Banking on happy customers

International financial institution BBVA invested heavily in digital banking and realized a remarkable 117% growth in new customers in the last few years.

Continuous reinvention, BBVA knows, is the secret to happy customers. From its founding in the 19th century, it has sought to stay ahead of the times with forward-thinking innovations.

And since 2007, the bank has been giving customers experiences that delight—thanks to investments in cloud, data and artificial intelligence (AI)—helping BBVA post a profit of €8.02B in 2023, the highest earnings in its history.

BBVA launched its digital banking app in 2011 and the subsequent development of a comprehensive digital sales model has set the stage for today’s reinvention era.

Financial flex

We worked with BBVA to reinvent its digital sales capabilities and operations and consolidate its agency networks across geographies and focus on hyper-personalization to reach each individual customer.

The new digital sales model combines BBVA’s first-party data with new data sources to provide a step-by-step view of the customer journey. Employees can manage and optimize data as needed.

This allows BBVA to prioritize sales initiatives for new customers and cross-sell to existing customers. The new model also incorporates strategy and planning, paid media, search engine optimization, marketing automation, analytics, and content production for BBVA’s digital channels, such as social media, to reach individuals in customized ways.

Combining digital performance, creativity, end-to-end analytics, intelligence and strong talent, this model strengthened the human connection of local service while capturing efficiencies that can be scaled globally.

The pay off

BBVA’s reinvented sales model is having a massive, positive impact—including a cost-to-income ratio reduction of 41.7%, one of the best among European banks. And more than 50 million customers are interacting with BBVA through mobile channels. Additionally, digital channels accounted for more than 79% of overall sales during the same period.

This global strategy is helping the bank expand its footprint in specific countries and regions. For instance, in Italy it enabled BBVA to attract new customers and increase sales on its website through a fully digital bank. BBVA opened in new markets in the country with a full digital value proposition that inspired 130,000 new customers to join in the first year alone—a figure which has risen to more than 450,000 in the time since.

Today, BBVA’s digital sales model and tools continue attracting and engaging customers with relevant experiences that add real value. And, most importantly, empower customers with the confidence to make financial decisions.