By William Perry, Vice President UK&I and MEA at Medallia
Recent years have shown a significant shift in customer behaviour and a willingness to embrace digital channels in payments. The global digital payments market is predicted to grow by 14% between 2023 and 2030, with core retail banking sales continuing to increase.
Meeting customers’ expectations in today’s digital-centric world, therefore, requires financial organisations to integrate digital channels and touchpoints seamlessly throughout the customer journey. Whilst many financial institutions rely on legacy systems to collate customer feedback and data, there are a myriad of use cases for financial institutions to utilise digital channels (such as email, social media, or their website/app) in customer experience (CX).
Indeed, recent research from Medallia has revealed that CX leaders are 26 times more likely than laggards to experience revenue growth of 20% or more over the past fiscal year. With customer retention remaining essential for financial institutions to survive, they need to embrace digital CX or risk falling behind.
Personalising customer journeys
Why are digital channels a must when considering the strength of CX for financial services organisations? They enable banks to personalise journeys in order to retain customers. Financial institutions need to consider the role that personalisation can play when it comes to customer experience, and how the use of digital channels can result in increased customer engagement and higher satisfaction levels.
Personalisation allows brands to demonstrate to customers that they recognise them as individuals. When customers receive a tailored experience, it shows that the brand understands and cares about their specific desires and requirements. For example, banks can harness the power of AI algorithms to analyse data and provide tailored financial advice to each individual customer. AI-powered alerts also help teams respond promptly to customer needs by recommending high-value actions, in the context of specific situations. A digital CX platform leads to higher customer satisfaction, as customers feel that the service is designed specifically for them, which enhances their overall experience with the bank.
There are also clear benefits to a finserv’s bottom line in terms of implementing personalisation into the customer journey. According to Medallia research, CX leaders who reported their brand’s personalisation capabilities being the highest are two times as likely to achieve major revenue growth (10%+) than brands that report their capabilities lower.
Utilising advanced analytics
It’s crucial for finserv organisations to embrace advanced analytics. Coupling the use of digital channels with advanced analytic tools allows organisations to proactively identify (and easily address) customer pain points, resulting in a more cohesive multi-channel journey.
Financial organisations know “what” happens on their websites and apps, but far fewer know the “why” behind those digital experiences. Without the correct insights at their disposal, it’s incredibly challenging for financial institutions to identify specific pain points that cost engagement, conversion, and loyalty.
Advanced analytic tools allow financial organisations to quickly pinpoint, and resolve online friction reflected by rising abandonment or falling engagement from customers. For example, advanced analytics of customer interactions online allows organisations to detect the most common journey drop-off points, and clusters consumer data to identify the root cause of drop offs. Analytics therefore enables finservs to deliver more meaningful and friction-free customer experiences.
Digital-device-driven CX in action: Bank of Georgia case study
In order to prioritise customer retention, banks need to gather customer voice and measure the quality of their experiences its customers are having. The Bank of Georgia is a real-world example of a bank that used the feedback gained through digital touchpoints to drive meaningful change and success throughout its organisation.
With 2.5 million customers across all channels and segments, the bank needed a system that could track and escalate issues that end users were having. It needed to be able to respond and resolve end user complaints quickly, to improve customer satisfaction. Bank of Georgia’s goal was to deploy a 360-degree view of its customers’ journey across all touchpoints – from in-person conversations at branches (and via contact centres) to digital channels like mobile apps to obtain deeper information about its CX.
By choosing Medallia, the bank’s CX and technical teams were able to initiate 1,597 new improvements in Digital, Contact Centre and Retail Branches based on customer feedback, responding to customers’ requests.
Using customer data, the Bank prioritised new digital projects according to customer requests, such as loan prepayment, adding chat to the Mobile Bank app, and enabling access to all functionalities of the mobile app when offline. Ultimately, this was the right decision for the bank, which reported a 30% increase in Business Internet banking customer satisfaction, and a 26% increase in contact centre customer satisfaction.
Embracing CX journeys
Digital channels can serve as a vital tool for financial organisations when it comes to customer retention, and research has shown that leaders who prioritise CX are more likely to experience revenue growth. However, it is important to note the importance of prioritising the overarching customer journey in addition to embracing digital channels to improve CX. Financial organisations who are attentive when it comes to customer journey orchestration – and connect individual experiences together into one cohesive journey (which utilises digital channels) will be the ones best placed to serve customers.
With customers in the finance industry being increasingly digitally focussed, only those who are willing to listen to customer demands and harness digital CX will continue to grow alongside the industry.
