20 Ways to Research New Treasury Management Services

One of the challenges as a Treasury Management Product Manager is finding new treasury management services to sell to your business customers. How to find new services? We have 20 ways to research new treasury management services for your customer base.

Customer Surveys: Conduct surveys to understand customer needs, preferences, and pain points. Customer surveys are a powerful tool for gathering insights into customer needs, preferences, and pain points. When designed and executed effectively, they can provide valuable data that drives customer-centric decision-making, service development, and service improvements, ultimately contributing to a better customer experience and business growth.

Market Research: Analyze market trends, competitor offerings, and industry reports to identify gaps. The primary aim is to identify gaps in the market that present opportunities for innovation or improvement. By thoroughly understanding the competitive landscape and the evolving needs and preferences of consumers, you can pinpoint areas where current offerings fall short or where there is unmet demand. This knowledge enables you to develop targeted strategies for service development, marketing, and business expansion. Moreover, market research can reveal insights into potential threats and challenges, allowing businesses to devise contingency plans. Effective market research supports a proactive approach, ensuring your bank remains relevant and competitive in a rapidly changing environment.

Focus Groups: Organize focus groups with existing customers to gather qualitative feedback on potential offerings. By bringing together a small, diverse group of customers, you can facilitate detailed discussions and gain nuanced insights that are often not captured through surveys or other methods. Focus groups provide a platform for customers to express their thoughts and feelings in their own words, offering valuable feedback on what they value, what improvements they seek, and how they perceive new ideas or changes. This direct interaction not only helps in refining service concepts and identifying features that meet actual customer needs but also strengthens customer relationships by making them feel valued and heard. Moreover, the dynamic nature of focus group discussions can lead to the emergence of new ideas and creative solutions that had not been previously considered. Organizing focus groups is a strategic approach to leveraging the wealth of knowledge that exists among current customers to inform future business decisions and offerings.

Customer Feedback: Regularly review feedback from customer service interactions and online reviews for insights. This feedback serves as a direct line to customer perceptions, highlighting areas of satisfaction as well as discontent. By analyzing comments, suggestions, and complaints, you can gain actionable insights into the effectiveness of your offerings and the quality of your customer support. This process not only helps in identifying trends and patterns in customer feedback but also in prioritizing areas for improvement based on the frequency and severity of the issues raised. Additionally, responding to feedback, especially online reviews, demonstrates your commitment to listening to your customers and can significantly enhance your bank’s reputation. Incorporating customer feedback into business strategies ensures that your bank’s services evolve in alignment with customer needs and expectations, fostering loyalty and encouraging positive word-of-mouth.

Industry Conferences: Attend banking and financial industry conferences to stay updated on emerging services. Through keynote speeches, panel discussions, and workshops led by industry experts and innovators, you can gain a deeper understanding of new technologies, regulatory changes, and market dynamics. Networking opportunities allow for the exchange of ideas and experiences with your treasury management peers, fostering collaborations and partnerships that can be beneficial for business growth. Additionally, these conferences often showcase cutting-edge solutions and tools, offering a firsthand look at the potential impacts and applications of new services.

Partnership Opportunities: Explore partnerships with fintech startups or other businesses to offer innovative solutions. Fintech startups, known for their agility, technological innovation, and disruptive potential, can provide your bank with access to new technologies, methodologies, and market segments. These partnerships can lead to the creation of new solutions that offer enhanced user experiences, improve operational efficiencies, and open up new revenue streams. Additionally, collaborating with startups or other businesses can facilitate knowledge exchange, fostering an environment of continuous learning and innovation.

Internal Brainstorming Sessions: Hold brainstorming sessions with your employees to generate new ideas. These sessions encourage employees to come together in a free-flowing, open environment where new ideas are welcomed and considered. Employees can contribute insights gained from their specific roles, highlighting customer pain points, operational challenges, or opportunities for improvement. This process can lead to the generation of new ideas for services or process enhancements that can improve customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.

Advisory Boards: Establish advisory boards comprising diverse customers to provide input on service development. By assembling a group of customers from various backgrounds, industries, and demographics, you can ensure that the feedback and insights you receive are comprehensive and representative of your customer base. This direct line of communication allows you to understand the specific needs, preferences, and challenges your customers face, leading to the creation of services that are more closely aligned with market demands. Advisory boards can offer invaluable perspectives on everything from service design and features to marketing strategies and customer service improvements.

Social Media Listening: Monitor social media platforms for discussions and trends related to business banking needs. This proactive approach enables you to gain real-time insights into what customers are saying about your services, competitor activities, and the broader industry landscape. By analyzing the vast amount of data generated on social media, including posts, comments, and hashtags, you can identify emerging trends, uncover customer pain points, and recognize opportunities for innovation.

