FINSPIRE Rabobank
INTRODUCTION Financial Advice is a service present in every bank’s portfolio that analyses, considers, gives advice and manages the finances of customers who want to achieve a certain financial situation or goals and wishes. Rabobank’s experience shows that, often, customers do not consider their financial goals ahead in time. To fulfill these goals become more expensive and harder to achieve by not planning ahead. “There’s always tomorrow” is the attitude of the respondents captured in a worldwide survey for Nielsen’s Global Saving/Investing report (2013). Respondents plan to invest to meet financial goals in the future, rather than actively save now. The outcome points that, globally, more than half are confident they will achieve their financial goals. The general top priority goals are: saving for health issues, household emergencies, retirement and saving for children’s future. It can be affirmed that there is a large gap between the moment customers starts to consider their financial goals and the moment of making a list with specifications and actually taking the actions that will actually make them happen. Furthermore, customers that seek financial advice to achieve their financial goals often have not fully considered them. Each goal can be influenced or affected by many factors throughout its lifespan and these factors should be taken into account by the client in order for Rabobank to provide the most accurate and fruitful advice. Recent changes on regulations concerning financial
advice services (FAS) have led to a change of perception of the customers towards these services. New regulations force banks to charge customers for any service separately instead of its fee being incorporated in the purchase of a product. Customers need to get used to the idea that receiving financial advice is now a paid serviceproduct and consequently, started to have higher expectations towards it. This represents a great challenge, because if yet people before were not considering the idea to get financial advice because they did not think they needed it, they are now even less likely to request it. However, this presents also an opportunity for Rabobank to switch the customer’s perception by improving its accessibility and find ways to convey the value of the financial advice services.As Oliver Rust, senior vice president, Global Financial Services, stated in their report Global Saving/Investing report (2013) “The greater number of people planning to save in the future versus saving now suggests an opportunity to better educate consumers on saving and investment strategies that will help them meet their financial goals” An online tool is proposed to sensitize customers about their possible future financial needs, with the purpose to make them consider their financial goals and the risks of overlooking variables ahead of time. The service, Finspire, will be a seven step preparation tool for a personal financial consultation with an advisor. Next to this, the tool will save time for both the customer and advisor, reduce costs for Rabobank, since it adds efficiency to the process of providing financial advice. An additional advance is that it will run on the existing systems and channels of Rabobank.
INSPIRE CONSIDER PLAN ACHIEVE
Furthermore, the proposed solution is aimed to strengthen the trust between client and Rabobank. It constitutes a base for a trustworthy relationship between client and financial advisor, as one-to-one contact can be realised through the platform. Finally, the tool is aligned with Rabobank’s mission to reduce physical presence for financial appointments.
FINSPIRE Rabobank
INTERNAL RESEARCH CURRENT SERVICES a. Current services The financial advisors of Rabobank use the following five financial building blocks in giving advice as a classification of the different needs a customer might have. 1. Daily business (payments, savings for unexpected expenses) 2. Living (mortgage, rent) 3. Income (now and when you’re retired) 4. Goals (with your saving money) 5. Wealth (that is free to spend/save/invest) There are two types of financial advice given by the financial advisors of Rabobank, simple and the comprehensive advice. The simple advice is advice about one specific building block, the customer wants advice about. The comprehensive advice consists of advice about the five building blocks in the order from building block one until five. The outcome of the advice is a personal financial plan containing financial advice about either one specific building block (simple) or about the overall situation, including all building blocks (comprehensive). Each type of advice has its own required fee.
FINSPIRE Rabobank Financial advice of mortgages has a discount system; Customers get a discount on the financial advice about living and mortgages after filling in data about their financial situation. A tool named ‘Hypotheekdossier’ is used for this, and will be explained further in ‘existing online tools’.
