2 Customer Care Tactics Banks Must Use During Coronavirus Triage

The economy has lost 16.5 million jobs in the last 3 weeks alone, which is why millions are requesting mortgage forbearances and business expense relief. 

Bank customers are scared and employees are overwhelmed as the coronavirus economic impact spreads. A mid-March JD Power survey showed 83% of consumers “somewhat” or “very” concerned that coronavirus impacts will harm their finances. And the NFIB said 76% of America’s 30 million businesses with less than 500 employees are being negatively impacted by coronavirus. 

As all of you bankers and lenders out there care for customers amidst extreme volume and rapidly changing regs, let’s consider 2 critical tactics you can use to drive positive customer experiences.

1. Enhance forbearance and loan process triage with humanized, fast communication tactics.

The avalanche of forbearance and Payroll Protection Program (PPP) loan requests is tough on even the best bank teams. 

On forbearances, regulators told consumers you must help, but you still have all the risk. 

On PPP loans, many businesses need money in days to survive. 

On top of all this, secondary market volatility has led to guideline changes that wreak havoc on originating and servicing mortgages.

In this environment, you must pair human and digital tactics to: 

• INFORM customers about their options, up front and ongoing. 
• EDUCATE customers to set proper expectations on possible outcomes, changes that may arise based on real-time market and regulatory movement, and timing of the forbearance, PPP, or other process. 
• ENGAGE customers constantly to show how you’re helping them. Market factors, guidelines, and regs will continue changing daily, and may prevent their desired outcome. So this engagement will give you credibility and protect your brand as you steer customers through this volatility. 

You need a two-tier strategy to handle these factors: 

1. Clearly tell your customers you’re here to help but must evaluate each profile. Right now, this is best done with centralized email deployment to control sensitive messaging, which can then serve as salesforce and call center scripting. You can also use centralized social media to amplify “INFORM” and “EDUCATE” messaging that applies to all customers.
2. Getting PPP loans and forbearances approved will take longer than most consumers have and tensions are high. You must create automated campaigns to “EDUCATE” and “ENGAGE” people about your process so they feel confident you’re paying attention and taking them seriously even when your teams are  overwhelmed. These can be simple email campaigns just to show you care. This matters more than ever. And as you can see from the chart below, financial services email open rates are very high.

2. Direct customers to remote banking with  pointed email and social tactics.

A great example of this comes from one of the country’s great banks, First Republic. Based in San Francisco where lockdowns came early, they got ahead on the bank-from-home message with simple and effective email campaigns.  

Here’s what their emails look like. You’ll note they don’t have coronavirus messaging in them, but they were timed along with this pandemic. I like the way they make the point without causing more alarm. 

This is an important part of customer experience, which is my last point below. 

Customer experience reigns in recessions.

We know the traditional definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. But there’s nothing traditional about coronavirus economic conditions. 

This is truly a black swan event where we’ll get two of the worst quarters in history, but then potentially a fast rebound. 

Nobody knows how fast yet. But we do know that customer experience is the most important thing you can manage in a crisis.

If you cancelled any travel as your city was locked down, you know what I’m talking about. Normally airlines are hard to deal with on cancellations and refunds, but they made the process very easy in this stressful time. 

Banks and lenders are now in a position where you can’t control every outcome, and you certainly can’t control timing as capacity hits limits and regulatory and credit risk is a moving target. 

But you can control your customer experience through proactive, helpful communication— even when you’re under siege. Can you guess what happens when you deliver a superior experience in a recession?

Forrester shows customer experience leaders win during recessions. Here’s why:

“Now more than ever, people need extra information, guidance, and support to navigate a novel set of challenges, from keeping their families safe to helping their kids learn when schools are shut down, says McKinsey & Company. “They want a resource they can trust, that can make them feel safe when everything seems uncertain, and that offers support when so much seems to be overwhelming.”

I couldn’t agree more, and I’m here to help you as you navigate through this. Please reach out and let me know what’s working and not working right now.