September is National Preparedness Month, and is a great time to review processes and plans in case of an unforeseen disaster. 

Businesses are temporarily closing on the East Coast in preparation for Hurricane Florence and many expect to be without power for many days. Even in the event of a natural disaster, such as a hurricane, business owners are responsible for ensuring their businesses will stay as close to 100 percent as possible. 

Natural disasters can happen anywhere, from tornadoes, to wildfires, and most recently, to hurricanes , disaster planning and recovery is top of mind. Regardless of the natural disaster, it’s crucial for any company to take steps to minimize disruption in services and communications with employees and customers. 

The Disaster Recovery Journal estimates that as many as 80% of all U.S. companies don't have an effective DR plan. This does not bode well for the majority of American business’ systems and data, and ultimately, their future survival. 

Below are three disaster recovery essentials to keep you in business by safeguarding your customer data and communications- and confirming that your business services vendors do the same- during future emergencies:

1. BUSINESS CONTINUITY MANAGEMENT
Business Continuity Management (BCM) is defined as a management process that identifies potential threats to an organization and the impacts to business operations those threats might cause. BCM provides a framework for building organizational resilience with the capability of an effective response that safeguards the interests of its key stakeholders, reputation, brand, and value-creating activities. Although this term is used interchangeably with DR, business continuity addresses more comprehensive planning that focuses on long term or chronic challenges to organizational success. Potential business continuity problems may include the illness or departure of key team members, supply chain breakdowns, catastrophic failures or critical malware infections.

Should a natural disaster or unexpected power outage occur, data must be accessible from a remote backup facility. Data must be comprehensively backed up at a secure location that features total redundancy of all online systems, databases, communications, power, form inventories, and print and mail facilities.

2. DATA SECURITY AND ARCHIVING
Data security, of course, is extremely important at all times. According to the Disaster Recovery Preparedness Council’s Annual Report, 60% of companies that experience mass data loss will shut down within six months of a disaster. 

As business-critical data continues to grow at an exponential rate, and universal regulations such as HIPAA and the Patriot Act compel organizations to store data longer, archiving is an essential element to a DR plan. For customer data and business-critical communications such as statements, letters and notices, it is recommended that ePresentment is utilized.
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3. MULTI-CHANNEL COMMUNICATION
In the event of a natural disaster, alternate forms of communication are crucial. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, USPS mail service was suspended for weeks across several states. It is important for businesses to reach their customers and deliver business-critical communications, no matter the circumstances. It is recommended that businesses not only incorporate messages on their own websites and ePresentment into their DR plan, but also email, SMS and social media.
 
·Email: Sending emails during emergency situations as a valid method of communication. Email servers are located globally, and it’s unlikely they will all be dead at the same time. But where do you get Internet access if cell phone service is dead? Oftentimes, WiFi service will still be up and running, since the cables used for hard wired Internet operate on different networks than cell phones. For most WiFi, you don’t even need to be in the building to access the service.
·Text: Text messages require far less bandwidth than phone calls, and even when the ominous “all circuits are busy” recording comes on, texts will still work as they operate on a parallel network to cell phones.
·Social Media: Social media is similar to email in that it is hosted on a network of global servers, providing redundancy and fault tolerance. Because your customers are all unique in their social media preferences, the more social media outlets you communicate on, the better.
 
When it comes to your business and natural disasters, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Ensuring your business, as well as your vendors, have strong DR plans will give you and your customers peace of mind in knowing you have them covered.

The benefits of using personalized marketing in your customer’s print documents are huge. It offsets production costs, increases value in targeted marketing messages, and creates a better customer experience by delivering content unique to an individual’s specific needs… all at no additional cost to you, as your customer documents are already being delivered.

Did you know that electronic documents offer more significant marketing capabilities than print because they provide added interactivity and instant access? You can make the most of your electronic documents by using them to enhance your marketing and yield bigger benefits than print alone.

Supplement your print document marketing by utilizing the following 3 electronic marketing opportunities:

1. PUSH MARKETING TECHNOLOGY -

Present a marketing page to customers as they sign on to access their home banking account. This can include marketing promotions, inserts or any document you want to ensure the account holder views as they sign in, allowing you to ensure your messages are being seen!