Figure 1: Screen capture of one of Rabobank’s online tools
EXISTING ONLINE TOOLS Rabobank provides online tools concerning financial advice divided in eight categories: ‘living’, ‘your partner’, ‘work and income’, ‘your children’, ‘youth’, ‘youngsters’, ‘studying’, and ‘holidays’. Short and superficial advice about that specific category is given in each tool and next to this there are several calculation tools and services provided for each possible corresponding situation of the user. These calculations only exist in a couple of categories. Some examples are illustrated below: Rabobank provides a tool which is called ‘Hypotheekdossier’ (mortgage dossier), that allows people to review their current financial situation, in order to ease the advisory meeting about mortgages. For that, the tool allows to calculate data about income, debts and loans numbers. The generated
content of the ‘mortgage dossier’ will be used during the advisory meeting. It is not an advising tool, but a facilitator, and there is an incentive of a discount on the financial advice service. The ‘Financiële Check’ (financial check) is an online tool which shows customers an overview of their financial situation. It shows what financial aspects they have already settled, and what financial aspects still need to be settled. The tool requests the customer to answer several questions about the customer’s financial situation, their financial overview will be given based on these answers . Additional calculations can only be made via a link to a specified calculator suited for a particular situation. This tool lacks the possibility to fill in actual financial data and cannot be used to calculate anything to give in depth advice
INTERVIEW WITH COACH We had the chance to conduct a double meeting with the other group of the case and our coach, Jozanne Roos, in Rabobank HQ office in Utrecht. The purpose of the meeting was to clarify different questions such as the role of the 5 building blocks, the flow of the meeting, the adaptability of the advisor when building a relationship with different customers in different financial situations. Insights on the actual challenges of the Financial Advice Service were gained. The meeting served to clarify the brief, which pointed towards the creation of an online tool that would help people start considering their financial future needs and at the same time prepare for a financial advice appointment. The actual challenges that face the Financial Advice Service are the introduction of a new law that oblige banks to charge for Financial Advice and Rabobank’s mission to reduce physical presence. These challenges affect both Rabobank’s employees and customers so the result of the project should consider both parties.
USER INSIGHTS
POSITIVE FEELING
3rd Meeting with the adviser
Need for a mortgage
Asks friends and family for advice
1st Meeting with the adviser
Goes to the bank where he is client
2nd Meeting with the adviser
“I would take less loan now. ” There is no relation with the adviser
AT THE BANK
POST-PURCHASE
Meetings for discussing doubts Meeting with adviser A. Not very useful
Does research on investments by himself
2nd Meeting. Products are explained
Regular meeting every 6 months.
Friendship is developed.
“He is like my friend”
Meeting with adviser B. He is very passive
NEGATIVE FEELING
POSITIVE FEELING
Regrets the mortgage chosen
“I thought we were getting along, but I haven’t heard back ”
PRE-PURCHASE
The following figure illustrates the journey of two different interviewed customers while seeking for financial advice; one with low knowledge and experience in finance, the other with high knowledge and experience.
Signing of deal for the mortgage
“he’s cool! also very into cars, like me! ”
NEGATIVE FEELING
Rabobank’s client base is formed by an extensive range of people comprising different ages, incomes, and lifestyles. But most importantly, people with different goals, attitudes and needs towards banking management, and financial advice services.
Decision to buy house with his girlfriend
2nd meeting. No new information
“The advice he gave me was not very professional nor useful, he acted like a sales person”
PRE-PURCHASE
AT THE BANK
The adviser did not get in touch again.
“I didn’t buy any product. It felt like I could do more useful research by myselft”
POST-PURCHASE
Figure 2: Customer journey of two customers going through a current financial advice service.
Setting financial awareness Being unaware of them “Professional advice is just needed for major goals, I don’t need it as I haven’t considered them yet” Man of 24 Living the moment “I save enough so I can afford any short-term opportunity” Man of 22 Hard to anticipate the future “I’m focusing on paying my mortgage now, we’ll see later” Man of 26
Where they seek advice
Friends and family “For my mortgage I first talked to my friends and family, see how they did it, then I went to my bank for advice” Man of 55 Internet information search “Before going to the bank i googled to see what I needed to know for a mortgage” Woman of 25 Going to financial advisor “I didn’t check a 2nd opinion, I know every bank offers pretty much the same products” Man of 30
Ways of achieving the goals Subconscious saving “When something changes in my life, i check for a couple of months my expenses and from then on I know how much I am saving each month” Man of 24 Manual Tools “I don’t need those online calculation tools, pen and paper is simpler” Female of 27
Perceptions on financial advisor Mistrust on the advisor “ I don’t really trust my advisor at the bank, after all they make money from me” Women of 30 “There’s also something in for them” Man of 28 No personal relationship “I don’t really know them, I believe more my friend’s experience on the matter” Man of 23
THREE LEVELS OF KNOWLEDGE The internal analysis of Rabobank pointed out two types of customer that advisors experience right now. One is a customer that is very informed about his or her own situation and has a clear idea of his or her financial wishes and goals. The other one is the customer that is not informed at all, nor has he or she a clear idea of his or her financial wishes and goals. The external analysis discovered that the distinction is not as black and white as the Rabobank perceives it nowadays. That is why the tool of the Finspire service detects at what level people are in and differentiates the customers over
three levels of financial knowledge. This information is only transferred to the selected advisor to allow him or her to get acquainted with the knowledge and interest level of the customer. This enables the advisor to prepare better for the actual appointment. By stating your knowledge and interest level at the start of the tool, the tool will only show you videos of ‘inspiration customers’ with the same knowledge and interest level. In this way customers can better relate themselves with the ‘inspirational customers’ in the tool (Van den Hende, 2010).
