Solutions over products Rather than creating new products, the Bank wants to exceed customer expectations and make their lives easier by offering new solutions. Aurélie Chardon, Head of Product Management at BIL, explains all.
What is the starting point for launching a new product? The starting point is the client and their needs. Our mission is simply to make their lives easier. From there, the Product Management team’s objective doesn’t stop at simply creating new financial services or products. Our role is to think about how we can offer a better customer experience to match their profile. It’s an ongoing improvement process. We must constantly question ourselves, identify the obstacles and improve the process, taking into consideration the client’s reality rather than the bank’s universe. Can you give us a recent example? For a client, buying a house or a flat doesn’t simply boil down to a loan. It’s important to imagine what this truly represents for them and understand the different stages they’re going through… Does the client simply want to know their borrowing capacity? Have they already found a property? First of all, we completely revised our mortgage calculator. It’s important to note that in a tight property market, reactivity is essential. As such, we halved our decision-making period on mortgage applications to help clients position themselves faster on properties. Concerning innovation in payments, a year ago we introduced Apple Pay and we were the first to offer instant payments in Luxembourg. Once again, the aim was to make the payment process easier, faster and hassle-free. We also completely revised our range of credit cards. We took the opportunity to overhaul assistance and coverage, making them more straight-forward.
The launch of this new range was paired with real-time expense report notification features and managing expense limits via the Bank’s BILnet app. Have social distancing and the health crisis changed customer behaviour in terms of the Bank’s services and products? The health crisis clearly played a role in accelerating the change in both personal and business clients’ needs and expectations. We have done our upmost to adapt as fast as possible to this new situation. We supported Luxembourg businesses by giving them flexibility in terms of financing, while proposing new types of state-guaranteed loans. For the majority of our contracts, we also included the possibility to sign electronically, which reduces the need for clients to visit their local branch. Our objective is to always improve the customer experience through our services. For example, we’re finalising the development of a calculator which will allow users to better understand tax effects on their financial projects. For day-to-day banking operations, we’re going to expand our online banking platform and we’re currently reviewing our packages to offer more bespoke solutions. We’ll also continue developing our offering around key actions, such as opening an account or purchasing a property. Finally, we understand that more and more of our clients want to invest responsibly, and we’re going to expand our range of investment products in this area.
“ Our mission is very simple: to make our clients’ lives easier.” 40
