Providing excellent customer experiences is integral to both customer retention and creating new business opportunities for financial services (FS) companies. With more than 80 percent of the FS experts in CX Network’s Global State of CX 2021 research noting that customers are more willing than ever to switch in reaction to bad customer experiences.
FS providers ignore customer experience – and its retention benefits – at their peril. The fallout includes reputational damage, loss of business and poor staff retention – all of which negatively affect profits.
In response restrictions on face-to face interactions during the Covid-19 pandemic, FS providers have had to optimize technology capabilities across multiple functions to ensure customer experiences have not suffered. This has resulted in many pandemic-related changes and related products becoming permanent offerings.
FS should continue to innovate and develop the services they deliver to customers. As John Berry, CEO of the European Financial Management Association, notes: “Banks should focus on improving support, reducing the costs of banking products and services, and offering sustainability initiatives. “The future of banking relies on a strong digital foundation and a flexible attitude toward embracing innovation,” Berry adds.
In this CX Network ebook, we explore the top five CX trends within FS as voted for by a panel of CX experts from across a range of industries. Technology features heavily in the top trends for building customer loyalty in the field, but human interaction remains important. As this report reveals, good customer experiences thrive when proactive providers listen to customers and adapt accordingly in changing marketplaces.
“The future of banking relies on a strong digital foundation and a flexible attitude toward embracing innovation.”
John Berry, CEO of the European Financial Management Association
The data integration battle continues
Data integration helps FS brands make smarter decisions by drawing on a range of data sources. The reality for many businesses, as signaled by our research panel, is that despite the intentions and strategies to streamline data gathering, organization and analysis, issues remain with data silos and incomplete customer profiles.
Nikhil Shoorji, managing director of Europe at Infobip, explains: “Traditional banks tend to be organized in siloes. There’s a credit team, mortgage team, loans team, retail banking team and, in many cases, these teams run independently through their own technology stacks. As a result, providing a smooth and seamless customer experience across different service areas can become problematic. So, data and tech consolidation is a good first step.”
Consolidation into centralized data hubs give added visibility on customers and their experiences, aiding better decisions to drive loyalty. For example, real-time dashboards that help guide agents so they can optimize their interactions with customers.
Anthony Brown, senior CRM developer at NatWest, says the bank benefited from migrating its retail network of agents to a unified data hub because frontline staff can now take action on closed loop feedback and raise escalations in a timely manner.
“The key is making sure you work with data and analytics in the planning stage to create the data points that make up the starting point, then develop the correct measurement architecture,” says Brown.
“Traditional banks tend to be organized in siloes. There’s a credit team, mortgage team, loans team, retail banking team and, in many cases, these teams run independently through their own technology stacks.”
Nikhil Shoorji, managing director of Europe at Infobip
AI-led efficiencies stand as a key investment priority
AI technology, such as customized call routing, personalization via automation, chatbots and smart self-service, are gaining momentum when it comes to implementation. The FS industry needs to provide friction-free digital experiences for customers and AI has been labelled as a key investment priority for achieving this goal according to our panel of FS experts.
In the US, Sterling National Bank implemented an AI-based system to handle customer requests in May 2020. Since then, the system has faced rigorous real-world testing as the Covid-19 pandemic took hold. The bank reports that almost 50 per cent of customer inquiries – totaling 2 million by May 2021 – are now handled effectively via AI instead of being dealt with by call center staff.
“Automating the process for many common customer requests means that we have been able to continue resolving service requests quickly, allowing our agents to focus primarily on providing guidance and solving more complex issues,” says Luis Massiani, the bank’s president.
Investing time into sophisticated implementation can bring rewards of AI generating empathetic and intuitive customer care. Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Company witnessed this first hand this year when it received feedback from a client. “A customer called us to personally thank the customer care executive who had serviced him so well when he was in the hospital. When we thanked the customer for his feedback, we informed him that the ‘executive’ he was referring to was in fact our AI-driven bot. The customer was stunned, to say the least”, said K V Dipu, president of operations and CX head at the insurance firm.
