Banking on relationships in a digital world

Transforming customers’ expectations

This large retail and commercial bank in Europe is championing the potential of the nearly 20 million people, families and businesses it serves. To build the trust upon which the bank depends, it has transformed into a relationship bank—and, more specifically, a relationship bank for the digital world.

With its transformation, the bank is committed to meeting its customers’ expectations of valuable and insightful digital experiences. That wasn’t always the case: when the bank began its journey to digitize its business, its online experiences left much to be desired. Its websites were functional, to be sure, but there were too many of them. The problem: the bank comprises many different franchises and brands, and each had launched its own website, with its own look and feel. The result was a fragmented digital presence that didn’t adequately support the bank’s goal of providing consistent, relationship-based experiences.

The first order of business, therefore, involved consolidating its disparate websites onto a single content management platform. The goal of this effort was not just to create more convenient and consistent online experiences for customers. Equally important was implementing a solution that would enable its people—especially those without advanced technical skills—to create and manage those experiences. Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) was the selected solution. It offered an industry-leading content management platform, as well as an intuitive architecture and self-service features that put the people who know the customers best in control of the digital content and relationships they hoped to build. The cloud-based solution had the added benefit of scalability, which meant it could easily accommodate the bank’s growing set of customer relationships.

Innovating solutions for customer interaction channels

For help in consolidating its digital presence across brands, the bank turned to Accenture. In addition to having world-class AEM implementation skills and a long-standing alliance relationship with Adobe, Accenture had worked with the bank on a number of strategic and technical programs over the years. Its confidence in Accenture’s record of success and in Adobe’s capabilities was well placed. In just six months, the bank had the consolidated website landscape it envisioned.

This, it turned out, was just the start of what the bank and Accenture were to accomplish. Accenture was asked to maintain and update the new Adobe environment via a managed service arrangement. In that capacity, Accenture worked closely with the bank to extend the new Adobe backbone. Together, they deployed two other Adobe solutions. The first was Adobe Campaign, which automatically delivers email, mobile, social and offline communications to customers. The second was Adobe Target, which enables the bank to design and execute online tests, segment the audience, conduct analyses, and automate the personalization of content and online experiences.

The bank also tapped Accenture’s expertise to design and build two new online features using the Adobe stack. One was a simplified online mortgage experience that not only allows potential homebuyers to understand the amount they are able to borrow and apply for, but also eliminates all paperwork and quickly, efficiently and safely guides homebuyers through the online mortgage-application process. The other was a financial health check. Built completely from scratch on the AEM platform, this innovative solution makes it possible for bank customers (and even non-customers) to understand their financial circumstances, set financial goals, and receive recommendations on how to make the most of their money. Both the mortgage experience and financial health tool were designed to be accessed from mobile devices, which the bank believed were its customers’ preferred channels of interaction.

Engaging with customers through digital channels

With Accenture’s help, the bank has unified its digital brands on a single, powerful Adobe content management system and enabled the delivery of targeted campaigns and communications for customers. The new Adobe architecture, with its intuitive design and self-service features, has empowered the bank’s experience managers to update digital content on the fly, analyze data and segment customers, and strengthen the personalized digital relationships for which the bank is known.​

The bank’s employees aren’t the only ones enjoying more engaging and rewarding experiences. Customers clearly are as well. For example, customers now receive up-to-date content and communications, targeted to their financial needs and goals. Nearly 80% of customers engaging with the bank’s digital channels are now doing so through their mobile phones.​

Customers can also take advantage of a new financial health check tool in order to gain greater control over their finances and their futures. The tool is accessible through the bank’s app and website.

Customers can better understand where they sit financially and explore areas in which the bank can help them – not only with financial services but also, more broadly, with other issues where the bank’s teams are able to assist. This is a large focus for the bank as a purpose-focused banking organization, helping families, businesses and customers thrive.​

Additionally, customers can navigate the home-buying journey from anywhere, on the digital device of their choosing. The simplified mortgage process is fully optimized for mobile, giving customers the ability to save and retrieve, and pick up exactly where they’ve left off. Clearly, customers are taken with the new mortgage solution. Since launching the feature, the bank has witnessed an approximate 78% uplift in mortgage applications coming through mobile channels. Additionally, the bank has experienced a 10X improvement in conversion rates from customers visiting the site. ​

In all these ways, the Adobe platform is enabling the bank to be a relationship bank for the digital world—one in which customers can receive the financial services they need and interact on their terms, when and where they want.