HOW TO BETTER SERVE MICRO BUISINESS
Banks urged to look to technology solutions to better serve micro
businesses
15 July 2010 – A new white paper reveals micro businesses1 are changing how they interact with
financial services organisations because of their highly mobile nature and generational shift from
Baby Boomer to more technology savvy Generation X and Y.
The report’s author, Telstra Enterprise and Government General Manager for Industry Development,
Mr Rocky Scopelliti said the white paper, Servicing Micro Businesses – What Financial Institutions
Need to Know, highlighted how communications technology could assist financial services
organisations improve the customer satisfaction offered to micro businesses.
“Compared with other enterprises, Australian micro businesses are the most mobile. About twothirds
of their employees work from multiple locations, with this figure set to reach nearly threequarters2
by 2012.
“While micro businesses are the most mobile they still rely heavily on branch visits, phone banking
and financial advisers for their banking needs.
“With the explosion in smartphones, laptops and the growth in new devices in the home, now is the
time for the financial services sector to assess new and emerging technologies to help them attract,
retain and cross sell to micro business customers,” Mr Scopelliti said.
The white paper has identified three technology experience concepts underpinned by technologies
such as remote working, unified communications, conferencing, collaboration and contact centre
analytics, to help financial services organisations better support Australian micro businesses:
1. Experts Anywhere – provide much greater access to expertise within the financial services
provider to resolve problems quickly, efficiently and on the spot irrespective of whether the
customer communicates via voice, email, video or text.
2. My Branch Anywhere – include the branch team to optimise the relationship as an integral
part of the contact management process.
3. The Personalised Contact Centre – make the contact centre experience personalised
through predictive and behavioural analytics including personalised interactive voice
response (IVR) and other speech and text analytics enablers.
Mark McCrindle, social researcher and principal at McCrindle Research, also believed that financial
institutions could provide better customer service experiences by studying the changing profile of
micro businesses.
“With 60 per cent of micro business owners either pre boomers and baby boomers, all of whom are
set to retire over the next decade, financial service organisations need to better understand the
intergenerational changes taking place in the next few years to better engage this business segment.
“This will be the biggest leadership succession in Australia’s history, with the leadership mantle
passing to Gen X and Gen Y. With these two generations being more tech-savvy and reliant on
mobile technology than the current generation of micros business owners, financial institutions will
1 Defined as having between one and five employees, number around 600,000 and employ 15 per cent of the workforce.
2 Enterprise Mobile User Forecast: Mobile “Wannabes” Are the Fastest Growing Segment, Forrester, October 2008.
Media contact: Peter Habib | 0417 100 191
www.telstra.com.au/abouttelstra/media
Reference: 233/2010
need to have a broader, more in-depth understanding of their needs if they want to retain and
capture their business,” Mr McCrindle said.
Telstra is working with financial services organisations to show how these concepts can become a
reality, through existing technologies including:
• Telstra Next IP™ and Next G™ core IP networks
• Enterprise Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC&C) platforms
• Enterprise mobility solutions
• IP-based customer contact platforms
• Predictive and behavioural analytics
• Contact quality management systems.
A full copy of the white paper can be found online at
www.telstraenterprise.com/researchinsights/Pages/ServicingMicroBusinesses.aspx
