’s invaluable insights into the finance sector. As she points out, the future of the finance industry is always evolving. But one thing remains true — the consumer experience is everything. At Adobe, we’re helping financial organizations deliver authentic, meaningful experiences every day. And we’re here to help you too.

Take an in-depth look at some of the trends we discussed with Murray in the Forrester report Personalization at Scale: Financial Services Spotlight. Or if you’re ready to get started with your own strategy, check out how we help leading finance firms build amazing experiences every day.