Providing great customer experience has been more critical to business success than ever. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the digitalization race, and enterprises worldwide are under severe pressure to catch the trend of evolving customer experience.
According to research from Broadridge, more than two third of customers say that most companies have to put more effort into improving their customer experience.
In fact, Temkin Group found that enterprises that earn more than $1 billion annually can expect an average of an additional $700 million within 3 years of investing in customer experience.
For SaaS companies, that figure can go up to $1 billion, almost an increase of 100% in revenue. This is backed up by another fact that 86% of consumers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience.
To follow this path, banking and other financial institutions need to eliminate silos and fast-forward digital transformation to encourage a shift from customer communication to customer experience.
Most customers are willing to share their personal information with a bank representative. More than three-quarters of customers want to engage with a human agent with a single click of a button, whereas 70% also want to find the answers to their questions on their terms, the Zendesk research found.
Now let us look at 4 trends that will affect the customer experience in banking in 2023.
Humanized Digital Experiences
More than 84% of customers said they wanted to be treated like a person rather than a number. Users don’t like to be redirected to a preprogrammed phone system that puts them on hold or redirects them again.
Integrating artificial intelligence in customer support is one of the best ways to boost customer experience in 2023.
Virtual Agents can assist customers in completing various bank applications quickly and provide instant answers to queries, making the banking process easier.
These chatbots can be programmed to provide real-time assistance to your customer and can even forward a request to your human customer service agent if needed.
Enhanced Personalization
Hyper-Personalization takes traditional personalized marketing one step further. It utilizes AI and real-time data to treat visitors as unique and provide more relevant content and service.
In 2023, financial institutions will try to harness more customer data to deliver a personalized experience to users at every touch point, including product and service recommendations.
According to a study, more than 91 percent of customers are more than likely to purchase from a business that provides personalized services based on their preferences.
Everyone loves to feel special, right?
Omnichannel Experience
Implementing an omnichannel experience can enhance customer engagement by providing a seamless experience to the customers, whether they are visiting a physical branch or any digital channel.
According to research, 69% of consumers want a consistent experience with a business across all physical and digital channels.
Unfortunately, only a few banks worldwide deliver such experiences to their users. An ideal omnichannel strategy in banking includes multiple touch points such as in-branch transactions, mobile and web-based platforms, and social media presence.
Increased Support of Self-Service
Instead of speaking to a service agent, More than 69% of customers want to resolve their issues through the self-service method. By implementing an AI power chatbot that provides instant solutions to frequently asked questions, banking institutions can improve the user experience.
Microsoft study indicates that more than 90% of consumers expect businesses to provide self-service choices, ranging from a knowledge base, FAQs, AI-powered chatbots, and tutorials.
Conclusion
It is predicted that financial institutions will invest in technologies that will improve customer experience. According to a study by Acquia, 62% of companies surveyed indicated that their budgets would increase by 10%. Others predicted their budgets would increase by an average of 7.6% in the next year. While not significant, this trend counters many other areas within organizations.
Source: The Financial Brand, Veritone, Helpscout