Financial Institutions- Data Analysis is Essential to Optimizing Sales, Operations, Service and Planning – Case Studies

Technology is advancing rapidly to enable financial institutions to analyze changing member expectations, regulatory issues and the increasingly competitive financial services environment. This requires in as close to real time monitoring of sales, operations and objectives with actionable performance metrics that are available to all staff.

It’s not about big changes. It’s about the ability to staff to develop and have access to analytical dashboards that give them access to company data to continually make and monitor the small changes that collectively contribute to a more successful company and increased customer satisfaction.

Each financial institution and branch is different so canned analytics are usually not a completely satisfactory solution. Your staff knows the questions they need answered. The key is giving them the tools to find those answers and help them do their jobs better.

Each financial institution must decide which types of performance evaluation tools are most useful to their
operations: branch performance assessments, efficiency ratings, HR dept. success, financial benchmarks, member satisfaction rankings, competitive environment comparisons. Starting with the finding the answers to the small questions will lead to the big ROI success wins.

Financial Institutions are evolving but they still must focus on customer loyalty which is a result of customer satisfaction.

Your company can build a virtuous circle of satisfaction if it focuses on key elements and can measure their progress.
We believe the principals for developing a culture of focusing on the satisfaction of the client is built around these precepts:

The primary stimulation of profit and growth is customer loyalty.

Loyalty is only realized through customer satisfaction.

Customers are satisfied when they feel the value of services provided is superior to alternatives.

High quality services are created by loyal, satisfied and productive employees.

Employees are satisfied when they can proactively contribute to the delivery of high-quality services.

The challenge of devising metrics is to have one version of the truth for all data including but not limited to finance, human resources, customer information and marketing.

"Just having high-end metrics–your ROA, delinquency ratio, and efficiency ratio–doesn’t do much good if you don’t know what’s driving them." Denny Graham, President/CEO of
FI Strategies LLC, St. Louis, MO

To make operational metrics more meaningful and actionable, financial institutions should report
these metrics in dashboards that populated with the most current data and are readily accessible to and designed by and for each level of the organization from the Board of Directors to the C Suite to the staffs of individual departments.

Manage through the windshield instead of the rear-view-mirror

Dashboard – a visual image about where we are with the ability to see where we’ve been and analyze where we want to go. It can be any variation of graph or thermometer that gives a colorful image of the data. The great thing about a dashboard/reporting system like Yellowfin http://www.yellowfinbi.com is that anyone can quickly learn how to build dashboards that can become increasingly complex and that they can share with anyone. They can be built in minutes as opposed to the weeks or months by expensive analysts that traditional dashboards have required.

Most of your better employees will have a very good idea of where they stand on a regular basis. Many do this through home built spread sheets because their systems don’t provide the answers they need. This not only creates more silos of information but it also opens up the financial institution to security concerns. The other big variable is the "one version of the truth" challenge. How does management know that a definition of a transaction or action is identical in every department? It’s only when all of the data is available in one dashboard system will true data integrity be an achievable goal.

There is no "one size fits all" solution but there is no reason that a financial institution must buy multiple software programs and hardware to support them nor hire expensive Data Analysts. Inteneo Systems http://www.inteneosystems.com can do all of the data normalization so that all of your data is available in the Yellowfin dashboard solution in weeks not months or years. This process can be done without having an impact on your staff so that they can continue to do what they do best. Inteneo begins this process by asking line staff for a few of their pressing challenges that may be answered by data. We’ll then build a few dashboards that should begin the process of answering the question. Your staff will now be able to expand on the dashboard or build new ones to answer other questions of find important cross-department metrics. It becomes their system instead of something handed down by management. The Financial Institution has now launched into a new way of doing business through the windshield instead of by looking at the rear-view-mirror.

***

Case Study: Credit Union with $350 million in assets

This Credit Union takes a quality-over-quantity approach to its operational
metrics. Several years ago they came to the conclusion that they were trying to track too many metrics and they needed to narrow down their analysis and focus. Managers in each branch wrote branch specific business plans as if they were a stand-alone business that focused on the needs of their specific members to only survive but thrive.

Key metrics now include:

Mechanical breakdown protection, GAP, debt protection and other noninterest income opportunities, loan: applications, time to approval, approval %, time to disbursal, total value and referrals, new members, retention, employee recruitment success, employee retention.

New programs include personal outreach to inactive checking account members, limited account members and new members with specific goals for increased activity.

These goals require a higher degree of customer awareness for no only the call center but for all employees. Metrics have been developed to not only monitor their expertise but also their success in increasing customer satisfaction and activity.

Employees are able to monitor dashboards of metrics with peer comparisons in areas such as assets per employee, staffing, and checking accounts opened. Everyone can see where we’re in sync and where they might need to improve across various lines of business.

These real time metrics encourage everyone to continually explore new ways to not only measure success but increase productivity in day-to-day operations.

***

Case Study: Credit Union with $12 Billion in assets and 42 branches uses its data to focus on member satisfaction metrics to drive the organization and develop strategic objectives.

