A Golden Record and a Personalised Banking Experience

I’m sure I’m not alone in my frustration when trying to dial into my bank on being pushed through an automated IVR which appears to have the sole objective of not letting me talk to a real person. Rather, it directs me to an informational webpage while a recorded voice tells me that the bank values my call.

Personalised experiences are often thought of in the context of retail and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies, whose customers are accustomed to a brand knowing them across channels. Whether online or in-store, engaging with a call centre or customer service, customers expect the brands they interact with to know they’re the same person and to receive a personalised experience that

demonstrates such an understanding.

The same expectation now applies to the global banking industry. In fact, in a recent research report from Capco, 72% of customers said that personalisation in financial services is “very important.”

Banks face challenges meeting customer expectations largely because technology limitations greatly hinder a business’s ability to effectively utilise customer data to gather a complete understanding of the customer across an omnichannel journey. A lack of data unification from a dozen or more complex and fragmented legacy systems results in siloed data that makes it impossible to develop a single source of truth for a customer or household across different product lines or channels.

When a customer searches your website for information about savings accounts, are you able to personalise the session for a first-time visitor? If that same customer then contacts the call centre, will the agent know about the online session or a branch visit, or will the agent use a script to try to upsell a home improvement loan?

Meeting the customer with a relevant experience in real time across an omnichannel journey – such as with accurate product recommendations or a nextbest action that factors in a customer’s full behaviourial history – depends on having a unified customer profile, also known as a Golden Record. More than a single source of truth, a Golden Record combines data from every source (website, mobile app, eCommerce platform, Pos, CRM,) to form a holistic, unified record of a customer and the customer’s engagement with a brand across every touchpoint. Including behavioural, transactional, demographic and preference data, a Golden Record contains all attributes, all aggregations, a full identity graph and a full contact history. It puts everything knowable about a customer or household into a single place and is the foundation of data-driven insights that make a personalised customer experience (CX) a reality.

A true Golden Record will apply data quality processes at the precise moment of data ingestion, an important consideration to be able to deliver relevant experiences to a customer in real time as the customer journey unfolds. Because a Golden Record will eliminate duplications, discrepancies and inconsistencies, banks can analyse customer behaviours, preferences and transactional history to identify cross-selling and upselling opportunities, tailored financial advice with confidence and trust in the DNA of their data.

Unlike retailers and FMCG companies, banks have more stringent regulations around protecting personally identifiable information (PII). One important consideration before building a Golden Record is to ensure that it can be deployed within an organisation’s own cloud, ensuring PII does not leave the safety of an organisation's firewalls.

Keep Pace with the Customer

With insights derived from a Golden Record, banks are able to analyse customer data to identify patterns, trends and correlations that can inform product development, marketing strategies and customer engagement initiatives. Such a data-driven approach allows banks to stay ahead of customer expectations, optimise their offerings, drive business growth, and remain competitive and compliant with regulatory requirements.

Banks have been driven by product and or channel-based profit and loan (P&L) statements for too long, where each product or channel would try to sell each customer according to its own interests. Changing expectations for personalisation in banking make it imperative to put the customer at the centre of the experience. A connected customer experience considers and makes offers that are in the context of an individual’s current situation to include life stage, household dynamic, income and debts.

A new empty-nester may be looking to downsize and is in the market for a mortgage, for example, while parents with young children need to finance a move to a bigger flat. The power of the Golden Record makes it possible to orchestrate a connected experience with fine-tuned offers, messages and content that are in the proper sequence according to individual customer needs and that are on the right channel at the right time.

For financial institutions large or small, creating a single source of truth through a Golden Record is an important first step toward meeting demands for seamless, personalised and digital-first experiences.

Hiring and growing in an uncertain market

The facts are clear: tech workers can no longer be bought with high salaries and pizza Fridays. In an uncertain economy, workers’ focus is squarely on money and affordability, taking a savvy approach to what they earn and what they spend. Now more than ever, top talent want the opportunity to work on interesting and scalable solutions that have real impact for their customers.

At Payhawk, we’ve implemented an approach that communicates exactly what our offering is to new recruits that will get them excited to join, and become committed to the company’s mission and journey, above and beyond free breakfast bribery.

The perks of offering perks

Tech has long been known for its inclination towards enticing talent with perks. From free breakfast to beer Fridays, small companies at seed stage that are yet to turn a profit, will typically end up offering perks in place of high salaries.

Perks can differ in their approach, particularly in relation to whether a staff member is office-based or remote. Post-covid, there are more online perks: staff receive a budget to use at their discretion - spent on anything from childcare to house-cleaning - appealing to the needs of a remote worker. For those still going into an office, they may prefer a travel allowance, or gym membership. Although these quotidian perks may look appealing on a job advert, they are no longer enough to entice the best talent to the leading tech companies of the future.

When perks start to hurt

The employers’ arms race to offer the best perks has resulted somewhat in a counterproductive activity of ‘keeping up with the Joneses’. Unfortunately this can backfire when disgruntled employees see their competitors enjoying better brunches, or attending more exciting company trips. Worse than this however, are problems of scalability. A company of 30 people can offer free breakfast, but at 300, this could become untenable and removing perks will negatively impact morale.

The shift from perks to benefits

Not all staff want to be wooed by perks, and will instead opt towards interrogating their future at a company. At Seed stage companies, potential new hires may ask for more security by interrogating the runway of the business, or asking questions about future funding; when to expect another raise, who future investors might include and where the company could expand.

When companies move on from Seed to Series A and B, staff will look more at the product; where engineers are based, who their investors are; interrogate the total addressable market, and what the equity opportunities are, because that company is now no longer a startup in need of enthusiasm but, like Payhawk, an established business with huge commercial potential.

Hiring and retaining staff

There is a way to create a balance that includes benefits, but also gives meaningful incentives for an employee to commit. Offering a commute allowance, health insurance, pension, or salary sacrifice are all great benefits, but the fight for the best talent should never be about perks. We want our employees to join and stay at Payhawk for our product, the knowledge and experience they will gain, and the team they work alongside. Communicating the kind of office culture to potential employees is the best start you can offer.

This can include effectively communicating working practice, for example, remote companies seeking those happy with fully remote work, or clarifying fully in-office work.

It’s important to be honest about business practice from the outset. By asking candidates about their current setup, the location they are based, and whether it’s work from home, it will help to align expectations and source the most suitable candidates.

It’s also important to explain the company’s current output and future roadmap to employees, who are often -- especially in early-stage companies that have issued share options -- shareholders in a business. This transparency is a key part of retaining staff commitment. When one of the most important perks is equity, staff who are even one step away from strategic decisions will want to know what’s happening company-wide and the impact of all their hard work.

If you trust your staff enough to give them a piece of the business, then you should entrust them with the knowledge of the company’s direction. They will begin to think like business owners, rather than treating it like a 9-5, which is of huge benefit to the business in return. The risk that staff have taken in joining a growing tech company is respected, and they are treated as part of it from day one.