2. DIGITAL ONSERTS -

Utilize workflows and business rules to segment your electronic customers and target groups with particular offers that will be most beneficial to the individual. Digital onserts are clickable, which provides instant access to promotions for the customer, and a faster way to drive customer behavior for your business.

3. MULTICHANNEL EXPANDED HYPERLINKS -

Include links to webpages and offers from directly within eDocuments, and route them to any device: desktop, mobile phone or tablet. The interactive links provide your electronic customers easy and instant access to the promotional content in the messages.

The benefits of personalized marketing in electronic documents are enormous to both customers, and your business. Maximize the capabilities of your document marketing on your electronic platform and you’ll start seeing a significantly improved ROI and higher e-Adoption rates.

Download our document marketing guide today for a more comprehensive view of how you can maximize the potential of your customer documents by turning them into free and personalized marketing.

According to “Understanding Customers” by Ruby Newell-Legner, it can cost approximately 6 times more to attract a new member than to keep an existing one. Furthermore, Bain & Company reports that a 5% increase in member retention can increase profits up to 125%. These numbers alone reveal the necessity of a strong member retention program. Focusing on member retention will provide you with the engagement rates you desire, as well as a more favorable bottom line. Here are some tips to help you get started on increasing member engagement through cross-selling and upselling:
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1. Utilize dynamic messaging to align communications with each member’s behaviors, needs and wants.
Dynamic messaging allows you to present strategic, real-time messages to specific target groups within your member base. From there, member-facing marketing space on digital and print statements, letters, notices, etc. is optimized to target account holders with products and services that best fit their needs. There are many ways to incorporate dynamic communications on specific customer criteria, including account balance, zip code, gender, or marital status, to name a few. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel in compiling data because you already have it, so why not not use it to increase member retention rates and your bottom line?

2. Paint a picture that emphasizes benefits rather than features.
Consider this: You are planning a trip to a tropical destination and looking for airline travel. Would you rather see messaging about the seat you will be sitting in, the seatbelt and the fact that you can recline during the flight? Or would you rather see messaging about being transported comfortably and safely to your tropical destination where you will be sitting on the beach and soaking up the sun with a beverage in your hand? I’ll take the latter with the benefits, please!
 
While this is Sales 101, I see credit unions (and other businesses, for that matter) get caught up in the functionality of their products and services rather than painting a picture that communicates the actual benefits to members.  When formulating messaging, keep this quote in mind: “People don’t want to buy a quarter inch drill. They want a quarter inch hole,” -Theodore Levitt. Features do have a place in the sales cycle, but need to only be mentioned as differentiators once a member shows interest in a product or service.
 
For more tips on cross-selling and upselling, call our team at (972) 488-6400 or send an email to lanverainfo@lanvera.com

For the past decade, moving to paperless communications has been at the forefront of most organizations’ minds. Not only is electronic delivery a customer expectation, it also benefits your business’ bottom line. In fact, a recent study estimates that moving from paper to electronic delivery of certain documents could reduce costs of producing communications by 36 percent. While it is not a new concept, the challenge still exists in accelerating eAdoption. Here are three secrets to driving paperless customer communications:

1.Provide Consistency in Electronic Document Formatting
Many third party software packages generally provide a rudimentary print layout of a document for use electronic use, thus creating a stale, unfriendly document that does not match the printed, often legal, version.  This creates customer reluctance in moving to electronic delivery because the same document presented in different formats for print and electronic can be confusing.

A successful electronic conversion includes providing an exact replica electronically that is offered in print and mail. A very important reason to offer online statements in the same format as printed is to provide the institution’s customers with a true legal document online rather than a home banking transaction printout. Because most customers require a legal version of their documents in the event of a loan application or tax audit, offering the statement in the same format will encourage eAdoption.

2.Rethink Print Default
Many organizations still have print documents as the default option on new accounts. When customers are not made aware that they can make the switch to paperless, they assume print and mail is what will serve them best. For statements and other documents that aren’t necessarily required to be sent via snail mail, a good option is to set electronic delivery as the default option on new accounts.

