In a fast-evolving financial market, banks and lenders face the dual challenge of adapting to new customer expectations while also managing costs and resources to remain competitive in their markets.
When it comes to traditionally less profitable areas such as asset finance lending, solving this has the potential to transform efficiency, profitability and customer experience. Firms who can embrace new technology have been shown to not only increase customer satisfaction by 15 to 20%, but also reduce cost to serve by 20 to 40%.
In this article we outline a strategic approach to implementing new technology in the asset finance process to maximise long term value.
Thinking slow, moving fast
In response to global events, many financial institutions have already accelerated the digitisation of their customer interactions and internal operations by three to four years in the space of a few months. In order to deliver maximum value, the transforming systems and processes must be considered holistically.
Siloed transformation projects in different service areas risk creating disjointed customer experiences and bottlenecks in the lending process due to non-integrated technology or processes. However, attempting to overhaul systems all at once risks service disruption and scope overreach.
A strategic approach to transformation rests on the idea of progressively reinforcing change, where each stage builds on the foundations set before to continuously improve operational efficiency. At most banks, more than 50% of transformational potential comes from the top 10-20 end-to-end processes. Therefore, for asset finance, change should be structured around the most clear challenges:
- Delivering on customer expectations
- Reducing the cost of lending
- Increasing long term customer value
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1. Digital Customer Engagement & Tracking
The first priority is building the foundations to provide an end-to-end digital service for customers. This requires three key elements: a digital front-end experience for customers, a process to manage the lending journey online and a system to track the customer journey.
Modern customers expect a seamless digital experience. This means a shift away from paper forms, reliance physical premises and manual checks. Your online process should cover:
- Data Capture: Register enquiries, request compliance information via online forms
- Quote creation: Present information in a structured format that customers can review digitally
- Deal management: Create, edit, share and tailor proposals with customers and intermediaries.
- Deal closing: Confirm proposals via electronic signature
The unifying element for all this is a single CRM system. For businesses where different divisions have traditionally chosen their own software stacks, a fragmented network can harm efficiency and service. By implementing a single financing optimised CRM such as Accelerate Enterprise, you can track deals from enquiry to close in one place, while also using stored data to auto-fill repeated information, saving customers time in the process.
2. Process optimisation and efficiency
Once the core elements of service delivery are in place, you can then begin testing and optimising elements of your process to improve performance and ROI.
The two guiding principles of this process are data and automation. With centralised information in your Asset Finance Enterprise CRM you can track each stage of the customer journey to find efficiency opportunities, and then use automation to enhance the experience in that area.
Opportunities include:
- Automating responses to initial enquiries via integration with an email marketing tool
- Setting benchmarks for response resolution, deal stage progression and percentage close rates.
- Automating customer lifecycle communication around key milestones
- Setting reminders for your sales team to re-engage with customers towards maturity or in case of a change in their circumstances.
Key to succeeding in this area is setting appropriate targets measuring performance and analysing processes to find opportunities to improve. This may also go hand in hand with specialised roles within your team, such as CRM management and customer experience experts.
3. Innovation & Opportunity Expansion
One of the most promising developments in financial services in the last decade is the growth of the wider financial ecosystem of apps and service. There are now a huge number of solutions designed to improve efficiency, performance and customer satisfaction in financial institutions.
By integrating your system with external partners you can connect to the wider ecosystem to provide a better experience for your customers. Opportunities include:
- Automating credit scoring and risk analytics with a service such as Experian.
- Streamlining external proposal management through an Open Banking platform such as AccountScore.
- Accelerating credit decisioning through a service such as Lending Metrics.
Not only do these products reduce manual work within your organisation, but help you reach decisions faster and more accurately.
Accelerate by QV Systems is built on a single code base for maximum flexibility, connecting with a range of partners in the UK financial ecosystem via Open API, including those mentioned above.
Embrace the future on your terms
The future of competition in asset finance will be based around providing a modern customer service efficiently, scalably and profitably. QV Systems is building the tools that will drive the next generation of innovation in financing.
Accelerate Enterprise, our flexible asset-financing platform, helps you future-proof your business while driving efficiency, effectiveness and engagement.
You can choose exactly the features you need to update your workflow or implement it as an end-to-end system. With our open API, you can connect your software with a whole ecosystem of leading technology partners to drive innovation and growth.
To find out how QV Systems can help you create a future-ready strategy, book a strategy call with our team today.
