The role of banks as the mediator between people and their financial needs have only amplified in the recent past. But, as much as banks continue to play a significant role in people’s lives, the competition they face has also increased. There’s also the bitter pill that customers don’t necessarily enjoy banking as they face a myriad of pain points due to complexities within the banking system. So, banks need to adopt a strategy that addresses both issues.
The answer lies in Customer Experience (CX). If you want to know how CX can fix the lackluster experience that banks are infamous for, keep reading!
Helps to Adopt Digitization Successfully
In the beginning, when technology began to influence business-customer interactions, digitization referred to the automation of banking services. However, today, effective digitization doesn’t merely involve putting up a website or a portal for customers to carry out their financial transactions online. It also means understanding the needs of your customers effectively and providing innovative digital solutions.
When every bank is digitized, your lead in the market depends on differentiation. How can your bank provide a better digital experience than the other? The answer lies in understanding your customers, accounting touchpoints in the entire journey, and creating an experience that is unique to your bank. Think of it as a digital sphere where you create a sense of community in which customers like to participate.
Helps to Attract and Retain Valuable Clients
Many customers consider tasks of banking as ordeals mainly because they find it too complicating or time-consuming. So, customers won’t hesitate to switch to a bank that lowers their efforts and improves their convenience. The 2020 Accenture Banking Report shows that competitive pricing and good customer service as major reasons for consumers switching to another bank. If you want to remain competitive alongside other banks and retain your loyal customers, you have to focus on enhancing the customer experience delivered by your bank to be on par with customers’ expectations.
It means that banks have to strategize on improving the entire customer journey starting from making a good first impression. The ways in which banks present their brand, appeal to the financial needs of customers and introduce new services, matter a great deal. Moreover, attractive schemes that banks have for their existing clients also determine loyalty.
Helps to Serve Every Customer Successfully
There is no doubt that we are in the age of the digital customer where people expect everything to be available online. But, the question is whether consumers are willing to give up their good old practice of stepping into a bank branch, communicating with an employee, and getting their tasks done. Experts in the bank industry continue to vest their belief on the importance of face-to-face interactions, especially in commercial banking and wealth management. It’s because there are customer types who still value the customer experience delivered by familiar bank employees in respective branches.
So, if you want to win customers, you have to consider CX seriously and adopt a holistic approach. This means improvements both online and in-store to suit the taste of your customers. Improving CX in branches can include reducing waiting time in queues, faster processing times, friendly customer service, and adopting an appealing office layout to improve convenience.
Helps to Provide a Seamless Experience
The internet has opened up a multitude of channels for customers to reach out to their service providers, and this has elevated their expectations significantly. As a result, banks, as a major service provider in a customer’s life are inclined to improve their online presence. So, in addition to creating a strong digitized banking platform, banks should also ensure that they are available to assist customers via other modes of engagement, such as social media accounts, phone, and email. According to a survey by Ernst and Young, Omnichannel customer experience remains one of the primary areas that need improvement in the banking sector. But, this alone isn’t sufficient.
For a truly seamless experience, banks must also focus on how to enable a smooth transition between the channels, so customers don’t withdraw from the interaction. As an example, if a customer forwards a request via social media and doesn’t get the expected response because the employee handling the account doesn’t know where to direct the customer, it can hinder the quality of the experience.
Banking Success Story: Banregio
Banregio is one of the fastest-growing and leading banks for Entrepreneurs and SMEs in Mexico. Banregio realized that to set themselves apart from other banks in their sector, they would need to focus heavily on their customers and create an industry-leading customer experience, starting with their branches.
Since working with Feedbackly, Banregio has seen their response rates increase quickly across all of their customer touchpoints, providing them with more accurate, up to date information. With higher response rates and Feedbackly’s analysis tools at their disposal, management has been able to set more realistic and segmented KPIs, monitor exactly how their customer experience is progressing across all channels, and take action when it is needed the most to best suit their customers’ needs at branch level.
