Banks and credit unions face tremendous competitive pressure as the financial services industry moves closer and closer to commoditization and even disintermediation. Today, consumers have more choices for managing their financial assets and transactions than ever before.
So how do depository and lending institutions survive, let alone thrive? Ultimately it comes down to knowing who your best customers are, what they value most and then exceeding their expectations – along with a healthy dash of operational efficiency!
The difference between customers and your customers
The fact that banking services are no longer homogenous is proof that the market is filled with consumers who value unique financial products and services. For example, when financing a car or mortgage, some borrowers may turn to a transactional online lender, while others prefer the personal relationships established with a trusted bank or credit union. The point here is not to say that one way is inherently better than another. The point is that consumers have a choice and will select the way that is best for them.
In highly competitive markets, it is common for businesses to target a segment of customers who exhibit similar wants and needs and then to specifically cater to those customers. This explains why it is so important to know who your customers are, what they value most and then deliver what truly delights them.
Unprecedented era of digital transformation
One veteran of the financial services industry said that everything they do starts with the customer (or client or member). Technology is then used as the means to accelerate and improve service. Technology is also applied to help firms innovate faster—something that’s critical, now more than ever, because agility is what is needed to stay abreast of rapidly changing customer demands. This explains why the financial services industry is in an unprecedented era of intensive digital transformation.
Here are five ways banking customer experience (CX) can help better serve your customers:
- Listen to understand
Customers are always communicating not only by what they say, but also by what they do. Are you listening to everything they are saying? Surveys and voice of customer tools are helpful to understand what customers are saying. But there is much more to their story. It is equally valuable to analyze their interactions. By doing so, we can detect sentiment and find where unnecessary effort is exerted or wants to go unsatisfied. For example, when applying for a loan online, how many chat sessions are started because borrowers cannot complete the process? How many abandoned applications are seen? When support is contacted, what is the root cause? Is the customer calm, frustrated or angry? Listening can also be achieved by analyzing outcomes. What makes the difference between a successfully completed loan application and an unsuccessful one? When you fully enable your listening capabilities and then act on what your customers are telling you, you will see amazing results.
- Deliver the right experience
It is universally accepted that the key to success is being in the right place, at the right time, with the right solution. When it comes to successfully delivering satisfying customer experiences, it is no different—deliver the right solution, at the right time and in the right way. For example, if someone wants to open a new account at 9 p.m. while binge-watching their favorite program, can they? If they get stuck, or want to talk to a human, are they able to? Delivering those perfect experiences is possible when you have the right portfolio of CX applications and building blocks (e.g., CX platform) to design and implement what customers require. This may include voice of customer, voice and digital (omnichannel) engagement, self and live assist interaction, back-office integration, and AI (artificial intelligence), automation, and journey orchestration to pull it all together into one superb journey experience.
- Smarter self-service
A key component of delivering the right experience is offering smart digital self-service. When people think about self-service the first thing that may come to mind is AI customer service bots—immediately followed by the lackluster reputation most early AI customer service bots are known for. But it is important to know that there are more smart self-service tools available in addition to bots, and that today’s bots have come a long way since they were first introduced and they deserve a second look.
Often overlooked self-service tools include easily accessible knowledge bases and a newer class of automated “guides.” Knowledge bases are extremely valuable when used to help actively searching customers find answers to questions like what qualifications are needed to receive a credit card, or how to make a late payment. On the other hand, guides sit passively in the background looking for opportunities to interactively offer web visitors more information or to suggest next steps. Guides are an excellent self-service option to coach someone on how to select for the right checking account or to accurately complete a loan application.
Finally, to deliver smarter self-service, newer bots should also be considered. To borrow a line from the movies “bots aren’t bad, they are just designed that way.” Advanced bots, or intelligent virtual assistants (IVAs) are most successful when they are designed to be fully interactive and modeled after successful, real-world interactions and outcomes. In other words, train an IVA to do what the best employees do. The combination of industry specific interaction data and advances in machine learning and natural language processing are now producing much smarter bots that are being successfully used for self-service tasks like managing account balances, getting application status, making account changes, facilitating payments or to answer frequently asked questions.
- Empower front-line employees
Providing the human touch will always play a role in delivering the right experience at the right time. To make those human-to-human interactions even more satisfying requires doing even more to empower front-line employees. To do this, contact center software must simply do more behind the scenes to reduce complexity and make it easier for employees to focus solely on solving customers’ needs. This starts with smartly managing work streams by intelligently routing and queuing omnichannel interactions into a single queue matched to an employee’s skills. It means working in the background to accumulate customer and transaction histories from the CRM (customer relationship management) and other back-office systems and presenting it to the employee. It means using AI to guide employee actions based on successful, similar interactions and outcomes. It means using process automation to complete after call work accurately and with consistency. It also means supplying constructive feedback and training allowing employees to improve. Imagine the boost to your brand and the resulting satisfaction customers receive as employees show confidence, competence, and professionalism with each live assist interaction.
- Innovate faster
Making transformational changes is hard. But what is even more difficult is making these changes repeatedly with speed and agility. Fast changing industry dynamics and customer preferences require constant change with speed and agility.
For example, as Federal Reserve benchmark rates began to steadily rise in late 2022, demand for lending products fell while demand for CDs (certificates of deposit) and higher interest rate savings accounts increased. This meant that the industry needed to reprioritize their product offerings which also caused changes in supporting customers through a fundamentally different buying journey.
Having a well-appointed CX tech stack is vital. Having a CX interaction platform from a single vendor is even better. Obsolescence, and incompatibility in any part of your CX technology portfolio can hinder innovation and agility.
Leverage the power of banking CX
The best way to survive and thrive in the fast-changing financial services industry is to lean in and leverage the power of banking CX to not only identify and understand who your customers are and what they really want, but to also give them what they value most.
Transforming customer journeys and customer experiences can yield compound benefits on profitability. Digitally enabled and transformed processes often result in double-digit operational savings. For example, self-service is a proven tactic for achieving call deflection which lowers call arrival rates. This increases capacity and allows more live assist interactions without incremental investment. In addition, training, automation, and AI coaching all reduce average handle time which lowers cost per contact and overall cost per service.
And while qualitative, it is understood that there is a strong connection between customer satisfaction and healthy revenues. Customer acquisition costs are lower, and customer retention rates and associated lifetime value are higher. The bottom line: more top-line growth, less operational expense, and a healthier bottom line. And you can take that to the bank!
NICE helps depository and lending financial services institutions deliver superb mobile, online, and digitally transformed customer experiences. Learn more here.