The financial services industry finds itself at a crossroads. Customers increasingly would like to use their preferred vendor for all of their financial services needs, but few feel any companies exist that could fill that role to their liking. Financial firms want to offer their customers more financial products, but fear the risk of providing fragmented customer service across too many product lines.

Coupled with these trends in the market, channel capabilities have also experienced a rapid evolution. The emergence of electronic channels has changed how customers interact with providers and what experience traditional channels such as sales forces and branches can deliver. Additionally, web-based technologies have irrevocably changed the call center from a phone service platform to an integrated multi-channel contact center.

With these factors changing the market and faced with a choice of how to proceed, providers have placed renewed energy into building optimal multi-channel distribution systems. Cutting Edge Information identified the many challenges associated with building such a system and compiled implementable solutions into this report.

Successful, multi-channel distribution systems must meet the demands of the customers while still remaining cost feasible to the financial company.

Companies that excel at multi-channel marketing do so by focusing on three strategic steps:

• Developing the Plan – Effective distribution strategies begin with a solid plan. Providers must be aware of key trends in the market and understand how to link customer data with their channel strategies. In addition, executives must identify the universe of channel possibilities and systematically evaluate their cost to deploy, fit with the current organization, and potential interactions to arrive at the optimal solution for their organization.
   
• Building the Organization – To deliver multi-channel excellence, providers must create an environment which supports multi-channel success. This process goes well beyond formal organizational structure to include employee development, communication, change management, incentives, and performance measurement.
   
• Executing the Strategy – Ultimately, only flawless execution will deliver on the promise of multi-channel distribution. Successfully managing several key challenges including, coherent branding, reengineering existing assets, developing new assets, encouraging customers to adopt new channels, and delivering consistent service quality, will all prove key to achieving the desired result.