Financial services firms generally have no coherent and integrated view of their customers, according to a recent report by Bearing Point. In fact, fewer than 60 percent surveyed have ventured beyond their product-based stovepipes to speak to their clients with a single voice. As a result, the financial services sector is vulnerable to customer attrition. "When I talk to senior management of our clients, what I hear is that very rarely do their retail or corporate customers come into the bank anymore," says Chris Formant, executive vice president of BearingPoint. "Everything is done in some disconnected way."

Ironically, the empowerment of customers through web-based tools of interaction actually has made it more difficult for companies to manage customer knowledge -- and has attenuated customer loyalty. "What other industry would push all of their clients out to have disconnected interactions, and then not want to find some way to make a terrific experience each time to encourage loyalty?" Formant says. "We're suggesting that, at the end of the day, after you have disconnected all your customers, if you have no way of differentiating yourself on the basis of customer experience...you're dead."