Re-imagine a Customer Experience Outside/In vs. Inside/Out

Sound like a familiar topic? If it didn't, you might want to read this blog to hear why the Outside/In approach matters now more than ever. If this did resonate, you should read this blog to learn more.

 Many of us get stuck in the daily grind of our work and forget to ask, "How does the customer view our company when they call us or log onto our website?" It's not that we don't want to provide prospective customers with stellar customer service, a premier sales experience, and a phenomenal mobile UI so they can intuitively research or access the information they seek. It’s simply not something we think about as we all fall into the daily routine of our work. We forget that others do not know where to find the same things we naturally know where to find in our own companies.

 Why does User Experience in Financial Services matter so much? 

Because today's consumer has a lower tolerance for the “run-around,” less patience and seemingly more knowledge at their disposal about your service and industry than ever before. Think about the last time you tried to call Comcast or DirecTV to inquire about a new channel package or what you thought was a simple invoice question only to encounter someone who claimed their name was “Tim” living in “Dallas”. We have minimal patience for someone who is unable to immediately grasp our issues, propose viable options, and if lucky.. find a resolution in quick order.

 According to the New York Times, the average person will wait only 400 milliseconds for a web page to load. That’s less than the blink of an eye and you’ve risked losing that prospective customer from entertaining your company for business. And.. let’s assume your web page does load quickly but you haven’t considered the decision tree a customer will go through to interact with your company, that too will be met with utter frustration and web page abandonment. 

The average consumer is more educated than ever when shopping for a product or service. This mere fact that consumers know more about their product offering options, pricing, and services, means their user behavioral patterns will differ as well. Therefore, it’s more important to account for the impact those behavioral changes will on how they engage with your website, salespeople, and throughout the ‘shopping’ process before they buy.

So, what can be done to help with this changing, fast-paced society of consumers?

Consider this; the average person goes through several of the following stressful and sometimes exciting life-changing events: college graduation, first job, marriage, divorce, first child, retirement, death. During each of these stages, people make monumental life decisions- college financing, new car, wedding, mortgage, divorce settlement(s), child education funds, retirement planning, new insurance/healthcare policy changes and ultimately funeral planning.

 What do all these life events have in common? Financial planning and budgeting. 

So, what if you could identify the lifecycle your client was in and predict the type of financial services they may need because of an external event. 

As an example, if the Federal Reserve were to hike up interest rates in October 2017, the impact to Jane Smith, 28 would be catastrophic. Jane is a relatively new working professional with 2 years into her new job as a recent attorney. Jane, who learns of this news on her phone when she receives a ‘CNN Alert’, panics because she was already tight on her budget.

To Jane, this change means her $1200 a month residential mortgage on an ARM vs. fixed rate, has now inflated to $1475. Her car loan for the used car she thought she frugally purchased to get to and from work already costs her a whopping $325 more in monthly installments. And, her student loan from law school (which she had to secure on a private loan due to her college accreditation not allowing for a government loan), is an additional $950 more a month without the right to deferral payments. This would all be reasonably managed if she didn’t require a new roof due to the recent storms, setting her back another $15K she doesn’t have saved.

 Although these independent expenses don't seem too extreme, in aggregate, it puts Jane in a serious financial bind. She immediately does some math and gets overwhelmed by the thought of trying to call customer service at her large bank of choice. She knows from prior experiences that she’ll likely have to talk to 3 separate departments about the same financial burden. Just the thought causes a massive migraine.

 How thinking Outside/In Changes Everything

Jane’s stressful financial situation is not unique. Her bank or credit union of choice could change everything if she could instantly access their website and they could request a minimal amount of upfront data and:

1. Immediately know that Jane is already an account holder with a mortgage on an adjustable rate (that is impacted by this interest rate increase) and let her know the options to refinance for a more favorable fixed rate loan
2. Offer her a potential consumer loan product that might provide her an option to finance her car at a better rate than the one she was convinced to take originally
3. Provide her alternative options for her existing private student loan so she can consolidate or potentially convert to another more favorable product

Intrigued? It's all possible.