“When we switched cores in 2009, we made a big push toward eAdoption on new accounts opened by setting the default statement option to electronic,” said Sandy Gaskamp, Operations Support Manager at University Federal Credit Union. “We now have an 86% eAdoption rate with over 205,000 members, and they all seem to be enjoying the advantages of going paperless.” This not only enhances the customer experience, but also saves on print production and postage costs. In order to meet regulatory stands, be sure to communicate the default option with new account holders so they can verify it as the option they desire.

3.Offer More Outside of Online Banking
Online banking has been widely implemented in financial institutions to provide customers with easier access to accounts in order to alleviate traditional in-person transactions and decrease print and mail costs. However, due to the lack of eAdoption, the ROI on online banking platforms alone has not been as high as originally anticipated. Typically, it is difficult to convert non-transactional customers to electronic documents due to the perception that they do not need to access online banking to manage a daily balance or transfer money. Translation: One cannot live by online banking alone.

Your business’ website coupled with a mobile-responsive ePresentment platform can work wonders for eAdoption rates. If an electronic document can be accessed and viewed securely from your website without going through online banking, the potential audience for eStatements and other electronic documents increases beyond online banking users because customers then do not have to remember a login or sign up for online banking in order to switch to digital document delivery. By providing a direct access point to electronic documents, the overall customer experience is heightened. Additionally, if you are being charged by your provider for each online banking user, the users who opt out of paper documents through ePresentment are less costly.

Customers also desire a central location to access all account documents including notices, loan coupons and tax forms. If your business can support electronic documents, including eStatements, eNotices, eLoan Coupons and eTax Forms, your customer  has the option to receive all communications electronically, which is a win-win scenario.

Conclusion
By giving your customers the opportunity to access more of their documents online, you can begin the conversion toward providing total comprehensive electronic services. It is important to remember that the customer is looking for at least as much value as they receive from a printed document.

To read more strategies on driving paperless communication, access our white paper.

The invoices, notices, statements and other business-critical documents your organization sends represent not only a substantial allocation of funds, but also a key vehicle for communicating with your customers, and thus one of the most critical components of your business. That said, these documents should not be overlooked as a simple operational formality.

There are four important facts every executive should know about customer documents and why they are one of the most important elements of any business:

1. Between 50-70% of total indirect spend in the financial services industry is on I.T. and technology infrastructure.  Part of this percentage includes the equipment, software and maintenance costs necessary for document processing and production, as well as costs needed to ensure compliance with changing regulations, data security and management and overall operational improvements. Having the infrastructure necessary to keep up with demands is essential, but it is costly. Additionally, expenses tend to be on the higher end of the overall percentage if all production operations are kept in-house.
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2. A decline in branch visits and increase in digital and mobile banking has made business-critical documents a major contributor to the customer experience.  Last year saw the highest level of bank and credit union branch closures in U.S. history, according to FDIC data. This solidifies the fact that financial institutions must improve the customer experience in other ways to account for this drop in face-to-face interaction. Customer documents, both print and electronic, are more important than ever for enhancing the customer experience and driving behavior.

Here are ways you can use transactional documents to enhance the customer experience:
-Offer user-friendly eStatement hosting on your Home Banking
-Utilize mobile applications that provide capabilities such as opening a new account, fund transfers and direct check deposit 
-Print documents that are designed and optimized to be easily understood, personalized and fully branded

3. Documents can serve as a Powerful Marketing Tool. Given the drop in branch visits, both print and electronic customer documents can supplement for the loss of face-to-face interaction and serve as an essential and profitable marketing tool. Access to transactional data gives the financial industry the unique ability to personalize documents and provide their customers with timely, applicable marketing messages through transpromo marketing in the form of personalized affiliate ads, as well as cross selling and upselling.

4. Document outsourcing is the best way to simplify processes, reduce costs and manage risk while increasing value. While the need to reduce costs and conserve resources is a prominent one, it’s important to remember to cut the RIGHT costs and allocate your expenses to elements that will work tangent to your business goals while increasing overall efficiency. Document outsourcing is an excellent way to mitigate some of the IT spend while continuing to achieve the technological advancements that customers require.  

