Two New CRM Apps Target Banking Industry

Over the last week, two partnerships -- Pegasystems (Nasdaq: PEGA) and IBM (NYSE: IBM), and Amdocs (NYSE: DOX) and SAS -- have emerged to offer new CRM applications for the banking industry.

The timing no doubt was happenstance, but the dual product rollouts illustrate the attraction this sector has for the CRM industry. In fact, banking is the top industry-specific vertical in the CRM space, based on figures from IDC.

The new releases also illustrate why financial service providers in general are such avid consumers of CRM technology. In financial services, more than in other industries, maintaining and expanding upon existing client relationships is crucial to growth.

"Studies have shown that a banking customer who buys three or four products from an institution is more likely to remain with it, compared to a customer that only has, for instance, a checking account," Mike Blum, president of financial services division at Amdocs, told CRM Buyer.

Dynamic Pricing and Bundling

Amdocs' new product release, Dynamic Pricing and Profitability Management (DPPM), leverages SAS' Banking Intelligence architecture to build upon an earlier release of a pricing and product catalog.

The software can assist banks and their customers in negotiating terms of transactions. For example, say a bank customer who already has a mortgage and car loan wants to add a home equity line.

The banker and customer can use the application to play with the figures and find the best price points. The bank might offer to shave a quarter off the loan interest rate, perhaps, if the customer would agree to make loan payments via automatic checking account drafts.

The two companies have partnered in various endeavors in the past. However, Blum noted that this marks the first time that Amdocs is applying SAS analytics to a mainline application.

The two companies plan to build additional functionality around this concept of dynamic bundling, he added.

"We would like to provide support for face-to-face customer interactions," said Blum, "so when a high net worth individual walks into a bank, the rep can sit with that person, identify his future requirements, and put together a bundle of products specifically designed to those needs."

Cross-Sell, Up-Sell and Close

Pegasystems and IBM have partnered to roll out a new contact center offering for the banking industry.

Called "IBM Service to Sales Transformation," the offering incorporates IBM's consulting services with business rules and process management applications, analytics, and portal technologies provided by its ISV (independent software vendor) partners, including Pegasystems.

Features in this rollout include more elaborate business process rules to help the customer service rep cross-sell and up-sell products and services -- and then close the deal , Willy Fox, director of product management for Pegasystems, told CRM Buyer.

"Rather than filling out a form and pushing it to the next department, the rules guide the agent to complete the transaction," he said.