A digital onboarding system is the best way to achieve this. The client can go through the well laid out and carefully designed process in the comfort of his/her environment, while leisurely browsing through company profiles and product offerings. Financial institutions will find themselves empowered to take control, and build a relationship with the customer from initial registration to welcome kits and subsequent cross-sell and up-sell activities.

The road to success

Building a digital onboarding system is not an easy task. From the onset, financial institutions need a true, extensive view of their clients to enhance their experience throughout the organisation. An efficient customer strategy to winning the hearts and minds of our clients is essential and not a complex thing to achieve, as most customers just want to feel that they are valued and wanted.

Besides the customer strategy, financial institutions need to invest in a suitable IT system, as the absence thereof has become a major roadblock leading to operational breaks in the client onboarding flow according to the ‘Efficient client onboarding’ whitepaper published on www.cognizant.com.

The next step in building a successful digital onboarding solution lies in good data. Matching and merging existing data into comprehensive records and ensuring that new data is true and complete will offer the insight required to improve customer loyalty and lifespan value. The wealth of information that can be obtained is only priceless when it is accurate and can be transformed into business intelligence.

Shifting the focus

While the central focus of a digital onboarding solution is to give customers a satisfying experience and so ensuring retention, there is a far greater value in it for financial institutions. The effectiveness of sales and targeted marketing campaigns is increased dramatically as they know their clients so well that they can offer the products and services best matched to their needs. This in turn leads to increased effectiveness through customer profiling and more revenue through cross-marketing.

Another aspect that is gained is improved risk management and governance, especially when taking the governmental reporting and disclosure requirements into consideration. It is vital for financial institutions to know their customers and to centralize and maintain high data quality with rigorous validation standards.

Next week we will look at client onboarding using social media…

Firstly, this approach requires a potential client to go to a certain office or branch in order to request an application form. He/she needs to take the time to fill in all the details and again wait to submit the form. Usually there is somebody who can assist the client if necessary.

A lengthy process now begins that is shared between several different departments. The details are captured, verified, supporting documents obtained, the form filed, the client informed of the outcome and eventually the process is complete. The relationship with the client is now established.

Often there are unforeseen complications, such as an incomplete or misplaced application form, errors made by the client or the capturer, missing supporting documents and more time is needed to get the required information. Then we need to ensure that the client understands the legal terms and that we comply with industry regulations.

If all goes well, the entire onboarding process using a written application form shouldn’t take more than a day or two, which the client anticipated from the start. If something is incorrect the client has to be contacted in order to update the information, which may involve more paper work and an already unhappy customer.

But imagine his/her delight if it would only take five minutes. Done and dusted in five minutes. That would be incredible! Our clients would be raving fans before we even sell anything.

Taking all of this into consideration, it is no wonder that client onboarding is viewed as a routine process and not as a gigantic opportunity to build relationships. But what keeps us stapled to the application form approach?

First and foremost the absence of a flexible or scalable IT system to onboard clients has been a main barrier. Without a suitable IT system, there is simply no onboarding flow. Many financial institutions have multiple systems and need to find ways to ensure proper interactions between them. And that is no easy task. While onboarding clients with emails and faxes is completely acceptable, any automation in this process would enable faster onboarding, verified data and happier clients.