Over the last three decades, publicly available information on small & medium-sized business (SMEs) have radically improved across geographics, however yet so the modern commercial banking relationship manager often falls short of first identifying exact customer needs followed by providing in-depth advice on how both present, as well as future challenges, can be effectively addressed, thus significantly falling behind on their prospecting & fresh customer onboarding targets.
However, with the advance of modern technology, we believe there is a solution which current & future relationship managers can leverage to supercharge their efforts & embark on a journey of intelligent prospecting.
Understanding Present-Day Challenges
Before we begin to understand how relationship managers can supercharge their prospecting efforts, it is crucial to first assess the current challenges they face.
In layman terminology, the present situation can be interpreted as such.
Modern businesses are continuously redefining themselves to meet the ongoing demands of a dynamic marketplace & thus, it is natural that their banking needs will evolve simultaneously.
For instance, most businesses around the world are still grappling from the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic & are on the lookout for intelligent & actionable insights on how they can effectively manage their cash flow to gain back their footing. However, in most scenarios they do not have access to viable sources of information, thus incapacitating them on taking meaningful steps in strengthening their position.
On the other hand, as a seasoned relationship manager to multiple small & medium scale organizations across geographies, you have the data to effectively analyze & forecast the most impactful recovery steps.
However, without equipping yourself with the proper arsenal of tools to expertly analyze & arrive at meaningful insights from this data, it will only be stored away in your servers. This is where intelligent prospecting steps in.
At its core, intelligent prospecting is a methodology wherein you leverage a wide catalogue of tools ranging from data harvesting & analysis to insight generation & automated lead generation such that as a result, you can transform yourself into a digitally enabled relationship manager with the ability to offer customers a hyper-personalized commercial banking experience complete with expert analysis & delivering intelligent insights on they can effectively overcome both existing as well as upcoming challenges.
However, in addition to leveraging a suite of advanced tools, organizations need to execute the following three pillars of change to ensure sustainable impact in the long run.
- Nurturing an Adaptive Capacity: In order to effectively transition into intelligent prospecting, organizations need to automate, digitize & streamline all their core workflows such that processes can be effectively adapted at scale for high-value customer engagements.
- Equipping Insights: As a second step, organizations need to equip front line resources with streamlined access to data-driven insights such that they can not only effectively prioritize their leads but also identify cross self opportunities & as a result, hyper personalize every interaction with the customer.
- Redefining Service Model: Last but not least, organizations need to completely redefine their service models by leveraging sophisticated customer segmentation tools, which in addition to increasing the effectiveness of prospecting, also contributes to the account loading & interaction strategy, thus laying the foundation for effective & highly insightful customer interactions.
In Conclusion
The future of commercial banking is one where the needs & requirements of both the stakeholders, that is, the SME & commercial bank, is equally met & it is our belief that adopting intelligent banking is the path which leads to it.
Thank you for reading & I will see you in the next one.
The Reference Shelf
- How intelligent prospecting will grow commercial banking [Link]