A market scan of financial service providers in Australia and the UK reveals that banking is lagging behind other sectors when it comes to capturing customer leads digitally.
There is good news though. Organisations can catch up – quickly and affordably, using specialised lead-generation forms like Sandstone Technology’s Rapid Leads.
Where are the maturity gaps for Australian and UK financial institutions (FIs) in their digital origination solutions? Is there a lead generation problem to solve in these two key regions?
Sandstone Technology recently scanned the digital channels across Australian and UK FIs to capture the level of maturity of digital origination solutions across various banking products. Helping explain the results are Sandstone Technology’s Chief Product Officer Michelle Yu, and Senior Product Manager Digital Banking (B2B) Kurt Yang.
To analyse digital solutions in the two regions, FIs were divided into retail and business banking, then broken down into 6 categories:
1. No digital experience: FI has a website, but no digital sales solution form. Customers must call the bank or visit a branch to inquire about products and services.
2. Lead-gen – generic: Typical ‘Contact Us’ form, the same form regardless of which product the customer is interested in; asks for contact details and general reason for inquiry.
3. Lead-gen – specific: As above but customer is also asked qualifying questions that help determine which product they’re interested in, so the query can be directed to the appropriate sales team.
4. PDF: Download and print an application form; fill it in, print it out, then either visit a branch or email the completed form.
5. App cap (app capture): Fill in a digital application form. Customer data is transmitted to the general fulfilment area of the bank.
6. Digital origination: Fully integrated origination solution which can lead to an automatic approval of the relevant product without further contact with the customer. Captures and processes details and documents integrated to other systems including ID verification, address verification, decisioning, to the FI's host/core banking system.
The first discovery was that overall, FIs aren’t currently taking advantage of sales lead-gen opportunities, and as a result, are likely to be missing out on sales.
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Australian retail banking* On average, more than 95%, of FIs don’t have specialised lead gen forms across their product offerings More than 75% even have generic lead-gen forms And more than 70% don't have digital origination capabilities |
Australian business banking* On average, more than 80%of FIs don’t have specialised lead gen forms across their product offerings |
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UK retail banking* On average, more than 95% of FIs don’t have specialised lead gen forms across their product offerings |
UK business banking* On average, more than 90% of FIs don’t have specialised lead |
*Based on market scan of 108 (AU) and 154 (UK) FIs conducted by Sandstone Technology.
Deposits are the most digitally mature of all banking products according to the scan - not surprising given the origination for a deposit product is usually straightforward: no credit checks required, just verification of customer ID.
It was also found that retail banking has more app cap and digital origination options for Australian and UK customers, whereas business banking relies far more on lead generation options.
It’s easily explained, according to Michelle Yu. Firstly, business banking tends to be more relationship-based selling so human interaction is more common and automation less so. The products, the credit criteria and the customers can be more complex, as can the types of business entities – and the relationships between them - compared to retail customers. So approval decisions are harder to make.
“Which is why you tend to see fewer automated, digital origination solutions and more sales lead-gen forms and app cap solutions kicking off the journey,” Michelle says. “They capture some initial information, then someone from the bank contacts the customer ."
In both retail and business banking, UK FIs are behind Australia in offering digital contact points, especially with mortgage products. This can be partly explained by the prevalence of outsourcing to mortgage brokers in the UK.
Michelle believes there’s still a good argument for investing in a sales lead generation solution where brokers are common. “It’s still quite powerful for these FIs, because they can get the lead, but refer it to a broker, and keep the opportunity for themselves,” she says.
Only 30 to 40 % FIs have a sales lead generation solution.
With only 30% to 40% of FIs having some form of lead-generation solution, the banking sector is definitely lagging behind. As Michelle explains, “In other industries, it’s the norm to have a Lead Capture form of some kind, to capture that lead and be able to follow up the sales opportunity.”
So why the lag? “We believe FIs are being held back by an “all-or-nothing” approach to digital transformation,” Michelle says.
What that often means is, if the organisation doesn’t have budget for full digital origination, they believe their only option is no digital sales options, or a simple generic Contact Us form. The reality is, they can use a product like Sandstone Technology’s Rapid Leads, which isn’t a big investment or a major change program, but it can have a big impact.
Answers to these questions enable the bank to craft a more personalised experience. In the follow-up conversation, they can jump straight into helping them with specific needs.
