What Does Your Online Customer Experience Say About Your Bank?
Is it business as usual at your bank? Or do you need a new approach?
Sadly, many online banking experiences today are just not competitive. Lots of smart wireframes and pretty pictures up front, but behind the scenes, the same old fragmented, broken processes that push new customers to call centers and PDF downloads, while customers wait days for approvals and back-office processes to be completed.
That is not the way to compete for customers in the digital age. In fact, these days, traditional banks are no longer competing just with digital banks. They’re competing with every digital experience consumers have on a daily basis. And that’s why design matters in creating a banking customer experience (CX) that actually works.
CX Design Makes Great Customer Experiences Happen
People tend to think of online design as a tasteful elixir of color, typeface, imagery, form and layout, arranged in an appealing way to establish the right “look” for a product or service. But in the context of a good digital banking experience, CX design is much more than that.
CX design combines strategy, research, competitive awareness and an understanding of how customers interact with a brand, overlayed on a foundation of workflows that bridge the gap from external communications to internal offerings, departments, and processes. You can’t just put a pretty frontend on an existing process and expect to be successful. Ideally, your CX design is grounded in an ecosystem that makes doing business with the brand simple, fair, safe, human, and rewarding. Here are a few thoughts to consider:
- Where is your bank is in its digital evolution?
- Where are you headed in context with your target market(s)?
- What works now, what doesn’t and why?
- How will your IT infrastructure handle a fully digitized CX?
- What integrations are necessary for success?
- How does your bank process customer interactions?
- How can you make those processes more engaging, efficient and successful?
- How should customers feel about doing business with your bank?
- What do your customers want in their banking experience?
- What messages, innovations, products or services can expand the relationship?
- How do you nudge customers down beneficial paths in a respectful and ethical way?
- How can you do all this in a way that differentiates your brand?
- How can you do it in a way that adds value to the customer experience?
Working with a CX designer, especially one who understands the banking industry and has developed customer journeys successfully for other banks in the past, will enable a much richer and more rewarding experience. With a CX designer, the design process will feel different.
Working with a CX Designer
In addition to running through the fundamental discovery issues suggested above, a successful CX designer will spend quality time researching your customer base and competitive landscape and identifying process linkages across your IT landscape. These areas are strategically essential to sustaining your journey long term.
Defining your customer personas into manageable buckets and mapping the experience end-to-end will illuminate the linkages you will need to finesse in your final design, ensuring that each journey progresses in a way that adds value to your customers, in concert with what your bank is offering. With an integrated IT environment that flows seamlessly in line with your CX design, the promises suggested by a beautifully designed experience will be fulfilled.
Likewise, thoughtful analysis of the competition’s brand positioning, online experience, and product offerings will be instructive in how you shape your CX for maximum differentiation and effect. It pays to know your competitors well.
As you proceed, adopt an experimental mindset. A good CX designer will offer suggestions you may never have imagined. Flexibility and a willingness to explore your options will open doors to new opportunities as you transform your banking experience.
How Thoughtful CX Design Can Improve Your Bottom Line
A thoughtful CX design goes far beyond making a good first impression during your acquisition and onboarding process. It elevates the value of old promises and makes good on the high expectations modern customers bring to any new banking relationship in the digital age.
By providing a consistent experience that flows easily from one click to the next, that reflects the brand DNA established in the branch and intelligently anticipates the needs of users, both internally and externally, and by leveraging the abundance of data surrounding every transaction, user satisfaction increases. Customer trust builds and, as a result, valuable information is gleaned over time that accelerates cross-selling and upselling opportunities through proactive, relevant offerings.
Insights turn into new products and services, as customers increase their stakes in the brand. A competitive hedge forms around the customer base, and the social buzz brings in new prospects that grow the pot.
With the right infrastructure in place, new innovations become easier and less costly to implement. The nimbleness afforded by such an integrated ecosystem doubles down on the competitive advantages, as customers get what they want faster and employ self-service tools that increase efficiency, expand share of wallet, and elevate lifetime customer value.
Concentrix Catalyst Knows How to Elevate CX Design For Banks
By now it should be clear. Good CX design goes well beyond a facelift for the bank’s digital presence. It sets the table for new and sustained growth. At Concentrix Catalyst, we know this first-hand, having helped numerous high-profile financial institutions elevate their game on the strength of quality CX design.
Our solution-agnostic approach dictates that we examine your business from an objective viewpoint and proceed in a strategic, customized manner that accounts for your business, user, and technology needs, at a pace that suits your budget and desired timeline.
If you’re a big bank, we can provide an objective perspective on new features and functionality. If you’re a small-to-medium-size bank, we can provide the outsourced expertise you need to reinvent your brand in line with your business plans. If you are a neobank, we can serve as your technical arm, able to quickly explore, define and deliver on even the most ambitious end game.
There has never been a better time to explore your options for creating a more productive, competitive, stickier, and more satisfying online CX than now. Make a statement that resonates with today’s digitally-savvy banking customer. Contact Concentrix Catalyst and learn how we can help you achieve success online today.