Coming off a global economic rollercoaster and adapting to the new customer experience environment has been a slow but steady journey for many organizations, regardless of the industry. The financial services are no different.
An industry with a thousand-year-old history has strongly relied on many aspects of its tradition. However, the onset of the pandemic significantly accelerated the adoption of the latest technology and innovation that spotlight the customer more than ever.
As customers considerably prioritized their needs and developed almost zero tolerance for poor service, financial services quite literally could not afford to fall behind the latest customer experience trends and lose clients.
Digital services taking center stage in the post-pandemic era pushed financial service companies to rethink their CX strategy in order to foster brand loyalty.
Without a proper assessment of their customers’ needs, organizations can easily wander off the right path trying to implement many things at once.
To separate the wheat from the chaff, we spoke with Wes Humphrey, VP of Account Management of Banking, Financial Services & Insurance at Concentrix, who dives deep into what drives CX in the financial service world.
Identifying Key Concerns
Keeping pace with the new types of products is one of many concerns for financial service companies, partly due to the product or service complexity. Things like “buy now, pay later”, cryptocurrency or simply different kinds of lending and buying models create pressure on companies in several aspects. Humphrey explains this in detail:
“Integrating new products and services into companies’ offerings is very challenging, especially with services that require large infrastructure to support them. Similarly, financial service organizations also compete with the standalone companies specializing in those services.”
Another significant concern for both traditional and newer financial companies has been following regulatory compliance. The prevalence of fraud, money laundering, and theft have had an impact on how customers choose between players in the financial sector.
Pairing this with the need for cost control and staff shortages, banks and other financial organizations were due for a strategy optimized for the new CX environment.
Time to Reprioritize
Humphrey touches upon a number of things that financial service organizations should put first now operating in a new customer landscape. One of them is revenue generation marketing. He explains:
“Selling in financial services can be taboo, but the reality is that because of competition and new products and services that are coming and expected by consumers, there’s absolutely a need to focus on revenue generation.”
“As you’re interacting with your customers, there’s an opportunity to market products and services to them. This is where personalization also plays a significant role, because organizations should know what types of products to market to which customer based on the data they have.”
Investing more in marketing should be one of the main priorities for this sector, as Humphrey believes the pandemic influenced branding to take center stage. With the role of the branch in banking diminishing, digital channels are the main points of interactions for many customers. Humphrey elaborates:
“Your CX and your brand is now presented through your website, or a mobile app, or your contact center. Using those avenues is going to act as a differentiator in the future, so there needs to be a lot of thought put into how you craft those experiences.”
Technology that Makes a Difference
Over the last two years, technology moved to the forefront of driving positive customer experiences. Many customers make their first contact with financial service organizations through an app or email, so it’s key to make these channels as much customer-oriented as possible. Humphrey says that most financial institutions are still early in their digital transformation journey. He says:
“One of our surveys reveals that less than 50% of people were satisfied with their last mobile experience with a financial organization. However, we’ve noticed an increasing trend toward investing in mobile apps, so organizations are seeing that there’s room for improvement and taking action.”
Another trend in digital communication is that customers prefer live chats over asynchronous messaging, as it happens in real-time and delivers results faster. This requires agents to be engaged the entire time to ensure a flowing conversation. While some organizations really leverage this solution, Humphrey believes there’s more that could be done to improve the interaction:
“Many apps do not have the option to review the conversation history. Having to stay in the app during the entire interaction might not work for some people because of their daily routine, so enabling customers to come back to the conversation in their own time would definitely enhance the experience.”
Aside from mobile apps, financial organizations still use older IVR technology, notices Humphrey. Without features like Natural Language Processing or Machine Learning, using these services cause friction in the customer journey.
“It’s common to see environments where 30% of calls are transferred, which means they’re being routed to the wrong place.”
Implementing newer technology goes hand in hand with moving away from legacy systems. As already mentioned, ensuring enough infrastructure support in this endeavor can create an upturn in customer experience.
How Can Concentrix Help?
Increasing customer expectations in the financial service industry have ushered in an era of cutting-edge solutions that can handle all financial service needs.
Ensuring the security and cost efficiency of every customer interaction is the future of success for financial organizations. Concentrix can help you make that happen. Start your transformation journey here: Concentrix for Banking & Financial Services