Increasingly, it’s not just what you do that differentiates your organization, it’s how you do it. In fact, customer experience has become the primary strategy for differentiation for financial institutions, according to 66% of executives surveyed, up thirty percent from 2010 (PWC).
And that was before the radical changes we’ve experienced over the past several months. Despite all the turmoil, the core principles of customer experience remain unchanged. Customers want simplicity. They wish to feel known and valued. They want to be protected and kept safe.
Focusing on the customer experience has always been a priority for community financial institutions. As we navigate this new “normal,” the way that experience is delivered must expand. While digital delivery of banking services has been on the rise, the COVID-19 pandemic just may be the tipping point for the digital banking experience.
When stay-at-home orders and precautions required financial institutions to close branch offices for in- person visits or reduce traffic, more customers took to digital means to address their day-to-day banking needs. New mobile banking registrations increased by a staggering 200% (April 2020, FIS) and FIs saw an 85% increase in mobile banking traffic, as well (FIS). Out of necessity, many consumers flocked to online and mobile banking platforms in droves. The digital boom carried over to sales, as well, with digital sales rising to 75% in April, up from 25% in January (PNC).
What’s next? While many FIs have resumed branch traffic, your digital users aren’t likely to abandon these convenient platforms anytime soon. How can you best eliminate your customers’ points of pain and continue to improve on the overall customer experience you provide?
Galapagos sees these efforts as a two-pronged strategy. First, it is essential to stay focused on retaining the base. We saw countless banks and credit unions deliver relief and remediation efforts to individuals, families, and businesses in their communities. Continue to be cognizant of the hardships being felt by so many people and identify ways by which you can deliver impactful solutions. This likely requires a re-examination of the customer’s journey, which has quite likely changed. Importantly here, don’t forget your roots: continue to provide those high value personal interactions, when needed. Your customers are relying on your expertise now more than ever.
The second part of this equation is to continue to improve the digital experience. Though FIs often feel hampered by their core providers and lackluster platforms, we challenge you to look outside the box for ways to improve the digital experience – making tasks faster, easier, and safer. Incorporating online account opening and application platforms remains important. If your FI currently has an online account opening platform, verify that all steps of the process can be completed online. Customers want to complete the whole process online, without needing to meet in-person to complete the job. Abandonment rates for online account opening remain high – approximately 40% of customers who start the process of opening an account online don’t complete it, and 34% of customers surveyed stated they’d have gone elsewhere for an account if they had known the opening process would be so complicated (Deloitte, 2017).
As a community banker, it is in your core to provide a superior level of care to your customers and in these coming months and the year ahead, it will be imperative that you are able to compete by the quality of the experience you deliver. Spend time understanding your customers’ needs and how their journey has shifted in recent months. Then, evaluate your offering, identify those gaps in service, and prioritize where your improvements can make the greatest impact.