It has an intense program of surveys for current members as well as new members a few days after they join. Questions focus on member satisfaction, employee expertise and organizational efficiency. Quick follow up with new members helps to solve an problems and become more aware of "institutional excellence creep" when processes or operations erode from expected goals.

The goal is to listen to the members in every way possible with dashboards monitoring activity success that guides management. The most watched metric is zero cost member referrals which is a basic indication of member satisfaction.

The credit union has found and corrected a variety
of "pain points" through these surveys and the resulting metrics by not just looking at the scores but looking at areas where action is possible.

***

Case Study: A 7 branch credit union with $480 million in assets goes even further in the customer satisfaction area.

One-hundredth of a point difference on member satisfaction scores can stand between a bonus
and a double bonus for employees of this Credit Union.

This dashboard keeps everyone focused on providing extraordinary customer service.

The member satisfaction rating is one component of their dashboard inventory. Other dashboard indicators include
employee satisfaction, organizational efficiency, and financial performance otherwise known as "regulator satisfaction."

The scorecard is monitored by the C suite and board with red, yellow and green levels so that everyone can know immediately the status of these components of the organization.

It’s been an evolutionary process to develop these metrics over 3 years so that there was an equal weight on both individual as well as team performance when bonuses were considered. This has moved performance reviews from being subjective to a combination of objective and subjective so there’s more consistency with a better understanding between each employee and their manager. It’s not a surprise since everyone has been monitoring the dashboards during the previous year.

The member satisfaction metric is composed of responses from transactional surveys from members who’ve used services during the previous month. Everyone can read individual responses and managers are encouraged to contact members for further responses. "Most members are so shocked–and pleased–to be contacted that sometimes we’ll get their loan business or checking account. People are
always amazed that we follow up with them–it’s a great way for us to stand apart from the competition."

Additional factors include mystery shopper results with "perfect customer service" being the goal. Products per household is another key component. Information included from the CRM system includes cross-selling opportunities and success which are measured for the organization, by branch, and by employee.

This emphasis on sales and services was a new focus, and it took a shift in the culture, but employees have come to understand how it affects the whole organization. Employees can clearly see the link between what they do each and every day and what it means for the Credit Union. If you’re a tad off on one of the categories, that can make a difference.

Meetings at a specific time each day to review dashboards and reports are now a key part of reinforcing the goal of total customer service to better serve their members. They also highlight small but incremental improvements to operations and solicit new ideas which can all lead to big gains throughout the credit union.

The goal is to have every employee constantly thinking of how they can improve every contact they have with a member to not only complete the customer’s transaction but to provide them information about additional services. If they treat the members well, the entire organization benefits.

A result of these discussions has been a metric to measure response times. Everyone now knows that this is a key component of member satisfaction and an easy way to set the credit union apart from the competition.

Over time, hundreds of other metrics have been developed to identify trends and anomalies in operations
that might affect financial performance and organizational efficiency.

Employees are empowered rather than limited by these metrics. The dashboards are driving them to be more than order takers. They’re finding these things and taking the ball and running with it which leads to happier and more engaged employees.

The overall result has been that the employees continue to exceed expectations for customer satisfaction and have contributed to ever increasing operational improvements.

***

Yellowfin Business Intelligence Provides Solutions for Financial Services Customers

Yellowfin helps the financial industry answer its toughest questions quickly and accurately, everyday. Decision-makers, from across their respective businesses, are able to access the critical information they need – anywhere, anytime, via any device – to take the most effective action possible.
With Yellowfin, financial organizations can:

* Analyze and deliver better products, services and value to current and future customers

* Reduce expenditure by better understanding and streamlining operations

* Rapidly identify and act on emerging business opportunities and changing market conditions

* Improve risk management, quality control and regulatory compliance protocols

* Maximize investment returns and margins

* Gain visibility into, and optimize, transactions processing

Full Story: http://www.matr.net/article-64107.html

***

"Inteneo Systems has helped AAA MountainWest increase revenue and productivity by the simple act of aggregating and normalizing our data. With up-to-date accurate reporting, our management team is now able to "coach through the windshield instead of the rear view mirror" by tracking producer activities in real time instead of tracking sales figures in financial statements. The clear reports we’re now able to produce also assist our producers and sales people in improving data input accuracy, as well as creating competition among the sales team to drive our sales to new levels. Days of data auditing and validation are a thing of the past. Furthermore, up-to-date audit reports capture and highlight any data that has been improperly input or has been flagged for discrepancies. Our administrative team has become more efficient. Membership analysis reports that once took hours or days to compile are now available at the click of a button and fully automated. All of this leads to one key item: we now have the data required to have the discussion and we no longer debate the number. The team trusts the numbers and we spend our time driving the company forward."

Frank Sherlock

Manager, Technology and Business Analytics

AAA MountainWest https://www.mountainwest.aaa.com/

(406) 447-8152

***

Inteneo Systems – providing the right data at the right time to the right people so that they can make the right decisions.

http://www.inteneosystems.com

406-531-8119