As the behaviours and needs of both society and consumers change – and as the rise in digitally focused brands and service providers is proving – if a brand does not become an integral part of its customers’ life and lifestyle, it will at best become commoditised and experience margin compression, and at worst it will be disintermediated.The most recent example comes from the US retail market where, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Target has achieved a 10.
This is the holy grail for banks – known as empathic banking. Empathic banks are able to identify critical events in the lives of their customers and react to those moments to provide flexible, tailored services that add real value to the customer and drive loyalty and expanded wallet share for the bank.