Consumer Digital Journey

Having had the privilege these last few weeks of being pitched to by some super digital talent, from both the UK and US, and experienced first-hand NatWest’s online offering, it’s made me more sensitive to the pitfalls in a consumer’s digital journey.

There’s no question that online systems have in many walks of life, improved interaction between the consumer and the vendor, we often refer to great functionality as Amazon like.

However, problems regularly arise when the consumer’s information doesn’t conform to the vendor’s data gathering requirements exactly. Furthermore the frustration level can be exacerbated  where a company’s product offerings are supported by different call centres or departments, and with slightly varying processes.

As an example, part of the identification process for both a personal and business bank account application I was asked for my passport and a utility bill. The same information was uploaded for both, one was accepted and one was rejected. At this point the interaction between myself and the organisation fell apart, with only painstaking toing and froing with the online team and two different call centres prevailing.

At the outset of these ‘digital transformation’ projects we spend a lot of time on the user experience, but to my mind we need to spend even more and start to realise that the customer journey isn’t a linear experience.

My dealings with NatWest, despite the intense frustration, made me feel for their support staff, who in the main were excellent. It was clear the system had no way of dealing with anomalies or slight variations to the norm, and I’m not referring to things that must be exacting the financial world.