A great document outsourcing partner will serve as a single-source extension of your business, offering a comprehensive combination of equipment, security, delivery vehicles and software. In addition to controlling operational costs and reducing capital expenditure needs, outsourcing can provide added value through enhanced marketing opportunities and assured quality control, which ultimately allows you to devote your time to your core competency.

For a free consultation, click here.

According to the MBA’s 1st quarterly National Delinquency Survey, foreclosure starts and delinquency rates are at the lowest since Q2 of 2000. "The delinquency rate of 4.77 percent has returned to typical pre-recession levels and is lower than the historical average of 5.4 percent for the time period from 1979 to the first quarter of 2016,”said Marina Walsh, MBA'S Vice President of Industry Analysis.
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As the market changes to reflect the decrease in delinquencies and foreclosures, there are a couple of different strategies servicers are using to shift focus in order to maintain profits:
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1.Focus on Performing Loans
Some servicers are transitioning to more of a performing loan focus, thereby expanding their portfolios. As departments are thinning, servicers are given the choice of either downsizing or moving employees into different job roles. This is a viable option, requiring servicers to identify adaptable personnel to cross-train them for other positions within the organization.
 
However, the challenge still lies in the extra costs accrued through increased compliance operations, which, in turn, negatively impact loan margins.
 
2.Identify New Sources of Revenue
One strong option to the market changes is to identify new ways to generate more profit per loan on existing portfolios. If successful in maintaining or even increasing margins, servicers can place themselves in a better position to keep personnel and cross-train them rather than eliminate jobs. This is where identifying new sources of revenue through transactional document communications such as mortgage statements and letters is the answer. Servicers have the opportunity to utilize transactional documents to cross-sell and upsell services to performing loans, as well as utilize affiliate advertising to create new revenue streams.

To learn more about how transactional document communications can help you net more profit per loan, click here.

Virtually every financial institution loses some customers, but few ever measure or recognize how many of their customers become inactive. High turnover rates often occur when a bank or credit union invests an enormous amount of time, effort and expenses building the initial customer relationship, only to let that relationship go unattended. As a result, the customer becomes disengaged and more likely to walk away, leaving the bank in a position to spend another small fortune to replace them. In fact, according to the White House Office of Consumer Affairs, it is 6-7 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to keep a current one.

Based on these facts, the easiest way to grow is to focus on retaining current customers while increasing incremental product spend. Once you decrease turnover rates, it’s often possible to significantly increase your growth rate because you’re no longer forced to make up lost ground just to stand still.

Increasing customer retention often starts with consistent communication, branding and personalization.

1. Provide Proactive Support
Usually, customers who have problems with products and services will not communicate the issue. According to Lee Resources International, for every customer who complains about an issue, there are 26 who stay silent. Instead, they take their business elsewhere. 
 
A best practice for “breaking the silence” and providing proactive support is to utilize the space on digital and print documents to request feedback and encourage open dialogue.  

2. Value Proposition Reinforcement
Value propositions are a clear statement that should:

• explain services and how each service improves the customers' situation (relevancy),
• deliver specific benefits (quantified value),
• highlight competitive advantages that drive customers to stay with the orgianzation (unique differentiation).

A cost-efficient, yet effective way to reinforce value proposition is through ePresentment of transactional documents. As customers log in to view documents, they are easily reminded of the company value by simply displaying personalized messages on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.
 
3. Add a Personal Touch
As technology continues to evolve, customers are expecting more personalized communications that align with behaviors, needs and wants. According to “The Cost of Poor Customer Service” by Genesys Global Survey, 38% of consumers say personalization is important to the customer experience.

Marketing space on digital and print statements, letters, notices, etc. can be optimized to target customers with products and services that best fit specific needs. A best practice is to utilize existing customer data to identify specific criteria, including account balance, zip code, and spending habits, to name a few. From there, leveraging dynamic communications on all digital and print documents creates a timely, effective customer experience.