BRAND PROMISE The internal and external research outcomes can be translated into a brand promise. This brand promise is solely the promise of what the Finspire service will deliver and how it will do so. The derived brand promise is:
BRAND VALUES
“Rabobank Finspire is a service that optimises your financial life by making you aware of your financial future needs, explaining your possibilities, and together outlining your steps in order to fulfill these needs.”
This brand promise incorporates Rabobank’s brand values ‘Involved’, ‘Leading’ and ‘Nearby’. The ‘Involved’ value of Finspire is translated in making the customer aware of his or her own financial future needs. By putting the customer in a central position and helping him or her in making him or her aware of his or her financial situation. Whereas banking used to be an explanatory and guiding service, it now shifts to a sensitising service integrated in customer’s daily live. Finspire is ‘Leading’ because it is explaining possibilities and inspiring customers to consider more than only the things they have thought of. It is ‘Nearby’ as it outlines the future steps of the customer together with the personal approach from the adviser.
HOW-TO STATEMENTS Bringing this abstract promise and values to a more concrete level is the key in the success of the new tool. “How-to?”-statements helped in finding creative solutions for the development of the tool:
-How to achieve financial awareness? -How to increase trust? -How to make a financial overview? -How to anticipate the future?
Game G Dif fer enter basic prof en role ile; mod t find out whhaat t els kind of future mov could be i e exp s in 10 ye lana y ars you r s tion o n it sma ll v uation ideo H2 achieve in Financial (when unawar Awareness ? e of possibilities )
Lectures of experience (as in YesDelft) Learn it fro m the sta rt
make a secr accou e nt at t savings birth. NO GRAV ITY Super f uturistic Differe nt off envir ice onme nts
Inspir onlin e co mmu of u nity sers,
ONL Y
users
give
rate
th
You g OWN et to ch oose advic you er.
ies)
explanation made ted by a familiar/trus person
Have
a d Seeingreamlist . by a possible f djust ing a utures moun t of sovin gs
H2 a n futu ticipate the re?
ing “ Futu re M video e” -conf “fut e ure m rence wit h e”
show good that is g for t what ood h is for e cust om the ban er k
feed e adviser back !
Graphics lik trees (show po e ssibilit
h Appointments wit family members Tangibilit y h to get a elps nd remember
SCHOOL
office as a miniature w orld of what an d how things happen
H2 incre TRU ase ST?
one f for inancial life ad , lik viser e a fom
ily doct
or
increase follow-up
Futu
ristic
movie
s
phot o you shped pic in a t Looking fut ure of ure at rela scena tives rio what advic
e did they use?
drink a beer with adviser! taking it out
x some thg change phys of g ical oods. you take home get u mess nasked ages but wan t
REFORMULATION OF BRIEF The outcomes of these “how-to’s” were then used to update the existing project brief. Since sensitizing customers about their possible future financial needs to be done via a trustworthy relationship. Building a relationship between customer and advisor is also an important goal of the tool of Finspire. The project brief was updated in such a way that it incorporated all these aspects.
PRESENTATION OF THE TOOL This tool works as a preparation for financial advice that helps customers consider their future financial needs. By giving references, inspiration material about future possibilities, and recommendations the user will feel more aware of his financial situation, financial goals and financial possibilities. Accordingly, the tool is presented as a seven steps pack to complete in different times, with the purpose to give the customer time to auto-reflect, gather more input and grown eager towards next steps. Doing so, the tool is used as a sensitizing material instead of being treated as a one-time thing in the To do’s list. As a final step, the data can be choose to be saved for later or send to the personal adviser and book a meeting. In addition, it helps the adviser to save time in the personal meeting and prepare in advance a more personalized answer.
INCORPORATION OF ALL THE BUILDING BLOCKS As mentioned above, Rabobank uses five building blocks(‘Current FAS’) in giving financial advice. Within the seven steps of the tool, there are five steps, which each represents one building block. As the financial advisors of Rabobank use the five financial building blocks to give financial advice, it is useful to have the customers on the same page with Rabobank. In order to have the customer and the financial advisor aligned, both have to be familiar (especially the customer) with what the financial building blocks contain. So in the preparation tool, customers need to fill in data for all five building blocks, in separate steps.
