Tips for How to Create a New Banking Customer Journey

If your bank wasn’t already on a transformation journey prior to COVID-19, it is most likely on one now. Integrating digital and physical experiences to create a new journey that best meets the needs of a wide range of banking customers is no small feat – but there are some tried and true strategies that can help financial institutions manage a transformation journey.

Based on many years of working with banks on transformation initiatives, here are our top tips for how to approach the process:

Better Customer Segmentation Matters More Than Ever: Financial institutions have so much consumer data, there is no excuse any longer for not using it to provide a highly personalized offering. This starts with better customer segmentation. Why are we still dividing people up into groups based on such basic demographics as age and gender? Certainly, there may be some basic commonalities in these groups – but in an age where banks can see 90 percent of a consumer’s daily financial activities, it’s time to get much more granular. Rather than segmenting by basic demographics, think of using customer archetype personas that rely on consumer behavior. For example, you have downtown professionals with no children – which could encompass both young singles, couples and empty nesters, but who share common daily routines, visit similar places, use similar modes of transportation and are likely to bank in similar ways.

Local Needs Should Guide Retail Asset Strategy: In the retail industry, including retail banking, it’s common for locations that are underperforming to be shut down. While right-sizing your retail assets are important, we see many organizations prematurely assuming a location is “underperforming” when in fact, it is the organization that is under-delivering to that area. Every branch should not be offering the same set of services and products - that is an outdated way of thinking. The more specifically a given location can cater to the needs of the local community, the more likely it is to perform well. The time has come for banks to create a more responsive retail network – the physical branch is an enormous asset, even in the digital age. Thinking beyond traditional banking services and being hyper-local will allow banks to leverage this asset as an enormous benefit to consumers.

Build Test-and-Learn into Your Network: Given the rapid changes happening in technological innovation and customer needs, retail design is no longer as fixed as it once was. Banks should be developing a lab location that allows them to quickly learn and adapt to these changes in real-time, with modular design to allow for frequent regular changes.

Map the Journey and Walk it: There is no longer a linear marketing funnel or path to purchase for retail banks to follow in an ABC pattern. The customer journey now resembles a web more than a path. When transforming this journey, not only do you need to map out all the various touchpoints and interconnections, but you need to walk the path and see it through the eyes of the consumer. Each customer persona will follow this path differently – where do consumers want to meet you? Where do they want which services? How do they want to be engaged? Walking through the journey with empathy will help you create a better customer experience.

To learn about the design process in greater detail, please register for the Customer Experience 4.0 Master Series.