“Automating the process for many common customer requests means that we have been able to continue resolving service requests quickly, allowing our agents to focus primarily on providing guidance and solving more complex issues.”
Luis Massiani, president of Sterling National Bank
Self-service empowering customers with access to more complex tasks
The AI-enhanced self-service channels are growing in prevalence across a range of sectors. For FS providers, self-service options such as apps and portals provide out-of-hours assistance, prevent enquiries from reaching more expensive customer contact channels and can even help with tasks that usually require separate and often expensive software, especially for business customers. Digital-native industry disruptors, such as Monzo, Revolut and Starling Bank, are leading the way for the more established companies to follow.
Fintech firms Monzo and Revolut have introduced apps that empower their business customers to complete administrative tasks that have traditionally been managed by bookkeepers or, more recently, business software such as managing expenses, forwarding digital receipts via email, invoicing and categorizing repeat expenses. In response to the new featured added this year to simplify and automate administrative tasks, James Gibson, head of product at Revolut Business, said: “We have also added a new way for customers to accept payments in-person, QR codes, to sit alongside payment links that we launched last year. We are constantly looking to launch tools to give our customers control over their finances, so they can focus on what matters to them - growing their business.”
Adeel Ahmad, customer experience analyst at PayPal notes that the payment provider is constantly assessing how it can use self-service functionalities to remove friction from customer journeys. “We embed analytics into our processes to understand how we can serve our customers better, so they don’t have to reach out to us, as the most prominent point of friction is when customers have a problem, and they are forced to contact us for a solution. We want to ensure this process is as easy as possible, or instead, provide self-service capabilities at the point of service,” says Ahmad.
“We embed analytics into our processes to understand how we can serve our customers better so they don’t have to reach out to us, as the most prominent point of friction is when customers have a problem and they are forced to contact us for a solution.”
Adeel Ahmad, customer experience analyst at PayPal
Balancing digital customer experience innovation with compliance
Improved data management, AI and self-service innovations are vital to the shift toward customer service digitization, but true digital transformation involves a wider range of strategies and systems. Cloud computing, investment in cybersecurity and eliminating paperwork, including when opening an account, have all become customer expectations that FS providers must meet.
“There’s an accelerated shift in expectations, from a multichannel to an omnichannel approach, with the need for seamless and consistent experiences being paramount,” says Ashok Sardana, founder and managing director of Continental Group, a Middle East-based FS and insurance group. “Digitization has enhanced customer onboarding, feedback automation, and – perhaps most significantly – AI-enabled predictive analytics.”
Santander developed its own cloud-based system as part of its digital transformation journey. By May 2021, 60 per cent of the bank’s global IT infrastructure had migrated to the cloud with multiple customer service benefits. As well as making it easy for agents to work remotely during Covid-19 lockdowns, Santander’s PagoNxt uses the cloud to enable secure payments.
“Our cloud adoption is one of the fastest in the world by a global company,” says Dirk Marzluf, the bank’s chief operating and technology officer. “We moved 200 servers to the cloud every working day over the last two years.”
Societe Generale has also introduced cloud platform technology for corporate clients, including payment automation, fraud prevention and cybersecurity.
“Treasury management is a key area of focus for companies, and it is essential to make this easier through simple, efficient and secure tools,” says Alexandre Maymat, head of global transaction and payment services at Societe Generale. “This is even more important as we exit the current crisis and, depending on their size, some companies are poorly equipped in this area.”
Also read: Driving customer loyalty & retention in financial services
In order to diversify the channels of engagement for its customers, Raiffeisenbank looked to Infobip for its expertise to integrate WhatsApp into its existing contact center communications suite. The integration of the popular digital channel enabled customers to avoid lengthy calling queues and conveniently communicate directly with RBA through sending transactional messages and receiving time-sensitive notifications.
