Though some financial companies have been souring on customer relationship management, PNC Financial Services Group Inc. has recently embarked on a major CRM project meant to unify customer information across all channels so that the same data are available to the Web site support staff, a teller in a branch, or a telephone center representative.
PNC says Project Genesis began a few months ago and should be fully implemented by early next year. Siebel Systems and Argo Data Resources Corp. are PNC's vendors.
"We are integrating CRM with a next-generation technology service," Timothy G. Shack, the Pittsburgh banking company's chief information officer and an executive vice president, said in a recent interview. "The killer app is that which enhances customer experience with CRM sitting behind it."
Project Genesis is meant to ensure that if a customer calls the bank or goes to a branch or sends an e-mail, the service representative on the other end knows who they are, sees the same information as a person at another contact point, can (ideally) provide better service, and can cross-sell products. Cross-selling is less of a priority than relationship-building, Mr. Shack said, but sales are always important.
Though PNC fell under regulatory supervision this summer for a series of accounting blunders, Mr. Shack said technology is not an area of concern for the regulators.
"The technology program is on track," he said. The technology unit has "a good relationship with the regulators."
As part of Project Genesis, next month PNC will pilot a technology that connects tellers to CRM databases, which will let them see a record of the person's relationship with PNC, including the number of branch visits and the products they have bought in the past.
"Knowing each customer's needs and interests is critical to providing excellent service," Mr. Shack said. "CRM is all about a consistent, differentiated experience at all points of customer contact, whether it be the branch, Internet, or our call center. The applications facilitate our ability to best serve our customers with insights into their relationship with us as well as their preferences and habits."
Other issues at the top of Mr. Shack's agenda are risk management, business continuity, and emergency preparedness. Even the handling of paper mail has been given an added measure of security.
Mr. Shack said that PNC had been working on these issues before Sept. 11, 2001, but that it stepped up efforts afterward. "We all worry about critical infrastructure," he said.
Another area of focus is check imaging - but predominantly for business customers. Mr. Shack said he was "very bullish" on imaging checks for corporate customers, and that "there is a far more compelling case on the business side" than in retail.
PNC is piloting check truncation with real estate customers in a joint project between its real estate finance unit and its treasury management unit. The effort includes the development of high-speed image technologies for faster reconciliation and processing.
Mr. Shack said electronic bill payment and presentment is going to be a longer-term play. "The business model is evolving," he said. "Over the long haul, it will emerge as a surviving technology."
He said that EBPP was "shifting from a biller focus to a payer focus" in the business-to-business world, explaining that large companies paying thousands of bills a month want bills to come to them electronically in a specific format to streamline the payment process.
Mr. Shack said he considers his company to be on the cutting edge.
"Our technology at PNC is the way we think we differentiate ourselves," he said. "We are constantly providing shareholder value for being innovative. Technology is the underpinning of every business offering we have."
