Fintech firms have raised the bar when it comes to convenience. There are now 1230 fintech apps in Asia Pacific alone that make it easier than ever for consumers to borrow, make payments, save, and invest.
Some innovation in fintech is driven by back office teams responsible for the manufacturing of products and services. However, what sets many fintechs apart from one another and traditional financial services firms is their front office innovation.
The front office in finance is responsible for the complete distribution of products and services. It comprises customer-facing functions like sales, marketing, and customer service. These functions are all critical for winning and maintaining customer loyalty.
So for fintechs, banks, and other financial services firms to succeed, creating an effective front office is a good place to start. Here are tips on where to focus and how Salesforce can help.
Transforming the front office through digitalisation
First and foremost, front office teams need the data and tools to provide an exceptional customer experience. They also need the right technology to streamline service delivery and minimise costs.
Digitalisation provides a solution to all these challenges. More to the point, a truly digital front office enables a seamless and connected customer experience. It also effectively closes the personalisation gap in financial services. This means customers can enjoy personalised experiences, across whatever channel they choose to interact.
In addition, digitalisation and automation often go hand-in-hand. And the experts interviewed for our Future of Financial Services report agree that automation plays a critical role in the delivery of fast and accurate service. Automation also enables the easy and transparent experiences that customers seek. For example, automating manual, repetitive tasks speeds up processes like customer onboarding.
Combined with technologies like artificial intelligence, automation can also help financial services firms engage with customers at the right time, on the right channel and offer them the right set of products and services.
How Salesforce supports front office innovation
Salesforce Customer 360 can help financial services firms to transform their front office. It unites sales, service, marketing, and other front office teams around a shared view of the customer. They can then work together to personalise every step of the customer journey.
For instance, using Customer Data Platform marketers can hyper-personalise communication. They can also tailor product offers and recommendations based on customers’ goals or pivotal life events. With Tableau and CRM Analytics, advisors or relationship managers can better understand the customer journey. They can then contextualise engagement and take data-driven actions to minimise customer churn.
Slack keeps teams aligned and speeds up decision-making, ultimately helping them work more efficiently and deliver more value to customers.
MuleSoft can further help to create an effective, digital front office. By integrating multiple systems, for example, MuleSoft can support a more automated and connected customer experience.
The integration platform can also help the industry to collaborate on the distribution of products and services. For example, fintechs can use application programming interfaces (APIs) to securely connect to a bank’s systems and data. They can then distribute the bank’s products while layering innovative, personalised services on top. They can also use experience APIs to expose specific data to mobile apps where it can be securely consumed by customers.
We are seeing similar movements in the industry already with the rise of banking-as-a-service (BaaS) in ASEAN. With BaaS, banks allow their products or services to be embedded into the offerings of fintechs. The fintechs then market and sell the services as their own, effectively acting as the front office or distribution layer of banks.
This creates new streams of revenue for both companies and, more importantly, provides customers with more meaningful products and experiences.
For further insights on how digitalisation can transform the front office, download our e-book Unleashing Fintech’s Potential.