As well as seeing a 19 per cent boost in their net promoter scores (NPS), the bank also observed lower contact center costs, since clients were choosing WhatsApp over its toll-free number – which proved to be 10 times more cost-effective.
“A secure experience doesn’t have to be one that’s full of friction and hurdles.”
Nikhil Shoorji, Managing director of Europe at Infobip
One of the major digital transformation pressures on FS firms is the need to balance security with innovation. Despite this, Infobip’s Shoorji highlights: “A secure experience doesn’t have to be one that’s full of friction and hurdles”.
“The way people will exchange products and services is always changing, and new threats arise almost daily,” Shoorji adds. “All financial organizations need to try, test and scale their security solutions in line with their customer experience solutions.”
Building trust and genuine reliability to deliver
In the FS industry, traditional values of trust and reliability are of paramount importance. Gaining trust involves empathetically interacting and listening to customers, as well as acting on feedback to make constructive process changes and offer appealing products.
“Trust is an element that is built into your experience, but it can be broken in an instant,” says Gabrielle Dracopoulos, head of customer success and experience at fintech Intuit Quickbooks. “Creating a customer experience that builds trust involves defining the moments that matter and delivering on your brand promise at those key moments,” she maintains. Dracopoulos adds that FS customers want to be treated fairly and crave clear communication with reliable and useful technology to support them.
During lockdown, actively listening to customers helped develop permanent initiatives. Virgin Money launched Money on your Mind within two weeks of the first lockdown in the UK in response to feedback that showed customers were increasingly worried about money and it became a permanent offering.
“As the pandemic began to take its toll on the UK, we were able to identify the main themes of customer concerns using our unified system,” says Kerry Matheson, research manager of Virgin Money. “We developed YouTube videos on the most common topics and equipped frontline colleagues with the information they needed to respond to new queries.”
“Listen to your customers. They have the answer,” says Renzo Urzua, global contact center management trainer at Mastercard. “Technology is developing quickly… but do keep in mind that not all your customers will embrace technology. Keep your options open.”
"Trust is an element that is built into your experience, but it can be broken in an instant.”
Gabrielle Dracopoulos, head of customer success and experience at fintech Intuit Quickbooks
In addition to operating on a secure system, building trust is also centered around delivering personalized experiences. Infobip’s Shoorji explains: “If your customer believes you truly care about their business, they’ll be more inclined to trust and stay loyal to your brand. “
The first step in building trust through personalization is getting to know your customers’ preferences,” Shoorji adds. “So, for customer communication strategies it’s about finding out what channels your customers prefer to communicate on so you can meet them where they are with the right information.”
Globally, regulations that affect customer experience often change, such as the updated EU ePrivacy regulations. Customer-centered brands that manage regulatory changes effectively will retain business, including the basics, such as online cookie consent simplification. The EU released a statement in February 2021 that advised giving end-users a genuine choice on whether to accept cookies and encourages software providers to find quick solutions to prevent so-called cookie consent fatigue.
80 percent of the FS in CX expert panel agree that customers are more willing than ever to switch companies if unsatisfied.
Final remarks on five CX trends
Many innovations introduced during the pandemic, such as Virgin Money’s Money on your Mind, will become permanent offerings, while for other brands, the pandemic accelerated the leveraging and development of new technologies. The move from high street banking to a more remote approach began long before Covid-19 but the pandemic hastened this transition.
Despite customer engagement issues early in the pandemic, many FS companies invested in technologies such as conversational AI and upgraded digital experiences. There is a stronger focus on best practices for using data to enhance experiences while protecting privacy – but some FS providers are not entirely end-user-focused.
Check out: CX Market Leaders In Financial Services
Crucially, focusing on customer experiences highlights the importance of customer retention as well as winning new business. This means striking a balance between technology and traditional values, such as trust and reliability. FS providers that do not neglect loyal customers will reap the benefits, especially in an era where technology that enhances customer service also makes it easier for people to take their business elsewhere.