Activating existing customers: Common paths for banks to add micro-enterprise customers

In the current digital transformation, many banks are undergoing changes. So what are the common ways to add micro-enterprise customers to activate existing customers?

In the current process of digital transformation of banks, many banks are experiencing unprecedented changes, both for the banks themselves and their customers.

As for customers, they expect more convenient, personalized and secure financial services; while banks themselves are looking for more efficient and lower-cost ways to acquire customers.

In the meantime, from the perspective of customer marketing and from the perspective of the private domain, the first step to consider is how to gradually transfer the bank’s long-accumulated customer resources to the online end. This is the first step.

After all, if there are no customers, how can we talk about subsequent customer marketing and experience upgrades?

As for banks, in fact, from a certain extent in the private domain, it is more suitable to do online private domain marketing. The first and foremost point is that there are enough customers.

In the previous traditional branch services, especially for some large state-owned banks, almost every provincial branch had tens of millions of customer resources, and these customers basically had related business with the bank, or at least had opened an account, which was equivalent to having basic customer information resources.

This is actually a relatively large customer group. Under the current Internet marketing, the cost of acquiring a new customer is much higher than the cost of maintaining an old customer. Therefore, what the current banking market should consider is how to gradually maintain this group of old customers, reduce customer churn, and increase the business line between customers and banks.

In terms of the current size of bank customers, not to mention how many new customers will be added, activating as many existing customers as possible will be a huge way for banks to increase the size of their business assets.

In terms of customer distribution channels, previous bank customer acquisition methods were basically through the account manager’s personal WeChat, customer visits to outlets, and the branch’s customer data system.

In fact, all customers are basically recorded in the bank’s customer data system, which contains basic customer-related information, such as mobile phone number, name, ID number, etc.

As for customer maintenance and conversion, it is basically based on in-store visits to branches and guidance from account managers on WeChat. Especially in the operations of account managers, customers are accumulated in personal WeChat, which is actually an uncertain risk for both banks and bank employees.

For banks, there is a risk of losing customers. Once there is a change in the account manager position, the customers will be taken away together. For bank employees, there will also be corresponding troubles. After all, customers are on their WeChat and they cannot distinguish between their work and life.

Therefore, this is actually why banks need to gradually start using WeChat Enterprise in order to more standardizedly manage customers and improve work efficiency.

When gradually adding and transferring customers through WeChat, in the current banking industry, the main channels are basically the following:

1. Migrate personal WeChat accounts to corporate WeChat accounts

When adding customers, the first thing banks must solve is to gradually transfer those customers who were previously in the bank staff's personal WeChat to the corporate WeChat. Because there are previous ways of contact, they can continue to guide them through some words and activities.

This group of customers usually accounts for a certain volume of the bank's total customers, and for bank employees, it is also the fastest way to add customers.

In fact, the corporate WeChat account of bank employees is actually bound to their personal WeChat account. If they need to transfer customers in their personal WeChat account, a separate function of adding customers from WeChat friends has been added to the corporate WeChat account's friend adding method.

After binding your personal WeChat account with your corporate WeChat account, you can click here to see all your WeChat friends. You can filter bank customers and send friend requests in batches. You can select 200 friends in batches to add each time.

Of course, we must pay attention to the application words sent when adding. During the adding process, we can constantly look for words with higher adding rates to improve the conversion rate of adding.

In addition to the corporate WeChat, bank employees’ personal WeChat can maintain a fixed frequency of updating their friends circle every week or month to guide WeChat customers to actively add the corporate WeChat QR code. If necessary, they can choose to reach out through private group messages and cooperate with some corporate WeChat activities and benefits.

Please note that you must configure the relevant words and posters well, because this will determine the final added conversion data rate.

2. Network traffic diversion

For banks, there is actually a fixed flow of people coming to them every day, and that is the branches.

This group of customers is actually very precise. After all, if there is no demand, customers will not come to the branch specifically for consultation and processing. This group of customers is actually a customer group that banks need to focus on maintaining when doing private domain operations.

In the outlets, there are actually many places where you can guide customers to add their corporate WeChat accounts. At the booths, at the outlets’ counters, ATMs, self-service machines, large screens in the halls, etc., you can all place ways to add corporate WeChat accounts.

