Customer Experience in Banking and Finance Industry

Customer Experience in Finance Industry

The banking and financial industry is at an important turning point as it revisits and addresses key touch points in the customer experience of services. The financial industry is rapidly being replaced by fresh and powerful e-commerce / internet retailers that provide a promising customer experience. As a result, traditional banking and financial industries are at great risk of customer retention.

But what is preventing the industry from providing a comparable customer experience? The answer is the sheer complexity of it all, as well as the cost of redesign. In addition to these issues, brands are unable to pinpoint what is causing the gap between their services and customer satisfaction. This problem has several aspects. There are numerous silos in the banking and finance industry. One of the issues is internal silos and their reservations.

Internally, the various divisions and products within the same brand do not connect. Although there is consistent interaction, the customer's experience is hampered because multiple interactions come from multiple channels, confusing the customer's perception. The industry needs to manage and streamline different areas and focus on operating as one.

On the other hand, the same customer may use multiple services from the same bank. In such cases, the brand examines the same customer behaviour and customer habits across all channels. A learned customer experience framework shifts the focus from the traditional approach of looking at the same customer's behaviour in different divisions to looking at their behaviour as a whole. Customer journey in retail banking is used to fully understand the customer behaviour entirely which eventually leads to tying the surveys and metrics to a customer centric operational KPI.

Customer Experience in Finance Industry

What can be done?

Customer expectations have shifted dramatically over the last decade. Traditional markets such as banking and finance industry are already competing to be bigger, better and faster. The market requires brands to be digital, memorable, easy to understand, accessible across all channels, effective and efficient. Companies need a 360-degree view of their customers through omnichannel strategies. Customer satisfaction can only be achieved with fully coordinated customer experience strategies.

The industry must:

  • Remain technically sound and heavily digital.
  • Address various pain points and work upon them.
  • Contact their customers through multiple channels in varied ways while still presenting themselves as a single entity.
  • Remain active traditionally in some areas – at the end of the day customer service is deeply rooted in the human touch which cannot be differentiated.

Customer Experience in Finance Industry

Challenges faced by the banking and finance industry that can be fixed by customer experience strategies:

  • With only a small percentage of the companies in the banking and finance sector truly concentrating upon customer experience management and actually considering customer experience as a challenge there is a visible lack in understanding the goals and desires of the customer. Although investment in CX is on the rise and companies are looking at improving on the customer journey through customer journey mapping it is not entirely guaranteed that the customer expectations are being met.
  • Catching up to creating a relevant, fun yet effective digital experience for new customers. Gone are the days when cheque books were exciting. New customers were born into the digital world and they are enjoying the digital experience even in the banking sector.
  • Providing convenient omnichannel experiences through all products and services. Example: a customer can access every minute detail of their order at a coffee shop from their smart phone before they even have to face a customer service agent at the physical location. Of course, this issue cannot entirely be compared to other retailers that offer the same kind of experiences at the touch of the customer’s finger tips – literally. However, it would be delightful if the gap is met with changes in the digital arena by addressing pain points of the customer.
  • Breaking down internal silos that are acting as a hindrance for the brand to represent itself as a single entity.
  • Customers require more independent methods in the banking and finance industry. The banking industry has used face-to-face services for many years. However, with changing times customers want to be independent of thought and action. This is why the banking industry CX and the finance industry CX is facing yet another issue – including self-services. Services that do not need the help of an agent. Keeping that in mind.
  • Finding the right balance between old school yet imperative human services and digital services.

Customer Experience in Finance Industry

How can customer experience help brands in the banking and finance industry?

  • Focusing on an approach that is integrated, fluid, seamless, streamlined and personalized for the customer at every touchpoint.
  • Utilizing existing customers to reduce churn and increase revenue.
  • Finding pain points to make swift yet effective changes through analysis, surveys, metrics and data collected over various channels which will then be used to journey map and creative a seamless experience at every step.
  • Creating a transparent, positive, and clear idea of the brand through customer experience.
  • Finding the best customer service practices in banks to avoid communication gaps between the brand and the customer.

A good customer experience in financial services is simply creating a positive mindset about how the customer interacts with the brand and how they are treated through every channel. Customer experience transformation in banking is what brings customer loyalty which results in customer retention. It is also known to everyone and proven that it is nearly 8% more cost effective to retain a customer than focusing on potential customers because an existing customer that is satisfied is more likely to bring potential customers straight to the business. The customer experience framework in the banking and finance sector works on customer experience management that results in:

  • Adding value to the brand.
  • Creating an engaging and emotionally connected clientele.
  • Easy and manoeuvrable services across all channels.

Our CX solutions are focused on transforming the total customer experience through surveys, metrics, analytics and auditing by using the CXM framework to combine physical measurements with digital Platformation™ capabilities. We are committed to finding the right customer experience strategy that can lead to a competitive advantage.

Sonata GBW is a global technology company specialising in customer experience CX measurement, platform-based digital transformation, supporting businesses to become connected, open, intelligent and scalable. Global coverage of more than 105 markets with over 27 years of market leadership through extensive measurement capabilities, powerful and intuitive reporting and analytics platforms give us the leverage to improve customer experience. It has presence across USA, Canada, EMEA and APAC regions. If you would like to know more about how we can assist you, please fill out the business enquiry form below.