Seamlessly Engage Bank Customers with Satisfying Multichannel Experiences

Nowadays #banking customers in the #MiddleEast and #Africa region are demanding personalized and reliable experiences across every single channel - both digital and traditional. My new article shows that there is a great chance to meet their demands by betting on the #multichannel solutions.

Today’s banking customers in Africa and the Middle East are beginning to want more than just digital services from their banks. Online and mobile banking apps aren’t enough—they’re demanding reliable, end-to-end experiences that are personalized across their own digital and traditional channels.

Multichannel customer experience solutions are enabling banks to engage customers like never before, providing granular personalization to match their specific needs and a customer experience journey that becomes richer over time. An optimal customer experience solution is one that engages customers at the right time, in the right place, through the right channel and with the right information – this sounds complex but can be managed simply.

Why banks are going omnichannel and what does it mean

The business case for a multichannel customer experience strategy is simple: win over customers to reduce churn and streamline operations for greater efficiency, cost savings, and new powerful offerings.

According to reports like Accenture’s Banking Customer of 2020, investments in digital banking are on the rise, but customer churn is now at an all-time high. From over 16,000 bank customers surveyed, the main reason for leaving their providers was poor overall experiences with their current banks.

Digital experience management in banking can alleviate the top concerns of customers by providing the following advantages:

1)    Increased Loyalty and Retention

Social engagement, customer history and analytics must work together to provide personalized interactions, individual offers and a sense of satisfaction. When provided with the right experience at the right time, customers felt closer to their banks.

2)    Swift Issue Resolution

80% of customers who changed banks said they could have been retained if the customer experience was better. A multichannel experience platform allows representatives to understand, tackle and fix issues quickly—sometimes preemptively before a problem snowballs into a larger issue, which is key for retention.

3)    More Channels, More Options

Digital channels have become more fragmented, with social media, mobile, desktop and phone making up a large number of interactions channels. The average customer had “17 interactions with its main bank per month—10 are online or with a mobile device.” With digital transformation in CRMs, these channels streamline into one customer relations platform.

3 Powerful Examples of Multichannel Experiences in Banking

Let’s take a look at real life customer stories that led to immediate benefits for customer-facing banks. Omnichannel banking experiences vary widely with every implementation, so keep in mind these stories (including your own) will be deeply unique.

1.   Diamond Bank: End-to-End Customer Relationship Management

“Digitization helps us go beyond share of wallet; it enables us to increase customer ‘share of life.’” —Uzoma Dozie: CEO of Diamond Bank Plc, 2017

Diamond Bank is one of the 22 primary financial institutions in Nigeria. Their deployment of a customer experience platform was made possible through simple, practical initiatives to drive up customer engagement and improve internal efficiencies.

Seamless Customer Relations

Whenever a customer interacts with Diamond Bank today, a digital snapshot is recorded instantly and shared in real-time across the network. Before this change, the handover note would have taken almost a whole day for one customer. Now, the handover note is live and dynamic, with easy access allowing employees more time to do more productive tasks for their customers.

Going Customer-Centric with Power BI

With an analytics platform observing the real-time interactions across the bank’s customers, they were able to develop insights into what their customers wanted and react to this as needed. Management teams across the company could see the same data in real time, enabling everyone across the company to become more customer-centric.

2.   Bank of Beirut: Delighted Customers, Streamlined Workflows

“It has empowered our customer service team with a 360-degree view of the customers.” —Josephine El Koreh: IT Development and Maintenance Manager of Bank of Beirut, 2017

Bank of Beirut was able to digitally transform their entire CRM platform – a big leap towards the new way of banking. The number one benefit has been observed in onboarding new customers, with a drastic reduction in paperwork and customer wait-times.

Customer Touch Points with Dynamics CRM

Implementing Dynamics CRM gave the bank a holistic view of their sales, services, and customer experience processes. By capturing customer touch points and integrating data with customer services, management was able to create entirely new segmented product offerings that stood out from the competition.

Increased Customer Satisfaction

Bank of Beirut was also able to provide faster account openings and significantly decrease interview length by giving agents a 360-degree view around the account, providing fast and targeted service. In addition, agents were able to have a digital marketing knowledge base that kept interactions consistent across different branches. Manual work and paperwork were largely replaced with a trail in the CRM to generate automatic reminders and alerts for improved customer service management and increased customer satisfaction.

3.   JD Group Conglomerate: New Customer Experiences

The system sends out promoted offerings to the customers through WeChat, as well as transferring data to the CRM system for senior executives, field managers and consultants for customer data management. —JD Group Conglomerate (China, 2017)

The JD Group Conglomerate was able to deliver entirely new digital offerings to their customers as a result of customer tracking and deep insights into buying pattern and needs.

Personalized Recommendations

Their consultants were able to produce customized offerings according to customer's unique asset sizes and investment preferences. When a potential customer showed interest in an offering, the agent was able to immediately book their appointment in the system and send a meeting invite. When they decided to purchase, the agent could draft an e-contract and deliver it in real-time.

Mobilized Efficiency

Mobile apps were also a unique part of JD Group’s customer management and appointment booking optimization. On their mobile apps, field agents were able to input customer data, set remote bookings, draft e-contracts and conduct payments. The connected and collaborative tools translated to better customer experiences, as they had everything they needed right there with them.

Let’s Connect!

If you’re looking for connected technologies to kickoff multichannel customer experiences, a good place to start is Dynamics 365 for Customer Service which gives customer service reps the tools to really powerful experiences across channels. Then you can take it further by using analytics tools like Power BI to get insights into customer data.

Feel free to share your own experiences with digital customer engagement with me in the comments section or via private message. I’m eager to hear about your customer stories or offer advice to those looking to explore the possibilities of digital customer engagement!