2023 began with the world exploring the countless capabilities of ChatGPT and realizing that the future is already here! With automation becoming a viral term, it is time to find what the ChatGPT admirers expect from financial services in the second half of 2023.
The banking industry has witnessed countless changes to its methodology and approach to catch up with the constantly evolving expectations of retail customers. With an increased pace in technological adoption, today’s retail banking trends primarily focus on providing a seamless customer journey on all platforms with frictionless touchpoints.
The perfect customer journey –
The most critical trend found in banking since its origin is the necessary upgrade needed by global banks. With the introduction of Big Data in banking, banks are now closer to customers and their behavioral patterns than ever. Yet, customer friction and broken journeys continue to get reported across the world.
The urge to perfect customer engagement has become more evident with the EU’s innovation-boosting launch of the Second Payment Service Directive or PSD2. PSD2 is the initiative of the European Union launched in 2017 to improve security, innovation, and competition in financial services. Even though in five years PSD2 significantly reduced online fraud, its Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) requirement caused a severe impact on customer friction, resulting in reduced online sales. Unlike in the pre-pandemic era, the expectations of customers are constantly evolving, and taking 60 seconds to authenticate identity for payments is not acceptable anymore.
Zendesk’s customer experience report showed that 72% of the bank’s customers expect a seamless and swift service similar to their online non-banking experience with Netflix or Amazon. Achieving this retail customer experience is an easy goal for banks through advanced Application Programming Interfaces (API’s) and blockchain technology offered by fintech.
Humanizing the customers and recognizing the bank’s role in the daily life of a retail user is the first step towards improving the bank’s satisfaction metrics. This can help the bank understand the basic, yet necessary focal points of customer engagement. Banks must ensure an omnichannel experience for their customers and share measurable data for their employees to access. Creating a quick access system to all the data across the organization can help the employees understand the particular context of a customer interacting with the platform. Maintaining a siloed customer and employee strategy with no common touchpoint will lead to future confusion and a breakdown of customer and employee experience.
Total Experience –
The isolated data spread between retail customers and the employees of the organization can now be brought together with the introduction of Total Experience (TX). Introduced by the global research and consulting provider, Gartner, Total Experience is an all-encompassing engagement solution for organizations.
Total Experience is the interlinking of the experience of customer and employee in a unified hassle-free strategy. This interlinking of engagement is achieved by unifying Multi Experience (MX), Customer Experience (CX), User Experience (UX), and Employee Experience (EX) strategies. Here, Customer Experience or CX refers to the experience provided by a business to a customer at every point of interaction, from the initial contact to the closing of a deal. Multi Experience deals with all the touchpoints through which a customer virtually interacts with a business, like voice-assisted chatbots. Like CX, User Experience is a business’s understanding of the customer’s perspective to design and create a relevant and meaningful customer engagement. Employee Experience refers to the entire relationship of the employee with their organization encompassing all the points of contact, and ease of workflow reflected in the quality of their work.
To commence the planning for a single strategy, organizations must ask themselves the right questions. When it comes to financial institutions, they must ask which areas of financial service have the most customer friction and at which touchpoints the employees struggle and fall short. They must understand which platforms are right for each persona and how flexible are the organization’s customer and employee journeys.
When most banks focus on growth and customer satisfaction, they forget to provide seamless and intuitive technology for their employees. Along with deciding on software specifically for employees who use it most, organizations must prepare for the future. For future employees, the right tools and environment can help them feel the value of their time acknowledged and motivate them into being productive. Tools that are faster and have better ease of access to data can ensure a “concierge level of service with reduced errors on the way. Similarly, finding a technology that adapts to constantly changing contexts and environments with unhindered interactive touch points with a simple interface is important when it comes to improving multi-experience.
Zero-information gap –
To create a zero-information gap, a single strategy is designed that satisfies and simplifies the journey of both the user and the employee equally. This strategy would cover all the touchpoints including websites, apps, tools, and other interfaces, simplifying the complexities across the entire organization. Through the implementation of this strategy, Gartner aims to achieve an environment where “customers are in control and employees are empowered”. According to Gartner, the company that succeeds in achieving the synthesis of all these experiences by the year 2024 is expected to outperform its competitors by 25% in its satisfaction metrics.
One can find the perfect case of successful application of Total Experience at the most visited amusement park, Disneyland. Disney’s Magicband guarantees a well-organized journey throughout the park with their support starting from parking to finding out the length of queues at the next ride. In the case of employee experience, Disneyland ensures a unified strategy such that a malfunctioning band can be fixed by the employee closest to the customer.
Today, a bank maintaining a mobile app or an e-portal is merely the basic requirement a customer expects from their financial service providers. Having a synthesized internal and external strategy to ensure a smooth flow of data between the user and the employee is the integral and initial step to achieving success against competitors. This way banks could now make their system flexible and agile and be prepared to welcome new innovations coming their way with a quick time to launch.
Want to ensure you reach your target by 2024? Upgrade your banking system with Appzillon’s digital banking platform.