While it’s next to impossible to have a 100% retention rate, financial institutions can drastically decrease turnover by proactively approaching and maintaining current customer relationships. 

​To learn more about customer retention through transactional documents, contact us at lanverainfo@lanvera.com or click here.

Loan servicing professionals are perpetually experiencing regulatory changes while trying to balance portfolios. The “do more with less” mentality in the industry has sent loan servicers on the search for ways to increase their profit per loan.
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​Here are two ways to expand the value of your portfolio this year:

1. SEGMENT MARKETING
In segment marketing, a borrower base is divided into groups of individuals that are similar in specific ways relevant to customer attributes such as age, gender, interests, spending habits, etc. According to MailChimp, segmented email campaigns receive 14.72% more opens and 62.84% more clicks than non-segmented campaigns. What does this mean for your portfolio? Borrowers are more receptive to information that is specific to them.

Lanvera helps increase revenues by providing the ability for our clients to sell affiliate marketing space to businesses that offer services similar to borrowers’ needs. Segment affiliate marketing in borrower-critical document delivery can be applied multiple ways:

• Present a marketing page to borrowers as they sign on to access their statements. Information such as marketing promotions or inserts can be utilized for maximum exposure and increased calls to action.
• Utilize digital onserts to optimize workflows and segment borrowers groups with particular offers most beneficial to the individual. Digital onserts are clickable, providing instant access to landing page promotions and a faster way to drive intended borrower behavior.
• Capitalize on multichannel expanded hyperlinks by including links to webpages and offers from directly within individual electronic documents. Interactive links provide borrowers easy and instant access promotional content.

The benefits of personalized marketing are enormous to both borrowers and servicers and can impact profit per loan significantly. As a partner, Lanvera helps to maximize borrower communications through segment marketing, resulting in improved ROI and higher eAdoption rates. 

2. DYNAMIC MESSAGING
Dynamic Messaging allows you to present strategic messaging to all borrowers or a specific target group and use consumer-facing marketing space by targeting account holders with products and services that best fit their needs.  There are many ways to incorporate dynamic communications on specific borrower criteria, including account balance, zip code, gender, or marital status, to name a few. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel in compiling data because you already have it. Why not use it to increase your bottom line?
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Here are some tips on harnessing the power of dynamic messaging on borrower-facing digital and print communications:

• Target to individuals, not groups. Not all borrowers are created equal, so personalization is key! In a recent survey, only 21% of individuals reported that marketing messages they receive are “usually relevant.” This low percentage provides you with an opportunity to stand apart from all of the usual communications your borrower receives on a daily basis by presenting them with messaging that is targeted specifically to their needs. 

• Always Be Changing. A colleague of mine once told me, “A static website shows your audience that your organization is static.” The same principle applies to all other borrower communications. If your borrowers don’t see you moving forward with the times, they will be less likely to respond to your brand’s communications. A good practice is to re-evaluate messaging on a quarterly basis to encourage high engagement rates.
• Timing is everything. This ties both of the above points together. Say a borrower has JUST opened up a savings account with your institution. Would it be wise to send them a document the following month containing an ad with the messaging, “Open a savings account with us?” No. Instead, maybe it’s time to start sending them ads about an auto or home loan.  

The opportunities to speak to your borrowers on a personalized level without any human touch points involved are endless.  As borrower communications continue to shift, the importance of dynamic communications will continue to increase. To learn more about how you can net more profit per loan in 2018, click here.

Let’s face it, delinquent payments are a problem for most businesses. Oftentimes, a customer will make an honest mistake and simply miss a payment. Other times, they will actively avoid you. Managing the revenue cycle can also prove difficult when you are competing with multiple other monthly bills customers receive electronically and via USPS.

While there are plenty of good strategies for collecting the money your business is owed, it doesn’t have to come to that. Here are Seven Ways to Get Paid Faster through the use of your business-critical communications:

1. Have a clear call to action (CTA): Show your customers exactly where they need to go to pay their balance. The CTA should be eye-catching so the customer not only sees it, but is compelled to read and act. When you clearly state exactly what you want your customer to do, it takes out the guess work and encourages an action on their part.