Data Analytics: Analyze customer data to identify patterns and preferences, which can guide service development. By analyzing datasets, such as transaction histories, online behavior, service usage patterns, and feedback, you can uncover deep insights into your business customer preferences, behaviors, and needs. This analysis enables you to identify trends, segment customers more effectively, and predict future behaviors. Data analytics not only helps in optimizing service offerings to match customer expectations but also in personalizing marketing and communication strategies to increase engagement and loyalty.

Customer Interviews: Conduct one-on-one interviews with select customers to gain deeper insights into their needs. This direct, personal form of engagement allows you to delve deeper than what is possible through surveys or observational methods, uncovering nuanced details about the customer journey, pain points, and unarticulated needs. By carefully selecting a diverse group of customers for these interviews, you can ensure a wide range of perspectives, leading to a more comprehensive understanding of your customer base. The conversational nature of interviews encourages customers to share detailed feedback and suggestions, providing rich qualitative data that can drive service development, customer service improvements, and overall business strategy.

Employee Suggestions: Encourage employees to suggest new services based on their interactions with business customers. Employees often have a unique vantage point, witnessing firsthand the challenges, needs, and preferences of customers. By creating a culture that values and encourages the sharing of these insights, you can tap into a wealth of innovative ideas and practical solutions that might otherwise remain unnoticed. Implementing a structured process for collecting, evaluating, and acting upon employee suggestions not only fosters a sense of ownership and engagement among the workforce but also accelerates the innovation process.

Online Forums and Communities: Participate in online banking forums and communities to understand customer pain points. These platforms are where customers often turn to share their frustrations, ask questions, and provide feedback on services. By actively engaging in these conversations, you can gain firsthand insights into common pain points, emerging issues, and the unmet needs of your customers.

Demographic Analysis: Study demographic trends and changes in customer behavior to anticipate future needs. By examining data on age, gender, income, education level, and other demographic factors, your bank can uncover patterns and shifts in business customer behavior that may affect demand for services. Additionally, demographic analysis can reveal emerging markets or segments with untapped potential, guiding you in tailoring offerings to meet the specific needs of your business customers.

Pilot Programs: Launch pilot programs to test new services with a smaller group of business customers before full implementation. This approach serves as a practical, risk-managed strategy to gather valuable feedback on the functionality, appeal, and potential improvements of the offering. By selecting a representative sample of your business customer base, your team can obtain insights into how the service performs in real-world settings, identify any unforeseen issues, and assess overall customer satisfaction. Pilot programs also enable you to fine-tune marketing strategies, pricing models, and customer support processes based on direct customer feedback.

Customer Journey Mapping: Map out the customer journey to identify areas where new services could enhance the experience. This strategic process allows you to step into your customers' shoes and view your offerings from the customer's perspective. By mapping out the customer journey, you can identify critical touchpoints where customers feel delighted, frustrated, or indifferent. This detailed analysis helps in pinpointing areas of friction, unmet needs, and opportunities for introducing new services that could significantly enhance the customer experience.

Regulatory Updates: Stay informed about regulatory changes that could create opportunities for new offerings. Regulatory updates can significantly impact business operations, compliance requirements, and market dynamics. By closely monitoring these changes, you can not only ensure compliance and mitigate risks but also identify emerging opportunities for new offerings. Staying abreast of regulatory updates is not just about compliance; it's about seizing opportunities to innovate, differentiate, and deliver value in a changing legal environment.

Thought Leadership Content: Produce thought leadership content such as blogs, webinars, or whitepapers to engage customers and gather feedback. By sharing expert insights, innovative ideas, and forward-thinking analyses, you can demonstrate your expertise and vision. This type of content can range from in-depth articles, white papers, vlogs, and blogs to webinars, podcasts, and speaking engagements at industry events. Engaging in thought leadership allows you to contribute to the broader conversation in the industry, influencing trends, standards, and practices. It not only attracts attention from potential customers by showcasing your bank’s depth of knowledge and problem-solving capabilities but also builds credibility among peers.

Customer Advisory Panels: Form customer advisory panels to provide ongoing input on service development and improvements. These panels typically consist of end-users who represent a broad spectrum of the business customer base, including both highly satisfied customers and those who may have provided critical feedback in the past. By regularly engaging with this panel through meetings, surveys, and feedback sessions, you can tap into a wealth of insights regarding customer experiences, expectations, and evolving needs.

Employee Training and Development: Provide training to employees to keep them updated on industry trends and customer needs, encouraging them to contribute ideas. By investing in the continuous education and skill enhancement of your employees, you ensure that your teams are not only proficient in their current roles but are also equipped to anticipate and adapt to changes in the marketplace. Such programs can range from workshops and seminars to online courses and certification opportunities, covering topics relevant to banking and the employees' specific job functions. Encouraging employees to contribute ideas fosters a culture of innovation and engagement, empowering staff to take an active role in the bank's growth and adaptation strategies.

By employing these methods, your bank can stay competitive and continually innovate to meet the evolving needs of business customers. We hope you enjoyed our 20 ways to research new treasury management services for your customer base and use these ideas to continue to improve your treasury management services.