Digitalize your services to win more customers and scale your business.
Many B2C industries have made substantial progress in digital transformation, offering increasingly fast, simple, and convenient customer experiences. As a result, consumer expectations are higher than ever, as we see in the financial services industry -, particularly in retail banking.
If you oversee customer experience or strategy at a large or mid-sized retail bank or credit union, now is the time to invest in customer engagement to mitigate the risk of being driven out of business by stiff competition from the banking giants and fintech challengers who beat you to it.
Giving customers the flexibility with an omnichannel experience they expect shows your organization's unique strengths.
Your experts and regional advisors understand the specific needs of customers. Empowering them with the right tools can help them build better customer connections.
You can gain a critical competitive edge by continually establishing the right technology, knowledge, and ways to optimize the customer experience.
Source: Forrester report
The World Retail Banking Report 2021 found that 76% of retail banking customers now expect an omnichannel experience. The first thing you may think of when you hear omnichannel is digital customer experience (CX). In a rush to digitalize everything, remember that the need for human
connections and personalized advice is also a critical component of the overall experience.
Your business can also consider ways to bridge the digital and in-person experience. In-branch technology like self-service kiosks and interfaces make the journey consistent and convenient from home to the branch. In addition, a great way to provide personalized interactions outside branches is to offer video meetings as an alternative to in-person meetings.
According to Pexip's 2021 global report, more than three-quarters (84%) of business leaders with customer-facing services said video enables stronger customer connections than voice-only calls.
Additionally, according to Finances Online, up to 82% of customers also want to be able to book an appointment with a bank advisor quickly and conveniently online. It means that your customers can check the availability of your advisors via a self-service scheduling interface and book their appointment instantly without having to make a call or send an email.
Whether your customers schedule a video or in-branch appointment, your staff needs access to relevant data and information about their customers to personalize the meeting and its communications.
It is crucial for optimizing omnichannel engagement and advancing to the next level of data-driven personalization, providing the optimal channel for your customers in each context, which means:
Technology has a natural place in meeting modern customer needs, helping you improve customer
engagement, delivering omnichannel experience, and enabling more personalized human interactions.
However, before diving deep into a wide range of features and solutions, it can be helpful to take a step back and look at how the right technology can deliver genuine business outcomes. This way, you can align the technology selection process with your bank or credit union's goals and be more explicit about what you need to meet them.
First, your website's customer experience can be crucial for capturing and converting more customers into sales. Some questions to consider include the following:
Regarding appointment scheduling, in the old days, customers may have had to call and be placed on hold, go to a branch in person, or send an email to book a future appointment. Nowadays, enabling customers to book an appointment quickly and easily via self-service scheduling should be the main priority.
According to Pexip Engage's internal user data, 40% of customer contact requests are made outside business hours. This means that convenience is vital, and easy-to-use appointment scheduling provides customers the flexibility they seek in a retail bank. The outcome? More sales and happier customers.
Personalized experiences are also more critical than ever. This means that customer meetings should not be with a random staff member. Giving the option to choose a preferred contact person, an expert based on the topic with which they need help, a preferred branch, or a channel of choice (virtual meeting versus in-person) gives customers the omnichannel experience they crave and ultimately builds loyalty. Offering easy-to-schedule video meetings can also help you beat out your competitors. After all, more than half of customer engagement leaders surveyed in our global report agree that video interactions increase customer retention.
According to Celent's Retail Banking Research Outlook for 2022, optimizing customer engagement and delivery is one of the top five technology priorities. The research consistently shows that banks still have much work to optimize customer engagement, from selling and onboarding to servicing and retention. The report also underlines that the right set of tools is needed to provide the best possible experience using both digital and human-assisted interactions cost-effectively.
Let's look at what these tools may be for your business. Mapping technology tools to a
typical new customer's buyer's journey can help to conceptualize what you need to be successful.
Pexip is a globally trusted video conferencing provider with enterprise-grade security, innovative AI optimization, and industry-leading ease of use.
Now, with Pexip Engage, your customers can experience video meetings as part of an omnichannel experience with appointment scheduling, built-in compliance, and custom branding options tailored to the financial services industry.