RELATIONSHIP WITH THE BANK From the interviews, many customers are sceptic about banks, because they know and get the feeling that banks want to earn money by selling you their products. Next to his, due to the recent economic downfall and happenings in the banking sector, there is mistrust from customers in banks. Transparency is of great importance for the customers to regain trust. By making the financial advice of Rabobank more transparent and engaging, customer will feel their relationship with the bank is more trustworthy and reliable. By making the look and feel personal, the customers will feel more engaged. A personalised video of the financial adviser to the customer will kickstart the personal relationship between them.
INSPIRATIONAL VIDEOS Every step in the tool is accompanied by three inspirational videos. These videos show how customers that are relatable to the customer following the tool approached the issues concerning the step the actual customer is filling in. These inspirational-video customers stay with the actual customer throughout the complete filling-in process. Providing this videos has three advantages. The first is that narratives and explaination by video will allow the people to feel more informed and secure about the decisions they need to take. Van den Hende (2010) states that when consumers read a narrative of another consumer who uses a new product,
consumers are thought to place themselves in the event taking place. Which means that customers can image a situation better using narratives. The second advantage is that the bank builds more credibility when it lets customers and advisors combined explain the tool and the information within it. The third advantage is that the videos of the customers can inspire the actual customer. He or she can be triggered to consider situations that were never thought of but can be desired.
TIME FACTOR
COMPARISON TO PEERS
The reason to choose a seven step tool, is because there are five building blocks, an introduction and a closure step. After each step, there will be an intended delay in between, as it is good to be away from a topic for a while, and then returning to it, in order to have new inspiration. Without an intended delay in between the steps, it could become a quick fill in task for the customer, as they need to fill it in before receiving a discount on a financial appointment. That is not the purpose of the tool. The aim of the tool is to let customers think about the financial building blocks, with their possibilities and their influencing factors.
An important feature of this newly created tool is the gamification aspect incorporated. The tool shows progress in growing experience and allows the user to compare this progress to peers, family and friends. This competition effect encourages the user to fill in the information to a more detailed level in order to achieve a higher progress level, while gaining more experience. .
PRE-RELATIONSHIP
ON-LINE RELATIONSHIP
OFF-LINE / ON-LINE RELATIONSHIP
“I want to buy a summer house”
“There are many things to consider...”
Satisfaction Feeling
“This puts it into perspective. Not sure I want to go into a mortgage yet..”
Initial situation
Realization of need for advice.
He is referred to FAS on Rabobank’s site
First contact with tool
Customer and Bank relationship
Remaining steps on the tool
1st Meeting with the Financial Adviser
Updating the tool
2nd Meeting with the Financial Adviser
Final decision is made
Banks’s follow up on product
Figure 3: Customer journey of Julian, one of the personas created, going through the Finspire tool and getting personal advice.
INTEGRATION WITH THE PERSONAL ADVICE As stated above, regardless being an online tool, it will constitute the initial basis for the personal relationship between the customer and the financial adviser. The customer journey of one of the defined personas is shown in figure 3. It is possible to see how the tool will act as a main touchpoint between the the bank and the customer. By using the tool, the relationship with the bank, level of awareness on the financial situation and the overall satisfaction level of the customer regarding the situation are aligned. This way, the customer will reach the meeting with a solid overview of his or her situation, with a high satisfaction level and high perception on the relationship with the organization.
CONNECTION TO ADVISOR An aim of the tool is to create a personal bond between the advisor and the client from the moment the customer starts using the tool. As a starting point, the customer will have the opportunity to choose among a number of financial advisors. The external analysis showed that the personal connection with the advisor is highly valued by the clients and that there is a negative effect on the trust towards the advisor when this is lacking. By being able to choose among several advisors, the client will be able to select the one with which he or she feels more connected to. At the end of the sensitizing steps of the tool, the client will have the option to proceed to book
a meeting with the previously selected advisor when he or she feels the need for advice. When the booking is final, the customer will receive a personalised video from the advisor
BENEFITTING THE ADVISOR The advisor will benefit from the tool in the sense that he or she will get useful insights into the client’s goals and financial situation, but also about their future wishes and desirable financial situation. This will contribute to getting to know the client more on a personal basis and therefore to generate a more empathic attitude towards him or her. It will make it possible for the advisor to tailor the advice for the customer to a higher level.
TRANSPARENCY OF DATA One of the goals of the tool is to contribute to the building of trust between the customer and the bank. For this point the transparency is vital. The aim of the tool is to help the client and not to gather data. Therefore, the tool will incorporate the option of deleting the data at any moment and it will be stated from the beginning that only when and if the client decides to book the meeting, then the information will be available for the Rabobank advisor only.
