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In 2024, financial services marketers will navigate a mixed landscape of opportunities and challenges. The good news is that interest rate margins are likely to reach a balanced level, which could stimulate consumer spending while allowing some price flexibility. Additionally, the sector's ongoing AI transformation is expected to drive new efficiencies and cost savings for financial services providers.
However, several challenges loom on the horizon. Rising geopolitical tensions may increase volatility and lead to restrictions on trade and investment, impacting the economy and potentially affecting financial services operations. Moreover, regional lenders may face vulnerabilities in the post-SVB era, encountering headwinds such as higher funding costs, regulatory pressures, and weakening credit quality.
Below, we’ll dive into these trends in more detail, and share how leading healthcare providers use revenue execution platforms to drive sustained growth in today’s climate.
The financial services industry makes up a significant portion of total US digital ad spend. After a remaining stagnant during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is now beginning to regain momentum. Experts project financial services digital ad spend will increase 10% year-over-year in 2024 and 11% in 2025.
As the digital advertising landscape continues to become more competitive — and costs per lead continue to rise — financial services marketers will face increasing pressure to prove their digital marketing ROI and optimise their spend to acquire more customers at a lower cost.
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, central banks offered low interest rates in an effort to stimulate consumer spending and keep the economy humming. In 2023, interest rates rose sharply as banks around the world began to taper their quantitative easing programs. This increase in interest rates was designed to curb inflation, which reached a decades-high watermark in the U.S.
The high interest rates have had significant ramifications for financial services providers, as they raised mortgage rates and borrowing costs. This has curbed demand for lending services and forced consumers to spend and invest more cautiously.
Analysts predict that later this year, interest rates will reach more balanced levels, which will create a more favorable business environment for financial services providers. A decrease in interest rates would increase borrowing and spur a wave of mortgage refinancing.
The hype around AI has been building over the past couple of years, and financial services companies are taking notice. Industry leaders are using the new technology to transform their operations and unlock new revenue efficiencies.
Below are a few ways that financial services companies are using AI in 2024 and beyond:
The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) highlighted vulnerabilities within the lending sector, prompting regulators to consider stricter oversight measures. Policymakers may introduce reforms to address structural vulnerabilities within the lending sector, such as excessive leverage and speculative lending practices. Measures to promote transparency, accountability, and responsible lending practices could be implemented to restore confidence in the lending industry and protect the interests of consumers and investors.
Overall, lenders may face a more regulated environment in the aftermath of SVB's crisis. Financial services providers will need to ensure they’re complying with any future safeguards and oversight practices that are implemented as a result.
For many years, financial services consumers have increased their use of mobile banking and other virtual services. There was an even more dramatic increase of mobile usage during the height of the pandemic in 2020, as consumers limited their in-person interactions with financial services providers.
A national survey conducted by the American Bankers Association found that in the past 12 months, 45% of bank customers used apps on smartphones or other mobile devices as their top option for managing their bank accounts. But the online experience often isn’t enough — 37% of customers also want instant access to a live agent via a phone call or video chat. These interactions are often a critical phase of the purchase cycle, helping to clear up their hesitations and answer their lingering pre-purchase questions.
In addition, many insurance customers are now starting their journey on mobile. Over 50% of insurance searches are performed on mobile devices.
Providing a seamless mobile experience — online and over the phone — will be critical for 2022.
Going hand-in-hand with the last trend, financial services consumers will demand seamless omnichannel experiences across their entire journey. To earn their business, you’ll need to ensure they feel valued and known every step of the way.
According to a recent survey, 50% of banking consumers want a seamless mix of physical and digital services during their buying journey. However, despite the importance of omnichannel marketing, 94% of banking firms aren’t delivering personalised experiences.
This trend is also critical in the insurance space, where 88% of insurance customers say they want more personalisation from providers.
To get an edge over the competition in 2022, financial services and insurance companies need to embrace personalisation across channels. This means providing a seamless experience as they transition from online research to phone calls to brick-and-mortar interactions.
The trends above paint a bigger picture of how financial services consumer behavior is changing. In the wake of the pandemic, consumers have become accustomed to interacting with their financial services providers online and over the phone, placing increased importance on these channels.
With more consumers researching online first and calling agents and locations for information or to make purchases, financial services marketers need to have a strategy in place to ensure that they’re providing a seamless experience over the phone. Expectations for the consumer journey are at an all-time high — and this includes the call channel. Failing to deliver frictionless call experiences will cost you revenue.
PCI-compliant revenue execution platformslike Invoca allow you to understand the webpages, marketing campaigns, and keywords driving not only the most calls — but the highest quality calls to your agents and locations. This allows you to optimise your marketing spend for the programs that are truly driving the most sales. It also allows you to defend your marketing spend to your leadership team by proving your full impact on revenue.
For instance, a certain wealth management search campaign may be driving a high volume of calls to your locations. However, once you use a revenue execution platform, you may discover many of these calls are not sales-related — they’re customer experience issues. You could then decrease spend on this campaign, and instead allocate it to one that’s driving more sales-related calls. This increases the overall revenue potential and quality of the calls coming into your phone lines.
Revenue execution platforms like Invoca help you create seamless call experiences that increase customer acquisition. They provide detailed reports on answer inbound call rates and call handling performance at each location or call centre that you can use to detect customer experience issues.
For example, you can see if your calls are going unanswered at specific locations and what days and times those unanswered calls occur. You can then diagnose if your marketing is sending calls to locations when they are closed or understaffed, and make adjustments.
Phone calls are one of the richest sources of customer data, but it’s difficult for marketers to unlock these insights — listening to every call isn’t feasible or scalable. Invoca solves this problem by using AI to capture insights and identify trends from your phone conversations at scale.
You can use these insights to streamline your operations in a variety of ways. For example, your marketing team can update their messaging to align with the way your customers are speaking about your product, or add new keywords to their SEO strategy. Your contact centre managers can track how well agents stick to their talk tracks, and coach them more effectively. Finally, your operations team may learn about new market opportunities or services that your firm doesn’t currently offer.
If your contact centre is like most, you’re facing high call volumes and a lack of resources. This can harm customer satisfaction and close rates, as callers are forced to endure long hold times and multiple transfers.
Thankfully, revenue execution platforms can solve this all-too-common problem. By using data from the caller's digital journey before the call, the platform can automatically route callers to the agent best equipped to handle their inquiries. It can also give the agent relevant information about the caller’s digtial journey via a screen pop so they can answer with a personalised greeting. This not only enhances the customer experience by providing timely and relevant assistance, but also increases the likelihood of conversion by ensuring that every interaction is handled with expertise and care.
Want to learn more about how Invoca helps financial services providers use Invoca to create seamless customer experiences? Check out these resources:
