Customer Experience in Banking

I participated as Expert Panelist on "Improving CX with Digital Banking" at Future Banking Summit 2021 organized by Total Communication held on 21st October 2021.

To compensate for the time constraints at the event, I have compiled some insights on CX in Banking for wider audience specifically for banking professionals involved in CX and Digital Transformation and to answer probable questions the interested professionals may have.

Customer experience (CX) is the defining competitive differentiator in the banking industry today. Banks and Fintech’s that invest in the customer experience will see higher revenues, bigger wallet share, and are more likely to increase their market share by up-selling to existing customers.

Customer experience is not limited to product or service but its collective experience; interacting with various touchpoints, including online banking, emails, call/contact centers, online advertising, face-to-face interactions and social media.

The customer experience specifically in banking is important for two key reasons: First CX has become an important driving aspect of marketing. According to a?Gartner?survey, 81% of companies compete mostly or completely on the basis of CX.

Second, each pleasant customer experience, increases customer retention and repeat business.

Here are the top CX elements to help you re-think, re-design and kick start the Journey

Reducing Employee & Customer Effort: Reducing customer and employee effort by providing self-service options to customers like mobile app, web banking, WhatsApp banking, AI enabled chat bots in addition to voice and non-voice omni channels is one of the must haves instead of nice to have.

If your bank already has such channels the next question is are you collecting and using the data from these channels in a manner adding value to your customers.

The Branch of the Future: With changing eco-system and arrival of fintech, Customers may not want to visit physical branches unless compelled by need.

The conventional branches need to compete with internet banks while re-thinking branch of the future. One can have showroom or club/lounge type facility OR changing the way how face to face interactions is managed by turning branches in to customer learning venues.

Another way is by offering personalized training to Old Age citizens on how to download and use mobile app.

?Artificial Intelligence: With self-service becoming popular and offering convenience instead of waiting in physical or call center queue, banks and customers both will gain from incorporating AI.

According to research from Gartner, 70% of customer interactions are expected to involve emerging technologies such as machine learning applications, chatbots, and mobile messaging.

But before using AI enabled chat bots or virtual assistants, ensure that your customer journey is seamless when required to transfer from chatbots to human agents.

Automated Onboarding: First good impression still matters and onboarding is prime example of this. Conventional onboarding requires physical visits, papers and signatures etc.

If your bank can digitize this first impression and customer can open account while sitting at home, the CX index goes up and increases loyalty even if there are minor hick ups.

Bank from Home: Year 2020 compelled us to realize the importance of digital and remote services.

No one said life & digital transformation is easy! But someone has to do it.

The actual T-20 here is to ensure that DX is carried out in phases and at the same time provide enough learning and training for employees and customers. This could be in form of video tutorials, hands on, co-browsing and even on call and IVR.

“Humanizing” Digital: Ask yourself if ticket was free, would you travel on pilotless trans-Atlantic flight?

When you are planning on digitizing any service or product don’t forget it will be used by humans.

Hyper-personalization: According to research from the?Boston Consulting Group, if done well, personalization at scale can lead to annual revenue uplifts of 10%.

With advent of fintech the next player is hyper personalization.

We have already seen web engagement where you search for one particular product and for next X days you keep getting ads or pop-up about this product with varying prices and deals.

Banks can do same with the data they collect, devise targeted approach and offer hyper personalized services.

Doing the Right Thing: Last year has been financially challenging for many, its is the right time for banks to do right by their customers. A good start is to be honest with your customers about how store, secure and use their data.

We have seen obnoxious SMS being broadcasted offering income support or harassing by saying that your ATM has been blocked.

Doing the right thing is about showing how much you care which is integral part of CX.

Start up Kit for Improving the Customer Experience in Banking

Assemble a dedicated CX Project team:?The team should be a cross-functional team having members from each function whether HR, procurement, marketing and must be headed by seasoned Customer Service Professional. Do not ask existing operations team to be part of this, their workload may not allow them to be productive member, instead each functional POC may draw upon the experience and input of their team.

Voice of Customer:?Customer must have an outlet to provide their feedback, opinions and suggestions for the improvement. It is important that if a customer provides actionable suggestion, you must thank them with hyper personalized communication especially if you are implementing their suggestion. Above all ensure that every customer receives response who took out time to share their feedback.

Phase out your CX strategy implementation: Every CX initiative you take may not be successful but you learn something out of it. Its important to test internally with internal users before market release. Ask your employees first to test new feature.

Design for Humans (Customer Centric approach): Technology is a tool not the end in itself but means to enhance CX. Don’t be part of the bandwagon but use voice of customer to design your next service experience. Talk to your customer facing teams they are the ones who know exactly what customers want. EX strengthens DX and blend of both will result in enhancing CX.

Take baby steps:?Oh, its so tempting to roll out multiple initiatives and bombard social media with happy pictures and captions. Transformation requires planned, measured and thoughtful approach. One at a time will give you better resource management, time to test and fix, easier collaboration internally and support of everyone involved.

Key Takeaways

Confusing Customer Service (CS) with Customer Experience (CX); CS is the foundation of all things customer. CX is not the new name for CS.

Do not house teams interacting with customers in Silos or with different departments.?This is the pitfall on the road of service & customer journey.

Technology is tool and means to improve services for the Humans.

AI should not become Absolute idiocy. Design for humans adding value

Don’t forget EX and voice of customer via employees.

Collect usable and actionable data which has integrity and is visible to everyone involved in managing customer experience.

?About Me

?I am Certified COPC Implementation Leader with extensive CX Operations Management experience across diverse industries including airlines, telecoms and technology companies.

Looking for More!

Organizations embarking on CX Journey seeking no frills practical advice

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Drop a line at [email protected]

The content for this article was prepared based on my own experience and learning including online and other resources.