CAMBRIDGE, MA--(Marketwire - May 7, 2012) - While retail banks are taking customer satisfaction far more seriously, providing consistent service across all channels today still remains a tough challenge, according to a survey conducted recently by [ BAI ] and sponsored by [ Pegasystems Inc. ] (NASDAQ: [ PEGA ]), the leader in [ Business Process Management ] (BPM) and software for customer centricity.

More than 40 percent of survey respondents said consistency was an issue for their organization, in terms of both service levels and sales offers for customers. What's more, nearly half of all respondents identified personalizing offers (48 percent) and a single view of the customer (45 percent) as the two biggest sales challenges. The survey also found more than a quarter of respondents (26 percent) do not use analytical models for sales and marketing and almost another quarter (24 percent) use them, but only update them annually.

The survey, which polled more than 200 executives at U.S.-based retail banks, shows that driving increased customer loyalty, wallet share and profitability through customer service has proved to be a continuous struggle. The inability to obtain a holistic customer view is largely the cause for these challenges given the myriad of legacy systems, manual processes and disconnected channels that affect many institutions today.

"Given today's technology trends, it's not surprising that the top investment area for 2012 was identified by survey participants as 'expanding channels offerings' (51 percent)," said D. Scott Andrick, Industry Principal for Retail Banking at Pegasystems. "How can banks that are inconsistent during interactions, or don't really know their customers, achieve a full return on those investments?"

"To differentiate themselves, banks should focus on how they provide the best service and experience across all channels," he added. "Their challenge is to make sure they don't undertake these efforts in channel silos, because that will only create more inconsistencies for both sales and service. Those leveraging advanced BPM and CRM technology will increasingly find themselves not only transforming their operations, but also creating competitive advantages."

Pega's [ Unified Marketing ]™ solution provides analytics-based campaign management capability and next-best-action approach to optimize acquisition, retention and cross-sell/up-sell initiatives. This enables marketers to execute customer-centric strategies that dramatically improve offer acceptance, decrease customer churn, and drive higher customer lifetime value.

Supporting Resources

To learn more on how world-class financial services organizations are leveraging Pega technology for customer service at [ PegaWORLD 2012 ] on June 3-5 in Dallas, visit: [ http://www.pega.com/community/pegaworld/agenda-full/how-pnc-is-using-pegas-decision-management-to-improve-customer-servi ] and [ http://www.pega.com/community/pegaworld/agenda-full/how-bank-asya-has-improved-sales-and-marketing-operations-in-just-18 ].

To read more about Pega's wide range of retail banking solutions, visit: [ http://www.pega.com/solutions/by-industry/financial-services/retail-banking ] and [ http://www.pega.com/products/crm/unified-marketing ]

To read more about Pega customers' successes, visit: [ http://www.pega.com/about-us/company/customers ]

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About Pegasystems
Pegasystems, the leader in business process management and software for customer centricity, helps organizations enhance customer loyalty, generate new business, and improve productivity. Our patented Build for Change^® technology speeds the delivery of critical business solutions by directly capturing business objectives and eliminating manual programming. Pegasystems flexible on-premise and cloud-based solutions enable clients to quickly adapt to changing business conditions in order to outperform the competition. For more information, please visit us at [ www.pega.com ].

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