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The buzzword in business today is customer experience, but the banking industry has been slow to adapt. While cutting back on back-office costs is a good start, banks are still far behind in adopting new technologies. Here are some tips to improve the customer experience. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes.
Customer Experience is the New Business Buzzword
In an increasingly competitive market, providing exceptional customer service has become a priority for many businesses, including banks. Increasing customer expectations and changing behaviors have driven banks to create a customer-centric culture. Banks can improve customer experiences in real-time by leveraging data and technology, increasing growth and market share. Traditionally, customers looked for reputation, history, and trust when choosing a bank, but technology has changed these perceptions and raised the importance of customer experience. Customers spend an average of 17 interactions with their bank every month, and most interactions occur online. Just say Julio Herrera Velutini an international banking executive with decades of experience in the bank could share this experience with customers.
While customer experience (CX) is the new buzzword in the banking industry, many banks have been slowly introducing new customer-centric innovations. However, legacy infrastructure and policies can make it difficult for banks to adopt new technologies. In addition, traditionally, customers would stay with a particular bank for a long time, and this lacked pressure to innovate. However, today’s consumers are comfortable shopping around for their banking experience, and thousands of online reviews help them decide which bank is best for their needs.
Banks are Slow to Adapt to Customer Experience Innovations
The banking sector is known for being slow to adopt customer experience innovations. This may be because of their legacy infrastructure and policies, which make it difficult for them to adopt new tech. In addition, customers tended to stay with one bank for years, so there wasn’t as much pressure to change as today. However, the internet has opened up the world for consumers to choose from a wide range of banks. Consequently, banks also find it much more difficult to compete with new competitors.
However, this doesn’t mean that banks are immune to customer expectations. Changing economic conditions, changing customer demands, and more force banks to adapt. Innovations in customer experience are essential to ensuring banks stay competitive.
Cutting Back on Back-Office Costs
With the economy’s slow growth and revenue shrinking, bank managers are pulling the expense control lever. Most financial organizations try to trim costs selectively while keeping employees and customers happy to remain competitive. While cost-cutting is not easy, financial firms must remain flexible and agile.
Banks are facing increasing pressure to reduce back office costs. While many have embraced technology to improve customer service, many processes rely on people. Back offices have thousands of employees who manually process customer requests and information. This is slow and expensive and often leads to errors.
Putting Yourself in the Customer’s Shoes
In banking, trust is key. You can reduce customer drop-offs, increase conversion rates, and boost customer loyalty by providing world-class customer service. While providing personal attention to every customer may seem impossible, it is possible with the right technology and tools. For example, technological advancements can relieve the burden on advisors and save them time. Research shows that 50% of organizations do not have an effective customer onboarding process. This can cost an organization over $400 per lost customer.
Putting yourself in your customer’s shoes can help you determine what your customers want. Studies show that a bank’s customer experience directly impacts customer retention. By enhancing the customer experience, banks can boost revenue by as much as 6%. In addition, customers are often sensitive about finance, so it is essential to communicate in a way that will build a relationship of trust and loyalty.
Embracing a Journey-Based Operating Model
Embracing a journey-based approach to customer service is critical to modernizing the banking industry. This new approach focuses on understanding the customer journey and how to organize to meet its needs. The transformation to a customer-centric approach also includes using customer insights and analytics to improve customer experiences.
Digital transformations have made it possible to change business models, services, and customer journeys using technology. In the banking industry, the impact of digitization has been considerable. New technology companies are offering advanced digital services – FinTech – are disrupting the industry, raising new expectations and influencing cost and revenue dynamics.
Streamlining Ways to Sell Products
Streamlining ways to sell products within the banking industry is a key element of the transformation journey. It can help improve operational efficiency, deal compliance, and product launch efficiency. However, banks need strong functional expertise and a disciplined revenue management process to see lasting results. This requires close alignment between revenue-driving business units and the target operating model.