Top Advisory Council Meeting Takeaways
Article contributor: Hitesh Joshi / Vice President, Product Management Network Products
In April, the SHAZAM Advisory Council (SAC) held a regularly scheduled meeting to continue cultivating better client engagement at SHAZAM and foster discussion around trends in the financial services industry.
SAC is made up of senior staff from community banks and credit unions. These meetings offer a unique opportunity for SHAZAM to better understand client needs and help institutions reach their goals. Below is an overview of the topics discussed and our top takeaways.
Person-to-Person (P2P) Payments
We discussed P2P payment features, user requirements from various stakeholder perspectives, including senders, recipients, and financial institutions.
Key takeaways include:
- Most SAC members currently offer clients P2P payment options and consider it a table-stakes offering.
- Venmo® and Zelle® are leading the P2P space already, so proprietary P2P products aren’t crucial to SAC members. It’s integration with existing products that’s critical to the client experience.
- Accountholders will use the same P2P service their friends and family use. There are also generational differences that should be considered when trying to understand accountholder use of P2P.
Data Analytics
SAC members discussed solutions, challenges and recommendations related to data analytics. The key challenges identified include low-quality or inaccurate data; data silos from different systems, vendors, etc.; lack of custom reporting; security concerns if data is outsourced to a third party; lack of real-time information and not knowing the right questions to ask.
Core Needs
We discussed SAC members’ current core needs to better understand what’s working well, areas of opportunity and desired features and functionality.
Non-SHAZAM Core users reported that some core providers struggle with the core conversion process, mass maintenance tools and outdated code. Some of these SAC members said their core solutions work well when they have someone who knows how to operate it.
SAC members agreed that the optimal core wouldn’t be one product but instead include existing integrations with preferred partners.
Operational Excellence
SAC members shared their thoughts on chatbots, ticketing platforms and related user-experience expectations, and products and integrations which promote operational excellence.
The key chatbot takeaway was that not many participants use chatbot services, and there’s a generational difference in the desire to use chatbots. SAC members helped identify must-have and nice-to-have features of chatbot providers for our product team.
Regarding ticketing platforms, SAC members shared that priority levels are often disregarded or deemed irrelevant by their various providers. Participants agreed that long wait times, lack of insight and notifications, poor communication, and inability to clarify the issue are the main areas needing improvement with the current ticketing process with these providers.
In addition, we discussed that SHAZAM now has its own ticketing platform and shared the key benefits of using it.
Looking Ahead
Because of the success of our past meetings, we’re pleased to share that the group is expanding. We’re excited to welcome new SAC members to the group soon, so be on the lookout for an announcement!
The feedback SHAZAM receives from SAC meetings is invaluable, and we use it to improve our client experience with the goal of strengthening financial institutions. We’re preparing for our November SAC meeting, and discussion topics will be finalized in the coming months. If you have a suggested discussion topic, please let us know.