Because the form can be placed anywhere in the customer journey, the customer can complete the form within digital banking - when the query is in context. Form completion rates will rise, and banking staff can focus on converting, not chasing.
By contrast, FIs who are using a generic 'Contact Us form' or have no digital option for product enquiries will end up with poorer quality sales leads.
Bank staff won’t be able to qualify and prioritise those leads. They won’t be able to identify warm leads that need to be contacted quickly. They won’t know what’s the best time frame to contact the
customer: they may have to try multiple times before they reach the customer. They also won’t know the customer’s preferred channel for contact.
If the customer has no choice but to go into a branch or call the FI – that’s inconvenient for most people. It’s not going to boost customer satisfaction or conversion.
What’s also inconvenient is ending up in a phone queue, not knowing when an agent’s going to take the call. By the time the customer reaches an agent, they might not have the time to talk.
Equally, making time to go into a branch, driving, parking, spending time there – potentially also in a queue, isn’t a good experience.
Likewise if the FI doesn’t already have information about the customer, they might end up having to pass the customer around multiple teams until they get the right person – not a great way to build customer engagement and brand loyalty long term.
According to Michelle, FIs need a combination of specific sales lead-generation, app caps and digital origination in their toolkit.
That’s because customer preferences may vary. Some customers don’t want to talk to anyone, they don’t want to be contacted: they prefer a fully digital experience. Other customers welcome human interaction, especially if it’s an important decision they’re making, like spending their life savings on their first property. They want to get some comfort from a human before they press go.
Where the customer is in their buying journey can also determine what’s appropriate. If they’re at the research stage of a purchase, or the short-listing stage, they still need more information about products, and how they apply to their situation. So a specialised sales lead-generation form helps gather initial information about the customer’s needs and preferences, and the lead can be forwarded to the right team.
Compared to someone who’s ready to purchase their property, in which case an app cap or a digital origination solution is more appropriate. They just want the fastest means to an end.
Sandstone Technology’s Rapid Leads solution can help turn every customer interaction into a sales opportunity.
Rapid Leads is a specific sales lead generation solution providing lead capture for any type of banking product, with self-configurable questions, labels and content. Essentially it offers FIs a new digital channel – enabling every sales lead to be attended to digitally, without having to make the kind of investment involved in setting up digital origination for example.
For that reason, one of Sandstone’s priorities with Rapid Leads was around ease of onboarding. “We wanted to keep it as short and pain-free as possible, given this might be the start of an FI’s digital transformation journey,” Michelle says.
Another priority was improving the quality of sales leads generated by the form by asking more questions. Unlike using a generic Contact Us form, FIs can create a different form for each product, so leads are directed to the appropriate sales team first time around.
FIs today shouldn’t be limiting the ways customer can engage a FI to open an account; end users need to be able to choose their preferred channel. That’s why existing Sandstone customers can self-configure Rapid Leads and apply it across the board: on their public website, in their Sandstone-powered mobile banking apps and online banking, Kurt points out.
“If the FI were to go with a generic lead-gen solution, they might not have this flexibility,” Kurt says. As Kurt explains, while it’s a fairly simple exercise to add the form to a public website, integrating it into mobile banking apps and internet banking platforms introduces greater complexity. The customer is coming through an authenticated channel and the FI needs to integrate with existing data.
And for FIs that choose to build a sales lead-gen contact form inhouse, beware: it isn’t a build-once-and-walk-away scenario. The form will need to be updated, as browsers update. Security patches will need to be applied.
As Kurt says, “In our market scan we discovered lead gen forms that were broken – and the FI might not even realise it’s broken because they built it and walked away.”
With over 25 years experience developing solutions in the highly regulated financial services industry, Sandstone understands banking regulations, and we understand the security requirements attached to these solutions, e.g., ISO 27001 and GDPR. These are standard for Sandstone and applies to all Sandstone solutions, giving peace of mind to our customers and their customers.
We also have multi-browser and multi-device support built into our solutions. So an FI using Rapid Leads doesn’t need to worry that their customers won’t be able to access the lead gen form because of the browser or device they’re using.
Ensuring our solutions are accessible to all customers is also a key focus for Sandstone, with the Rapid Leads solution meeting the WCAG 2.1 AA standard
Download the brochure or contact the Sandstone Technology team now to see how quickly you could be set up for better digital sales lead capture and conversion across all your banking products.