South America maintained its growth levels in both business activity and earnings throughout 2011. It also improved its asset quality indicators against a background of severe financial turmoil at a global level. This was possible thanks to the plans implemented in the region, focused on growth in key segments (individuals and corporates), a customized value added offer for each segment, and improvements in service quality, productivity and efficiency.
In 2012, the area will continue to work in this direction to take advantage of the expected economic growth in the region in a context of what are expected to be increasingly narrow spreads due to the highly competitive environment. A number of plans are being implemented to serve this purpose. Their objectives are summed up below:
- Individual customers segmentation, aimed at growing and cultivating the loyalty of higher-value added customers through an offer leveraged on personalized attention and exclusive products and services. For the classic customer, this means plans focused on creating closer relations internally, through upgrades and cross-selling, building loyalty by bundling products and services and facilitating their interaction with the rest of the catalogue. Approaching new segments with a major potential in the region through specific programs will be key over the coming years. Finally, emphasis will be placed on enabling automatic channels to make daily transactions easier.
- Corporates and SMEs plan. The aim is to increase market share and the volume of profitable business. This has also been set up by developing a segmented approach for these customers. In the corporate segment, priority will be given to the most dynamic sectors in the region, with promotion of transactional banking facilities through a management model based on specialization and expansion. For SMEs, the keys are gaining loyalty through bundled products, and attracting new customers by improving service quality, building closer bank-client relations and reducing response time.
- Pension Business. Projects aimed at making progress on four major levers of value are being implemented: customers, new distribution models, improved efficiency and excellence in the quality of customer service. These projects pursue, among other features, positioning BBVA as an example of voluntary saving plans in the region and retaining high-value added customers, for whom business intelligence methodologies are being developed. This is all part of an ambitious project with a long-term vision of quality and service aimed at improving BBVA’s competitive position.
Progress will also be made on:
- Customer insight, in order to better identify the specific needs of each segment and market, by boosting commercial intelligence as a key to making progress on commercial management, and by ensuring the satisfaction of current and prospective customers.
- Management models, to boost commercial systematization, the processes of targeting and creating incentives for sales, and the enhancement of the overall productivity of both direct and automatic channels. This will be achieved by renewing and improving the toolset used in commercial activity (i.e. the processes designed for selling products and services through every channel).
- A multi-channel model, involving investment in the branch network and optimization of mass channels (above all, self-service) in order to ease pressure on the sales force and enhance service capacity and efficiency, particularly in the digital world (i.e. mobile and Internet banking).