Customer intelligence: a pillar of the BCF's new digital platform

WAX Interactive was chosen by the Fribourg Cantonal Bank (BCF) to implement a transformation programme. The Swiss bank's aim was to accelerate its digital transformation in order to overhaul the user journey and improve customer retention and loyalty by using a coherent cross-channel strategy supported by the development of online banking services.

BCF: A BANK WITH STRONG LOCAL ROOTS

The Fribourg Cantonal Bank has been a leading bank since 1892. It supports the development of companies and the economic base in the canton of Fribourg. With total assets of nearly 19 billion euros in 2014, the BCF is a solid establishment that is a true symbol of personal and corporate banking. As a responsible business, the BCF uses its expertise to better understand, anticipate and meet its clients' needs.
 

A SINGLE GUIDING PRINCIPLE: PERSONALISE THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Thanks to the digital revolution, every aspect of the customer relationship has been transformed, including before, during and after the sale. Clients are now well-informed and know what they want! The BCF's challenge was to offer a modern, fast, customised and personal experience for clients. The BCF needed to develop a new, omni-channel digital platform that could be introduced seamlessly as well as demonstrate the tangible impact of these new practices.The project encompasses a variety of challenges:

• Add value to customer relations: for more accurate targeting of offers and actions to take with customers.
• Convey the BCF's values: use digital technology to spread awareness of its commitments, including eco-responsibility, close customer relationships, security, etc.
• Improve its working tools: ensure relevant, swift responses to the needs of clients or prospects, helping to improve market reaction times while simplifying and automating its internal processes.

Anne Maillard Magnin, Deputy Manager of the Fribourg Cantonal Bank, explained: 'With regard to customer relations, the fact that clients want to have access to all our products 24/7 across all digital devices and receive quick responses from our advisors has fundamentally changed the nature of the game. They are no longer willing to wait!"
 

A DUAL RESPONSE FOR A SUCCESSFUL TRANSFORMATION

A multi-prong solution to provide support for the BCF's transformation programme was proposed in response to the call for tender in 2012. This cross-functional project with its two main areas of focus is perfectly calibrated for WAX Interactive (consulting, marketing and business strategy and the overhaul of the website) and for SQLI Enterprise (BI, CRM optimisation, integration of solutions and industrialisation of business processes).

WAX INTERACTIVE ROLLS OUT THE NEW, UNIFIED DIGITAL PLATFORM

The WAX Interactive teams focused their efforts on delivering a new, unified digital platform. WAX Interactive drew on its expertise to fully overhaul the bank's visual identity and develop its new customer-centric website. In order to provide a full range of online banking services, the BCF modernised its new web architecture by aligning its web services with its in-store services. A customer account area offering e-banking solutions provides a richer user experience, which is at the core of this overhaul. These new tools also allow clients to do everything online from making payments to ordering products or setting appointments with their advisors.

Anne Maillard Magnin, explained that, "We chose WAX Interactive because no other company was capable of meeting all of our needs. As far as we were concerned, we wanted a single partner who would be able to do everything."
 

SQLI ENTERPRISE REVOLUTIONISES THE BCF'S PRACTICES

The SQLI Enterprise teams integrated the eZ Publish4 CMS as well as the SAP CRM solution in order to manage the site data with a two-way link to the bank’s computer systems. For the BCF, these new tools will help to transform information into customer knowledge and concrete actions to enhance the profitability of its business activities. 

This new system will be used to centralise information for bank advisers. It will also improve the following activities by making them more efficient: analysing statistical and behavioural data, enriching "useful" client data by bringing in external data, implementing marketing campaigns, portfolios and contacts, and organising sales staff and sales capabilities in response to measured and differentiated client segments and sales potential. This means that when a client sends an email to their banking advisor, that data will be used to automatically enrich their CRM entry.
 

A RECORD LEVEL OF ORDERS FOR THE BCF

WAX Interactive and the BCF worked iteratively using an agile method to provide concrete responses in order to enhance customer relations, boost sales, transform the website into a unified and informative digital platform, convey the bank's values, industrialise its marketing processes and develop a multi-channel service offering. The bet has paid off for the BCF: since the new site was launched, clients have completely adopted the new tools and the bank's advisors use the new CRM on a daily basis.The BCF also reported a 35% growth in orders over the past six months!