Digital brands are important. In the digital age, customers do research on their financial decisions before they even contact the bank. They Google, talk to friends and colleagues on social networks, and look at the websites for both the institutions and the advisors themselves. When it comes to financial decisions, they are looking for someone they can trust and who will be a partner, not just a vendor. Your institution and your bankers themselves must communicate a unique perspective that makes them stand out from the crowd before the client reaches out directly.

In this blog series, we’ll explore the concepts that make up the Semantic Data Lake. We’ll begin with an introduction to Hadoop – what is it and why was it developed? Techniques traditionally applied when mastering complicated organizational reference data such as customers often require centralization to enforce standardization. 

You’ve seen the demo and read the brochure. You’ve read a dozen RFP responses, and expertly managed conflicting requirements and competing stakeholder expectations. You’ve short-listed the vendors, and authored a business case that you can be proud of. 

It’s still a little hard to get used to. For a number of years this would be the week I would make my way to the Big Apple, the financial services mecca of North America, to attend #CRMEvolution. The event used to take place in a hotel right in Times Square. There was always a flurry of activity all around.

At NexJ, we take great pride in being a responsive vendor. This is a big part of our value proposition – our desire to be a strategic partner who contributes to our clients’ success. If you’re making a software purchase, I strongly recommend you factor vendor responsiveness into the decision making process. It’s an invaluable intangible. So what exactly do I mean by ‘responsive vendor’?

It’s 3:45 a.m. and my alarm is screaming at me to wake up. I reach for my phone to stop the blasphemous racket. By instinct, I manage to shut it off but the noise keeps blaring. I realize that I had set the alarm on my tablet as well. Good thing too, because that's the alarm that brought me to my senses. As someone predisposed to staying up late rather than waking early, the hour is more familiar for being the end of a day than the start of one.

In my recent blog, Customer-Centric Digital Transformation, I discussed the strategy for ensuring the customer is at the center of digital transformation. Today, I’d like to discuss one particular channel, the Contact Center. 

I'm not a developer. I don't work with code, and though I use computers every day, I don't understand what's running in the background. But that's okay, because I'm a writer instead. So I spend a lot of time asking developers about their process and trying to understand how they do what they do and why. Fortunately for me, they tend to be very patient people.

In any industry, like financial services, that relies on maintaining deep relationships with their clients, it’s critical to understand and service the client across their entire journey. Successful client experience solutions focus on features across what we call the “The Customer Lifecycle.” 

For some, it’s about reducing costs by modernizing the back office.  For others, it’s about leveraging disruptors within their enterprise.  For NexJ, it’s all about the customer.In the age of the customer, the customer is in control of their journey.  They dictate how and when they will interact with the firm.  

On October 10, 2014 at NexJ’s client day, Julie Ask (@JulieAsk), Forrester Research analyst and co-author of The Mobile Mind Shift, spoke to our customers about the behavior changes occurring as a result of the adoption of smartphones and apps. 

Next week, I'll be flying to London, England, for the Customer Experience Exchange for Financial Services. The Exchange is a meeting of senior executives responsible for the design, development, and delivery of customer service strategies and solutions. Bringing together a range of exclusive experts from the Financial Services industry, this conference provides valuable information on current and future trends in customer experience.