Contact Center Solutions Featured Article

Accenture, Backbase Partner to Help Banks Improve Customer Engagement

December 11, 2014

For frequent visitors to the Contact Center Solutions Community, the growing push to provide enterprise of all shapes, sizes and locations with omni-channel interaction capabilities—and tools to help analyze and monetize the resulting improvements in customer experience—is arguably the No. 1 trend impacting the community. Indeed, as enhancing the customer experience continues to be a C-level preoccupation because of its growing role in establishing differentiated value regardless of vertical market, a sense of urgency in investing in such capabilities is emerging.


This translates into opportunity for solutions providers in terms of providing not just new technology but professional services to help organizations transform to an efficient and effective omni-channel environment where big data and sophisticated analytics of the information generated can make all of the difference in attracting and keeping customers.

An example that interest in all of this is growing almost exponentially is the announcement that Accenture and Backbase, a provider of customer experience management technology solutions, have entered into an alliance agreement in financial services to enable banking clients to improve customer engagement through digital channels.

The alliance announcement asserted, “In their ambition to create superior digital customer experiences, banks are usually hampered by the fact that relevant information and functionality are often stuck in multiple legacy systems, making them difficult to integrate with.”

The companies explained that the alliance is designed to leverage Backbase’s portfolio of customer experience management technology solutions and Accenture’s banking industry expertise. The latter includes digital distribution and marketing strategy and core banking services. The partners are focusing on providing banks with end-to-end solutions to support their digital transformation strategy, “helping them cost-efficiently optimize digital sales, increase customer loyalty and enhance operational efficiency.”

The foundation of the effort is the Backbase Customer Experience Platform (CXP), a fully-featured omni-channel platform.  It features a complete set of integrated customer experience management functions, including dynamic content development and digital marketing campaign creation across multiple channels without the involvement of IT teams, and can be integrated with any existing banking IT systems.

“Leading banks no longer think of themselves as mere providers of financial products and services and enablers of transactions,” said Juan Pedro Moreno, senior managing director of Accenture’s global Banking practice. “They will be providers of solutions, playing a greater role not just at the moment of transaction, but before and afterwards as well, aspiring to be at the center of the digital life of their customers. We refer to this as the ‘Everyday Bank’ strategy, a vision that calls for a new way of thinking about the role of banks in the digital era. The alliance we have formed with Backbase will help banks implement this vision by enabling them to deliver superior, personalized, relevant, fast and frictionless services anytime and anywhere.”

“In their ambition to create superior digital customer experiences, banks are usually hampered by the fact that relevant information and functionality are often stuck in multiple legacy systems, making them difficult to integrate with,” added Jouk Pleiter, Backbase CEO. “Backbase CXP can be deployed over any existing system, and is able to pull any content, applications, or functionalities from these silos and combine all of it into fresh, new interfaces, or composite applications, without compromising enterprise security. Our platform, which is already used by more than 50 financial institutions around the world, combined with Accenture’s deep industry knowledge and global track record for delivering digital transformation projects, can help more banks pursue their ambitions and become truly customer-centric.”

The realities of the omni-channel world are having the ability to listen to all of the voices, connect the dots and respond rapidly and effectively.  It means using platforms and tools to be hopefully first to market, fast-to-market and fast in the market.  What it means for organizations looking to accomplish this is having what has to be an ecosystem of solutions providers who not only have next generation technology solutions, but also have the vertical industry knowledge and ability to help organizations get from where they are now to where they know they need to be in order to succeed.  It is why alliances such as Accenture and Backbase are going to become even more common in 2015.  

 



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