The BFSI industry today is hyper-competitive; increasingly products and services in the market place are beginning to 'look like each other'. They do the same things, they are priced the same – and it is becoming increasingly difficult to own a market segment on the basis of product superiority / differentiation alone. Given that, consumers form opinions about a brand on the basis of the experience they have when they interact with the vendor organization for some reason. That interaction has indeed become the moment of truth; defines customer experience and determines whether or not, the consumer stays with the organization.

As specialists in the Customer Interaction Management domain, Servion has the distinction of having designed and implemented customer interaction solutions for all the top financial institutions in India. That experience and expertise allows us to tailor make solutions based on specific requirements customers have. Some of the challenges faced by the customers in this domain are:

Differentiated customer service - To optimize each customer relationship through differential treatment. For an organization today the foremost challenge is to cut through the clutter of the existing product and service offers. The next logical step for the organization is to train and enable its agents to be able to use the information in the most appropriate manner. For instance, the organization can have real-time suggestions appearing on its agents' screen, prompting them to interact with the customer in a specific way.

Non availability of data - To reduce long hold times and address the non availability of data at fingertips.

Call process analysis - To upgrade multiple Call Centers and provide better customer experience.

Organizational expansion and need to upgrade technology - In an organization specific situation management of large scale expansion of banks across segments, channels and products and also respond to the banks' capability to respond to customer queries and interactions.

Brand value - To retain brand value in an outsourced Call Center.

Customer retention and acquisition - There is a fierce battle in the financial services market to eat into each other’s pie in terms of the customer base. With increasing competition, the race to hold on to the vacillating yet loyal customer base is thus a challenge.

Customer expectations vs. organizational perception - The area of customer service is a sticky scenario with a major disparity in the way an organization feels it delivers customer service to what the customers actually get. For example, 40% of the customers in the banking sector express dissatisfaction with self-service solutions, whereas banks feel that their customers are more than satisfied owing to approximately 75% utilization of self-service solutions.

Changing technology - The ever changing technology to meet the customer demands and take customer experience to the next level is now what sets the competitors apart. Given this, the implementation and the scalability of technology play a vital role.

Integration of business, technology, and customer care - The other crucial issue facing an organization is to bring about an integration of these three vital pillars namely business development, customer care and information technology and develop a customer-facing solution to enhance the organization's customer interaction processes.

No more 'brick and mortar' insurance firms - The growing pressure of the market conditions, the need to maintain and grow market share, to establish a meaningful brand identity and the entry of more nimble entrants is thus breaking down traditional barriers found in the brick and mortar firms.

Customer share - One of the major targets of insurance firms is to increase the 'wallet share' of customers by cross selling insurance products to the existing customers during customer service.

Revenue generation - Organizations are aware that every time a customer interacts with them, they have an opportunity to cross sell or up sell their products and services. With the customer information they have, how can they provide online ‘prompting’ to agents enabling them to get the most out of their interactions?