The concept of market research was introduced in the 1920s to enhance and improve the advertising space. Cut to the 1980s, when the term Total Quality Management (TQM) was introduced, the importance for customer satisfaction was established. This is a precise history of customer experience, and it has been re-used and emphasised a lot over the past few decades.

Today, Customer Experience does not limit itself to customer service forefront; it extends to every area in an enterprise as each implementation directly or indirectly affects Customer Experience. In the Banking industry, User Experience is witnessing a rollercoaster turn of events and it is high time that bankers and stakeholders take their CX design model to a wholesome level of excellence.

CX Design Matters!

Yes, 100%. When we talk about customer experience in banking, we not only address the CX managers or teams that directly represent their enterprise with the customers, customer experience starts from the time a customer visits your bank and extends till the very end, online or offline. Hence, the A to Z of a bank should contribute to its CX model in order to ensure customer satisfaction. However, bankers face certain hiccups for designing a foolproof CX banking model.

Problems and Solutions Associated with CX model for Banks

  • Problem 1: Siloed Organisations

The siloed organisational structure has always been a major hindrance for customer experience management in banking. One can understand customer needs only when data from all points (teams) are consolidated and holistic insights are drawn from it. Because of the siloed systems, gathering the data becomes a task in itself, leads to miscommunication, lack of communication, etc., finally compromising the customer satisfaction.

Solution: Digital CX transformation

Most enterprises are opting digital banking to redefine their customer experience strategies. This evinces the perks of the digital CX model. Apart from eradicating the siloed architecture, it also helps to overcome legacy systems, cost cutting, etc.

  • Problem 2: Capricious Customer Expectations

Bankers continuously see the ever-changing customer expectations and struggle to cater to all their needs. Even if you manage to gain yourself a happy consumer by satisfying hundreds of their needs, one unpleasant experience can reverse it all. Hence, managing customer needs regularly is a daunting task.

Solution: Customer Analytics

In order to cater to customer needs, banks have to first understand their needs comprehensively. Hence, Customer Analytics comes to the rescue, gathers useful data from past experiences, financial preferences, etc., and provides detailed reports and insights on customer needs. It helps to prioritise customer requirements based on demand, feasibility, etc., and aids in catering to the needs at the right time.

Recommended Read: It’s time for Banks to raise the bar with ‘Analytics for ME’

  • Problem 3: Customer Retention through CX

Let’s say you address almost every customer need, but does that guarantee customer retention? In order to have a long relationship with a customer, you have to gain their loyalty, which is a tricky game. Hence, even successful banks struggle with customer retention.

Solution: Transparency

Transparency is the key to gain customer trust. Customers are keen on understanding each process and steps involved in their financial proceedings. Another factor that can influence customer retention is your customer service efficiency. Customer loyalty is achievable if you can provide instant solutions to their queries.

  • Problem 4: Having a coherent Omnichannel CX

Millennials are no longer interested in physically visiting the banks, be it for cash withdrawals or loan requests, and they are digital lovers. In an omnichannel digital banking era, there are various channels of banking used at once, like a simple OTP generation through SMS while using web internet banking. Hence, it is important to have a coherent omnichannel CX model to bring a strong digital CX appeal.

Solution: API Technology

API technology is one of the most seeking intelligence for an omnichannel experience in the banking industry. The process behind API technology helps to connect both online and offline world of banking, making the entire process of customer journey frictionless.

  • Problem 5: The Ultimate customer personalization

At the end of the day, customers pick only those banks that can create an unreal customer journey with personalized recommendations. With non-financial enterprises like Amazon, Myntra, etc., coming up with smart suggestions based on customer likes and dislikes, they are expecting the same with their banks too.

Solution: Data Analytics and Customer Segmentation

Banks have a treasure trove of unstructured and structured customer data which can be leveraged to gather an encyclopedic version of customer preferences. Data analytics help to extract useful information from this pool of data, which includes customer feedback as well. Using this information, customer segmentation can help in differentiating customers based on similar interests, which helps in targeted marketing.

  • Problem 6: Efficient Customer Support

In a day, there might be thousands of queries or tickets raised by customers, and most of these issues might be repetitive. The manual customer support team of your bank might get exhausted resolving these minor issues and end up spending lesser time for complex issues leading to unsatisfactory resolution. This delay can cost you a customer in a worst case scenario.

Solution: Intelligent Automation

With a combination of competent technologies like RPA, ML, NLP, etc., intelligent automation helps to segregate all the tickets and queries based on several factors like severity, time consumption, complexity, frequency, etc., and assign it to the concerned team. It can also help resolve repetitive minor issues without human interference, thus giving the customer support team ample time to work on the complex issues.

  • Problem 7: ROI improvement through CX

Most investors in the banking industry are skeptical to invest in CX designing as it takes a significant part of the revenue. However, a proper planned CX design model can improve ROI drastically. While some bankers are struggling to convince investors to invest in CX designing, some ignore this entirely. But without proper CX model, it is almost impossible for banks to have happy customers.

Solution: CX design strategy

According to Forbes, banks have to design their customer experience strategy keeping three areas in mind: revenue growth, profit growth, and stock price. The best way to have a CX strategy is to understand the focal points of the insights drawn through several analytics. Identifying the right products for the right customers is the key to witness the visible improvements on the revenue area with CX.

A Takeaway

Understanding the key aspects of customer experience, its challenges, solutions, etc., and achieving all these to bring forward a foolproof CX banking strategy almost feels like a hard nut to crack. Hence, we at Aspire Systems have designed a CX model which aims to empower banks in a 360-degree manner across front, middle, and back office operations. From faster, secure banking process to open banking capabilities, Aspire can help your bank to take care of end-to-end customer journey in a hassle-free way.