Of course, it depends more on the account managers in the branch hall. Generally speaking, we will provide WeChat-added marketing tools to all bank employees who need to receive customers in the branch, such as hand cards, scenario-based scripts, poster QR codes, etc.

For example, when adding a customer, the hand cards assigned to the bank staff will basically have corresponding guiding words, starting with the introduction of the customer entering the branch, and some high-frequency customer response attitude dialogues.

At the same time, based on the business scenarios that customers handle at outlets and some business assistance that WeChat Enterprise can provide to customers, we guide customers to add WeChat Enterprise.

In addition, when acquiring customers through the bank's corporate WeChat, it is generally recommended that each branch should place at least one poster for adding the corporate WeChat, so that customers who need to add can find a place to actively scan the code.

Through rough data screening, we found through the branch data we surveyed previously that generally each branch has at least 50 people visiting the store every day, and each provincial bank has hundreds of branches in the province, so this part of the customers will account for a large customer base.

3. Online activities to attract traffic

The current banking market has begun to gradually add some online traffic-generating activities specially designed for corporate WeChat customers since 2021, using bank-specific rights and interests, such as instant discounts, red envelopes, etc. as a means to encourage customers to add the corporate WeChat of bank employees and then participate in the lottery to receive the rewards.

On the one hand, this can increase the conversion rate of customers adding the company's WeChat account. On the other hand, it can motivate internal bank employees to do this and make them willing to take the initiative to do it. This is very important.

In terms of the amount of benefits, generally speaking, banks define the cost of acquiring a customer as around RMB 5. This is why many people now see that bank employees can receive a RMB 5 discount by adding the company’s WeChat account.

Of course, the activity design here can actually be carried out in conjunction with some business indicators within the bank. In the following articles, I will write a separate article to introduce the design of corporate microblog activities for banks. Those who are interested can pay attention to it.

4. Mobile banking

The next few channels are basically online, and are carried out around corporate micro-activities and channel exposure positions.

On mobile banking, after the WeChat official account-attracting activity is launched, the WeChat official account-attracting activity can be displayed in turn in the homepage special area, pop-up screens, banners, and other locations to guide mobile banking users to actively add their accounts.

However, one thing that needs to be considered is that there is one thing that needs to be done well here, which is the allocation of customers. It would be best if the bank has already connected to the customer data system and can automatically assign the corresponding maintenance account manager to be added when the customer scans the code.

If not, we can consider some roundabout forms. After all, customer care is very important to banks. We can set a collection code and then display the branch QR code to guide customers to add the corresponding corporate WeChat. Later, we can allocate customers specifically through customer allocation to achieve the purpose of customer allocation and care.

5. Official Account

The bank’s official WeChat account is also a channel that carries a large number of customers, and many activities and businesses are basically announced through the official WeChat account.

In terms of attracting customers through WeChat, if conditions in the industry permit, I think we can also try to do some traffic diversion, such as setting up a unified online WeChat QR code in the reply to keywords.

At the same time, after the company's WeChat activity goes online, you need to edit a separate activity tweet on the official WeChat account. After all, customers on the WeChat channel must have relevant traffic tools and adding paths to try to let all customers see the company's WeChat activities and increase the number of customer additions.

There is another very important channel for adding customers, which is through outbound calls. This is also a very important customer resource for the bank. There are many skills to master in outbound calls, such as speaking speed, tone, words, customer screening, and considering the length of the article. The topics added by outbound calls will also be analyzed and broken down separately in the future.

The above are basically about attracting existing customers through some of the bank’s existing channels. On WeChat, there are actually some tool functions that you can try, such as the customer acquisition assistant, which can automatically classify labels based on customers coming in through different links to help bank employees stratify customers.

At the same time, when there are multiple account managers on WeChat, the WeChat QR code can be automatically allocated and displayed, so that customers can be automatically added and customized welcome messages can be set. However, there are corresponding requirements, which is that you need to pay to add more people, which is a bit like the WeChat customer contact slot. This suggestion can be actually implemented according to the business scenario.

In the basic stage of bank micro-enterprise traffic diversion, when a bank has already accumulated a large number of historical existing customers, the primary key is to activate the existing customers at the moment, drive the addition of new customers in the process, upgrade services, and experience activated marketing services, so as to achieve old customers bringing in new customers, and ultimately enhance the overall customer asset value of the entire bank.