Salesforce, the global leader in CRM, today released its Trends in Financial Services report which shows how financial services institutions struggle to keep up with the pace of change driven by the global pandemic. An analysis of two waves of survey data fielded in 2019 and 2020 shows that the customer experience suffered in response, leading organizations to reshuffle their priorities and drive competitive advantage with new technologies.
Salesforce Research surveyed nearly 2,800 global leaders in insurance, retail banking and wealth management across North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia Pacific, including 196 respondents from Canada at two key junctures – immediately preceding the pandemic, and again nearly a year later. Combined, these two studies provide a unique perspective into the financial services industry’s evolution and what it now takes to succeed, uncovering the following insights:
- How health and economic crises are upending financial services’ priorities, exposing the cracks in digital foundations and a need to improve customer experiences (CX)
- Growth strategies and tactics adopted by financial services institutions (FSIs)
- The importance of innovations like autonomous finance — which Forrester defines as algorithm-driven financial services that make decisions or take action on a customer’s behalf – will enable financial services institutions to deliver superior customer experiences at scale, and drive entirely new value streams
New for this year, the report features interactive data available in Tableau, highlighting the key findings by country and by financial sectors.
Here are the insights from local respondents in Canada:
Financial Institutions Reshuffle Priorities Amid the Crisis
The pandemic upended every industry – including financial services. Canadian FSIs completely reshuffled their 2019 priorities, with developing new products and services rising to be the #1 priority in 2020 from #4 in 2019. As priorities changed, so too did customer satisfaction. A global look at customer satisfaction shows major gaps: only 27% of global customers describe FSIs as completely customer-centric. Even fewer, 23% of global customers believe FSIs handled the crisis as best as they could have.*
Financial Services Providers Adopt New Tactics to Respond to Pandemic
Our research also included net-new questions in 2020 to uncover different tactics employed by financial services leaders in response to the crisis. In Canada, 76% of FSIs agree that focusing on client financial well-being is more important since the onset of COVID-19. At the same time, 74% say expanding services has grown in importance since the pandemic started. However, considerably fewer Canadian FSIs are taking concrete steps in response. Only 36%are investing in omni-channel service and 39% are emphasizing client financial wellness.
Achieving Growth Objectives At Scale Requires Intelligent Automation
As personalized, on-demand experiences become the norm across other verticals, customer demands for improved financial experiences are spurring change in the industry. In Canada, 81% of financial services leaders in 2020 agree autonomous finance will soon be critical to being a top performer.
For more information:
- Salesforce Newsroom post: Lessons from Nearly 2,800 Financial Services Leaders on Resilience in the Face of Crisis
- Salesforce interactive Tableau Dashboard with country-specific data and by financial sectors
- Salesforce Trends in Financial Services Report
Methodology
Data in this report is from a double-blind survey conducted in two waves. The first was fielded from November 12 through December 12, 2019 that generated responses from 1,400 leaders in insurance, retail banking, and wealth management across North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia Pacific regions. The second wave was fielded from August 21 through September 21, 2020 that generated responses from 1,360 leaders in the same sectors and geographies. All respondents are third-party panelists (not limited to Salesforce customers). Due to rounding, not all percentage totals in this report equal 100%. All comparisons are made from unrounded numbers. Countries surveyed include Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nordics, Spain and UK. Cultural bias impacts survey results.