Enhancing Accountholder Experience with Automated Data Management

In the constantly evolving world of financial services, one constant remains: the importance of member and customer experience. Meanwhile, data management occupies an increasingly central position in financial industry leaders’ minds.

Whether a financial institution (FI) wants to grow deposits, increase operational efficiency, or expand digital offerings, their priorities almost always connect to accountholder experience or data management in some capacity—and often, both.

In a recent webinar, we explored data management strategies to improve accountholder experiences. In case you missed it, we’ll share key insights from that session—read on to learn how optimized data management drives better experiences and how you can translate data management strategies into practical use cases with automation.

Financial institutions’ strategic priorities: where experience and data intersect

For banks and credit unions, the quest to improve member and customer experience arguably drives most priorities. While 30% of FIs have directly identified this as a top focus for the next two years, improving member and customer experience doesn’t happen in isolation—a closer look at FIs’ other top strategic priorities shows that none are wholly separate from accountholder experience:

• 54% of FIs aim to grow deposits
• 43% want to increase operational efficiency
• 38% are focused on growing loans
• 26% will prioritize boosting accountholder acquisition
• 22% are looking to add digital products or features

Each of these goals is undeniably tied to experience. FIs looking to grow deposits and loans or acquire more members or customers will reach their goals by improving accountholder experience. Those looking to increase operational efficiency or add more digital products are likely driven by a desire to improve experience; whether it’s the “how” or “why” underscoring other priorities, member and customer experience invariably plays a role in FIs’ top initiatives.

In parallel, data-related priorities are top of mind—20% of FIs say leveraging data is a key strategic priority and 38% say data analytics is one of their top tech investment priorities for the next two years. 

Like member and customer experience, data plays a role in many other priorities, even when they’re not explicitly labeled that way. For example:  

• 43% of FIs say fraud detection and mitigation is a top tech investment priority  
• 43% plan to invest in digital banking   
• 24% will prioritize investments in payments  

Whether you want to improve payment processing efficiency, more effectively detect and mitigate fraud, or offer better digital banking, data plays a role.  

So, many of FIs’ top priorities boil down to two things: improving accountholder experience and optimizing their data strategy. Here again, there’s significant overlap. For example, better data management enhances operational efficiency, which drives improved member and customer experiences.

It’s clear that prioritizing improved data management to level up accountholder experience will positively impact nearly all strategic objectives. But where should you start?

Data management strategies to improve member and customer experience

To bring this idea into focus, let’s explore four easy-to-understand pillars of an optimized data management strategy:

1. Leverage the power of orchestration

ETL tools are great at normalizing data and transforming it from transactional systems to systems optimized for querying and analytics, but they’re not always great at coordinating all the data movements that need to occur.  

For FIs that pull data from multiple, unrelated systems, leveraging a solution capable of data orchestration ensures that data movements happen successfully, at the right time, and in the right order, making orchestration a fundamental component of an elevated data management strategy.

2. Take human error out of the equation

Members and customers expect perfection from their FIs. Not only do they want more efficient processing than ever, but they also have a very low tolerance for errors. Unfortunately, mistakes happen—and they’re expensive. A clerical error in a manual process very publicly cost Citigroup hundreds of millions in recent years, and poor data quality costs U.S. businesses $3.1 trillion annually.  

From double postings and command line mistakes to accidentally initiating end-of-day processes too early, almost every FI has experienced an error that impacted members or customers at least once. By eliminating as many human touchpoints as possible, banks and credit unions can ensure their critical processes run smoothly and reliably and aren’t derailed by costly errors.  

“We’ve had jobs fail because the file name wasn’t right. [With automation,] if the file isn’t found, it sends an email alert to staff. This feature keeps our files processing in a timely manner.” - WCCU

3. Embrace a path to personalization

In today’s competitive environment, personalization is key. Still, barely one in four bank customers are completely satisfied with the level of personalization they currently receive, often because FIs struggle with fragmented systems that hinder their ability to deliver customized services.

As tech-native market entrants shake up the industry, community FIs must deliver better, more customized experiences to stay competitive. That means pulling data from diverse sources and updating it across systems. The problem is that many core systems don’t communicate well (or at all) with modern applications, such as loan origination solutions, CRMs, and digital banking applications.  

By integrating these systems through a unified platform, FIs can ensure that all customer data is up-to-date and accessible across all touchpoints, streamlining data sources to build a path to personalization without creating extra manual work for employees.

4. Synchronize in real time

In an era of instant gratification, customers expect their transactions and requests to be processed immediately. That being the case, it’s no surprise that 96% of FIs plan to bolster payment services in the next two years, with FedNow Service and same-day ACH ranking among the top priorities.  

Whether they’re focused on payment services, fraud detection and mitigation, or enhancing lending capabilities (where both banks and credit unions want to focus on automated workflows or prequalification), banks and credit unions need access to up-to-date data from many disparate sources in order to achieve their goals.  

By integrating all systems into a central platform and building workflows using conditional logic, FIs can ensure data syncs in real time.  

Real-world use cases: translating data strategies into practice

These pillars are key to driving a better data management strategy, but their true power comes when they’re applied across key business functions with the help of automation.

Mortgage/loan origination and servicing

Automating elements of loan origination processes, such as file transfers from third-party systems and payment sweeps, ensures that members and customers receive accurate loan records and a higher level of service.

“With automated payment sweeps, the mortgage department can run FICS on current day, and no longer needs to turn off real-time access (RTA) during the business day. The result is more accurate, up-to-the-minute loan records and better member service.” - Achieva Credit Union  

Digital banking

By automatically importing or exporting files as needed, FIs can automate address changes, stop payments, e-bills, online bill pay, and more to ensure every member or customer enjoys a seamless digital banking experience.

Business intelligence and reporting

Synchronizing data across core systems, CRMs, and other platforms through automation enables FIs to generate comprehensive reports that inform strategic decision-making at the push of a button.

“OpCon is already helping us automate data extracts out of our core and send those files to be loaded into our CRM. We’re also planning to implement a data warehouse to receive data files from some of our other hosted solutions, like our mortgage and consumer origination systems. We plan to use OpCon to pull application data from our third-party vendors and transfer it into our data warehouse, where we can use it to conduct further analysis.”   - WCCU

Document imaging and storage

Automating the processing and storage of documents, such as check images and loan documents, streamlines operations and reduces the risk of errors. By integrating document management systems like Image Center or Nautilus with automated workflows, FIs can easily extract and route data, enabling a smoother accountholder experience.

Address priorities at the root by targeting accountholder experience

Improving member and customer experience is at the heart of many strategic priorities. By leveraging tailored data management strategies, FIs can not only enhance satisfaction but also achieve related organizational goals. Automation plays a critical role in this process, enabling FIs to optimize data management without increasing staff workload.

For deeper insights into how you can improve accountholder experience with proven data management strategies, watch the on-demand webinar.