Focus on long-term planning and connecting data with customer desires

'At TJIP, we stand for the new standard in financial customer journeys. Maarten de Jonge, Marketing Manager at TJIP, will tell us how we enable smart journeys for financial service providers. This gives customers of these financial service providers insight and overview, so they can make the right choices with confidence. 

Complex market conditions 

De Jonge: 'The market has changed significantly. Homebuyers are hesitant and refinancers are doing the same. This is due to rising interest rates, inflation and high energy prices. In the next two years, transaction figures are likely to still be lower than those of 2020 and 2021. These difficult economic conditions add to the challenges faced by the advisor, alongside a consumer who is demanding increasingly higher levels of service.’ 

Customer retention is key 

'Retaining existing customers is becoming an increasingly important theme for advisors and lenders. According to the Financial Markets Authority, continuous attention to the customer is an important theme,' continues De Jonge. 'The focus will increasingly be on making the added value tangible in the consumer's life. You can't expect customers to be loyal if you're not willing to constantly engage with them. TJIP supports that.' 

Opportune moment 

'This is an excellent opportunity for mortgage banks to use smart, innovative tools that help their customers and advisors optimally leverage customers financial possibilities, while taking into account the future, so that no unwise choices are made that could lead to problems later.' 

Digitalization is necessary 

'To achieve this, a further digitization drive is necessary, including efficient data exchange. This starts with offering a customer environment where the right insights are present and where the customer, together with his professional advisor(s), maps out his risks and opportunities based on his customer profile.' 

Examples of outcomes of a customer journey with the right approach 

'Some examples of outcomes of the above customer journey can be: making the house more sustainable, renovating instead of moving, and the financial substantiation', according to De Jonge. 'And to do that well, the following things need to be arranged: overview and insight for the customer and for the mortgage professional, presenting the right information in the right form to the customer, and making a hybrid process design possible.' 

Customer insight can be improved 

'Due to the current high inflation, explosively rising energy costs and a different pension system, the topic of 'insight into finances' is more topical than ever.' 

'Consumers prefer to have these kinds of financial matters, especially the possibility of insight into them, arranged in a way that takes their entire personal situation into account, As revealed by a study conducted by TJIP earlier this year. In addition, most consumers currently obtain these insights from the administration they keep themselves.' 

'Mortgage lenders and advisors can provide better insight by looking ahead or making estimates based on models and warning customers about possible future problems. They must take into account the customer's situation, so that the customer receives relevant insights with clear benefits or warnings.' 

Hybrid Process Design 

'Innovative digital tools that cleverly use available and collected data enable consumers and advisors to work closely together on the same case, while also providing an increasingly better overview of the current situation and the options to make the right financial decisions and choose the corresponding products. From an "expert view," the financial service provider can proactively alert the consumer to current and future changes, enabling the consumer to take control to find a solution to the implications of those changes. And if that fails, they can still seek advice and assistance.' 

Consumer Self-Sufficiency at the Core in the Future 

'In the future, the self-sufficiency of the consumer will be central, supplemented as desired by targeted support from a provider, advisor, or other involved party. In the current market, the hybrid model often means that a process is either completely self-sufficiently carried out by the consumer or entirely executed by a financial advisor. So, it's all about working together on the same case. Or rather, working together on the same customer wish. Because it's not so much about closing a mortgage, for example, but about the customer's desire to be able to live somewhere.' 

TJIP: Serve Customers Better 

'There is still plenty of room for mortgage providers and advisors to better serve their customers. If they can better understand their customers' journeys and intelligently and innovatively design the processes in those journeys, they can better anticipate what those customers need. And thereby make the right decisions at the front end of the process,' concludes De Jonge. 

TJIP has years of experience supporting financial service providers at all levels of the chain. This has resulted in strong relationships with their customers and higher conversion rates within the customer journey for these companies. Get in touch with us and also get to know TJIP.