Over the last week, two partnerships — Pegasystems and IBM,and Amdocs and SAS — have emerged to offer new CRMapplications for the banking industry.
The timing no doubt was happenstance, but the dual product rolloutsillustrate the attraction this sector has for theCRM industry. In fact, banking is the top industry-specific vertical in the CRM space, based on figures from IDC.
The new releases also illustrate why financialservice providers in general are such avid consumersof CRM technology. In financial services, more than in other industries,maintaining and expanding upon existing clientrelationships is crucial to growth.
“Studies have shown that a banking customer who buysthree or four products from an institution is morelikely to remain with it, compared to a customer thatonly has, for instance, a checking account,” MikeBlum, president of financial services division atAmdocs, told CRM Buyer.
Dynamic Pricing and Bundling
Amdocs’ new product release, Dynamic Pricingand Profitability Management (DPPM), leverages SAS’ Banking Intelligence architecture to build upon an earlier release of apricing and product catalog.
The software can assist banks and their customers in negotiating terms of transactions. For example, say a bank customer who already has amortgage and car loan wants to add a home equity line.
The banker and customer can use the application to play withthe figures and find the bestprice points. The bank might offer to shave a quarter off the loaninterest rate, perhaps, if the customer would agree to make loan payments via automatic checking account drafts.
The two companies have partnered in various endeavors inthe past. However, Blum noted that this marks the first timethat Amdocs is applying SAS analytics to a mainline application.
The two companies plan to build additionalfunctionality around this concept of dynamic bundling,he added.
“We would like to provide support for face-to-face customer interactions,” said Blum, “so when a high net worthindividual walks into a bank, the rep can sit with thatperson, identify his future requirements, and puttogether a bundle of products specifically designed tothose needs.”
Cross-Sell, Up-Sell and Close
Pegasystems and IBM have partnered to roll out a newcontact center offering for the banking industry.
Called “IBM Service to Sales Transformation,” theoffering incorporates IBM’s consulting services withbusiness rules and process management applications,analytics, and portal technologies provided by its ISV (independent software vendor)partners, including Pegasystems.
Features in this rollout include more elaboratebusiness process rules to help the customer servicerep cross-sell and up-sell products and services — andthen close the deal, Willy Fox, directorof product management for Pegasystems, told CRM Buyer.
“Rather thanfilling out a form and pushing it to the nextdepartment, the rules guide the agent to complete thetransaction,” he said.
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