2. Use color:  Adding color to marketing messages can increase engagement rates by up to 42%. And not only that, the addition of color can actually aid in improving your customers’ memory. Studies have proven that color can help people process and store images more efficiently than black and white, so by adding color to marketing, customers are far more likely to not only read, but retain your messaging and be more inclined to act upon it.
 
3. Make it convenient: According to a recent Federal Reserve survey, roughly one-third of consumers and three-quarters of businesses expressed willingness to pay a fee for payments that have faster availability to the payee. Offer an online invoicing process with the ability to pay online. An automated billing system will "ping" your customers until it shows the invoice has been paid. There is something to be said for having an automated process performing the follow-up for you! 
 
4. Be polite with your language: While it may seem unimportant, adding lines such as "Thank you for your business" and "We appreciate your timely payment" positively reinforces the relationship you have with a customer. Be nice, and they just may return the favor. In fact, a recent study found that a simple "please" or "thank you" can increase your chances of getting paid by 5%.
 
5. Specify payment timelines: If a bill needs to be paid within 14 days, be sure to list this on the document. Also list if there will be a charge for late payment and how much the charge will be. Give your customers and clients as much information as humanly possible.
 
6. Utilize incentives: Beyond motivating payment with late fees, try positively incentivizing customers to pay you early. Incentives might include a 1 to 2 percent discount if payment is received within a specific “early” time frame. Consider offering future discounts, credits, gift certificates or merchandise as possible incentives. In the end, you’re saying thank you for making that payment a priority. It’s rewarding your customers for their business, increasing their loyalty, and helping you get paid.
 
7. Keep open lines of communication with customers: Oftentimes, when people have not paid, they do not realize it. Sending a simple automated email reminder to customers can go a long way. Part of the value of an email reminder is that it reinforces your relationship with the customer and provides an opportunity to engage. Use the email reminder to create an open dialogue with clients, providing them with a sense of security and comfort.
 
Interested in using your transactional documents to influence speed-to-pay? Click here to learn more or contact us for a demo. 

According to NFCC’s 2015 Financial Literacy Survey, roughly 1 in 4 U.S. adults do not always pay their bills on time. Depending on where your business falls on the priority scale of all the monthly bills your customers receive, it is inevitable that many of your customers will make late payments, or even skip payments altogether. Here are four steps to better billing that will encourage your customers to pay you on time, or even early:

1. Offer convenience. A recent Pew survey reported that nearly three in ten adults say the most common way to they take care of their regular monthly bills is by an online or electronic payment. Furthermore, the Federal Reserve has found that roughly one-third of consumers and three-quarters of businesses express willingness to pay a fee for payments that have faster availability to the payee. The best way to cater to this need is to implement an online invoicing and payment process. An automated billing system not only gives your customers easy access to their bills and the ability to pay, but can also be set to send your customers friendly email and SMS reminders. 

2. Communicate a clear and colorful call to action (CTA). Adding color to messages can increase engagement rates by up to 42%. Additionally, color can aid in improving your customers’ memory. Studies have proven that color can help people process and store images more efficiently than black and white. By adding color to your CTA, customers are far more likely to engage and pay their bills. Try orange or another bright color! According to QuickSprout, orange CTAs boost conversion rates by about 32.5%, and red CTAs boost conversion rates by about 21%.
 
The CTA should be eye-catching so your customers are compelled to read it and act. When you clearly state exactly what you want your customer to do, it eliminates guesswork and encourages action.
 
3. Be consistent. Consistency is key to your customers knowing exactly where to find their balance each time they receive their bills. Online and printed bills should be identical, making it easy for your customer to quickly scan their bill to find how much they owe and when they need to make their next payment.
 
4. Utilize Incentives. Try positively incentivizing customers to pay you early. Incentives might include a 1 to 2 percent discount if payment is received within a specific timeframe. Early payment rewards work particularly well for companies you are billing that have a separate accounts payable department. In fact, they tend to cut checks first when they see incentives for early payments.
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To learn more about how to optimize your billing and increase the amount of on-time and early customer payments, contact Lanvera today.