Pillars of distinctive customer journeys

In recent years, customer experience (CX) has emerged as a major differentiator for large companies, including financial-services providers, banks and trade credit insurer. In a recent McKinsey survey of senior executives, 90% of respondents confirmed that CX is one of the CEO’s top three priorities.

It’s a priority because the stakes are so high. For financial institutions, for example, rising customer expectations are pressing organizations to come up with more functional improvements even as alternatives to traditional financial services are emerging. In this dynamic environment, financial institutions face a stiff challenge to differentiate their offerings while reducing cost and complexity for customers—and to do it at a profit.

Overcoming these challenges is critical not just to meet rising customer expectations and to compete with new digital attackers but also to generate significant business impact. Research indicates that for every 10-percentage-point uptick in customer satisfaction, a company can increase revenues 2-3%.

At a time when the customer-satisfaction scores of top-quartile institutions can exceed those of bottom-quartile players by as much as 30 to 40%, the financial payoff from best-in-class CX can be significant indeed. These gains come from a variety of sources, including additional product purchases generated by cross-selling and up-selling, such as when a borrower increases the value of a loan or credit limits. To summarize the four key pillars in a nutshell:

1. Focus on the few factors that move the needle for customers

2. Ease and simplicity: The payoff trade-off

3. Master the digital-first journey, but don’t stop there

4. Brands and perceptions matter

There are also differences among customer groups. The ease of communicating with the company is more important to customers 55 years and older than to 18-to-24-year-olds. Conversely, ability to identify the right products is more important to 18-to-24-year-olds than to those 55 and older. This suggests that processes and value offerings need to be modular with their emphasis varying with what matters most to each customer segment.

Knowing what to do is the right place to start. But a company’s success in building out great customer journeys requires agile capabilities that excel at rapid iteration and testing and learning. Reacting to live feedback from real customers is often the difference between a good and a great customer experience.

For more information refer to: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/the-four-pillars-of-distinctive-customer-journeys