Customer proximity as a competitive factor for banks and insurance companies

How can banks and insurance companies stay close to their customers online? A study by Unic provides answers. Unic, a leading provider of integrated e-business solutions for e-commerce, digital communication and collaboration in Europe, publishes the results of its latest benchmark study on Swiss banks and insurance companies. The benchmark evaluates the customer proximity in the digital world of the 18 largest Swiss banks and 25 largest insurance companies and at the same time identifies the development potential.Changing customer requirementsInsurance companies and banks are confronted with a significant change in customer requirements. Bank customers are increasingly emancipated and want to find out about products themselves; insurance customers are more independent, have a greater interest in dialog, and are increasingly price-sensitive.Against this backdrop, customer proximity is becoming a strategic success factor that ensures competitiveness: the more a customer feels taken care of and understood, the higher his emotional attachment to the company. Today, consumers are increasingly choosing to contact banks and insurance companies via digital channels - web or mobile. It is therefore crucial for players in the FSI industry to really live customer proximity, especially at these touchpoints.Digital presences convinceIn this context, the benchmark conducted by Unic shows the degree of customer proximity already implemented by Swiss banks and insurance companies and evaluates this on the basis of the dimensions of customer experience, self-service and channel management. In addition, the benchmark shows in which areas the greatest potential for the industries lies.Basically, it can be seen that the Swiss banks and insurance companies have dutifully done their homework for their digital presence in recent years. The majority of the companies surveyed provide their customers with relevant information on their services and core products in a well-structured manner on the web and already have some intuitive, usable online tools in place. In terms of web usability, the companies assessed were also in a reasonable position.Consulting approach often missingHowever, there is plenty of room for optimization at both banks and insurance companies. In the case of banks in particular, it can be seen that online communication is still very much oriented toward the internal view of the company instead of focusing on the customer's life situation. A concrete example of this is that many banks simply provide customers with bank- and product-specific information instead of mapping their consulting approach online. Many insurers still place too little emphasis on emotional appeal, customer orientation, interaction options and customer portals. Customer portals in particular offer great potential for customer proximity by creating transparency about existing contracts, transactions, and master data and thus integrating customers more closely into business processes. In terms of channel management, some insurers also seem to have completely slept through the trend toward mobile use.UBS and Swiss Life shineIn the overall ranking, UBS, Luzerner Kantonalbank, Zürcher Kantonalbank and Raiffeisen top the benchmark list. In the insurance sector, the top performers this year are Swiss Life, Mobiliar and AXA Winterthur, which stand out from all the companies surveyed with a very good result.