BUSINESS MODEL This new tool is not a stand-alone service and will not generate money by itself in the complete service. Making a profit with this service is aimed for at two directions, one is direct and the other is indirect. The direct way of making profit is shortening the amount of time an advisor has to spend on one customer. Because the customers themselves will prepare and gain the necessary background information to advance directly when entering in a meeting. This means that one advisor can help more
customers than is possible now. The indirect way of gaining profit is building trust, and a customer relationship via transparency and regular updates. Trust and an increased customer relationship translate themselves in an increased profit in the long run.
CHARGING FEE
DISCOUNT
There will be no charged fee for using the tool. There is no action required from the side of the Rabobank advisor and other rabobank channels until the moment that there is an actual appointment booked. The fee for using the tool will be incorporated in the fee for the total Finspire service.
The usage of the tool offers the user a discount of 35% on the total fee of the financial advising service Finspire. The reason for this is to attract customers to fill in the tool all the way to the end. The discount can be given because the time one advisor needs to spend on a customer will decrease. If the discount would not be feasible, eventually the price of financial advice can be increased, but only to a level that the customer who uses the tool will profit compared to the current situation without the tool.
CREATING ENGAGEMENT
PROMOTION
Creating engagement and building trust is one of the goals of this tool and service. Creating engagement is necessary for people to fill in all the seven steps with their full attention. If people neglect the fact that they have to follow everything in the tool to get the right amount of background information and inspiration, the goal of the tool becomes unreachable. To achieve engagement, there should be some threshold, however low, to be able to participate in the service. On a detailed level, this comes down to the fact that customers have to fill in their e-mail address before being granted access into the tool. This e-mail address can be used to remind and notify customers about their progress. Next to the e-mail, there is the function inside this tool that prevents customers to go through each step all at once. Before customers can fill in data for the next step, they need to wait for the next day for each consecutive step. This, it will create engagement for a longer period of time, and therefore it will increase trust.
The tool of the FAS service will be promoted in several ways. First there is the traditional marketing tools at the disposal of the Rabobank, like advertisements in local Rabobank bankstores; printed advertisements; and online advertisements, both on their own website and on external websites.
After the completion of the seven steps of the tool and having booked a meeting, every customer will receive a personalized video by their chosen advisor. This will greatly enhance the personalization of the service and the creation of engagement.
Next to that, a new website will be launched just for the promotion of this tool. The website will consist of one page with a continuously playing video that will show a complete lifecycle of one person. This will serve both as inspiration and as advertisement. There is depicted a circle in the middle on which visitors of the website can click to fast forward to specific livecycle moments. Because this service will serve as a substitution of current apps and tools, Rabobank can target current users of their tools and apps directly via those channels and direct them towards the new service with this tool.
CONCLUSION The Finspire tool is the first part of the Financial Advice Service of Rabobank. The purpose of Finspire is to inspire the customers to start considering financial goals at an earlier stage. Finspire gives sensitizing videos and examples based on real people’s lifestyle and guides the customer through the five building blocks. At the beginning of the tool the customer chooses an advisor with whom to go through both steps of the service: online steps and personal meeting.
a lifestyle and achieving it step by step is a new, innovative and customer-centered approach to financial advice.
By entering personal data about daily expenses, income, and being challenged to set financial goals, the customer will get an understanding of its overall understanding on finances and its financial status. In addition, only one step can be completed per day to give the user time to reflect and assimilate the content learned. At the end of the tool, the customer chooses either to save its data for later or to send it to its advisor and book a personal meeting. This represents two major advantages to Rabobank advisors; first, more efficient meetings and second, knowledge and interest level tailored advice for their customers. At this stage the customer will also decide which topics to discuss during the meeting and will receive a discount for Finspire, the new Financial Advice Service. Altogether, Finspire will help Rabobank in saving time spent on advisory meetings and create a more trustworthy and transparent relationship with their customers. The complete Finspire experience from getting inspired, considering alternative futures, planning
REFERENCES Website: [1] (2014, 1, 14). BACKSEAT DRIVING IS WELCOME ON THE ROAD TO FINANCIAL GOALS,http:// www.nielsen.com/us/en/newswire/2014/backseatdriving-is-welcome-on-the-road-to-financial-goals. html (16-1-2014) Literature: [2] Van den Hende, E.A., 2010, Really New Stories: The Effect of Early Concept Narratives on Consumer Understanding and Attitudes, PhD. Thesis.
CHUN WEI CHANG MAR SOLE MELVIN KAATS PABLO DIAZ GUINON RUI YAN TSAI TRINE GEDDE