April 20219These examples ladder up to what I see as the greatest opportunity for the banking industry. Customer experiences are end-to-end and omni-channel and must be designed and managed that way. Best practices should be applied more consistently, to every nook and cranny of your customer journeys b/c the gaps between what's working vs. not are increasingly obvious and frustrating. I don't think I have to remind you that the experiences you deliver are now being compared to every other experience your customers are having w/ every other brand in every channel. If you don't make them better, someone else will. And, when they do, they will steal your customers b/c switching banks is no longer that hard.To highlight what I mean, I'll walk you through my recent experience of financing a new car.The application and approval processes were easy ­ the dealership picked the lender (a bank I'm a former customer of) and facilitated all the paperwork. A few weeks later, I got a letter in the mail from the bank w/ information about my loan and payments. I went to the bank's Web site and (re-)enrolled in Online Banking so I could set up automatic payments. When I logged in, the site would only let me initiate a single same-day payment. I couldn't future date my payment or make it recur as I'd expected...both capabilities I know are available on the site for other products. Thinking it could be poor design and/or user error, I clicked the Chat icon and asked for help.According to the rep, to set up a recurring payment for an auto loan, I'd have to print a form off the site, fill it out and mail or fax it in. And, due to processing time, it would take at least one cycle to go into effect...so, she recommended I make a separate one-time payment in the meantime and check back for status. She sent me the link to the form and asked if there was anything else she could do to help. I answered "Yes! Please enable future-dated and/or recurring payments for auto loans on your Web site. Or, at a minimum, make the request form fillable and submit-able Online." Silence.B/c the paper form route sounded like way too much work, I opted to skip the hassle and set up the monthly payment as a Bill Pay from my primary bank. I'm guessing the average customer wouldn't think to do that. They'd probably follow the process as instructed, cursing the bank the whole time. And, you know something would inevitably go wrong...If the bank built out basic payment functionality Online for its auto loans so it works the way customers expect it to, they would deliver a better experience while taking out a fair amount of wasted effort and costs. When done right, improving Customer Experience delivers a true win/win...and ROI.This brings me back to my mantra. To "know your customers, listen to your customers, and make things easier for them," you need to understand what you're currently making them do to accomplish a task from start to finish. If you ask them for feedback, they'll provide it, like I just did. Then you need to make use of the feedback to think about ­ if you were designing the experience today (or Google was), how would it work? And, start chipping away at the gap b/w your current and desired states.Customers don't expect perfection, but they do want to see traction. As a customer, I'm eager to see how the banking industry evolves its experience over the next 5 years. BCBest practices should be applied more consistently, to every nook and cranny of your customer journeys b/c the gaps between what's working vs. not are increasingly obvious and frustratingAllison Paine Landers
< Page 8 | Page 10 >