According to a survey, 88% of the banks have a defined network strategy; 76% also have a digital strategy in place, but in stark contrast, only 49% have a robust omnichannel strategy.
Following the trail set by other leading consumer-focused sectors, it’s time for banks to provide coherent omnichannel experiences to their customers. But before we go into how the new age banks can leverage this new strategy, let’s first understand what the strategy is and why we should care.
What Is Omnichannel Experience?
Omnichannel is all about integrating your services in a manner that all your offerings are available to your customers across all channels. That includes both offline and digital media.
In the case of banks, it’s your job to equip your customers with solutions that enable them to perform the banking operations, whether it’s through your branch, call center, mobile app, or website. But it surely goes beyond that.
A true omnichannel banking platform must also offer real-time data sync across the channels. For example, the customer should be able to start the onboarding process with one channel and finish it with another without having to enter the same data all over again.
Why Do We Need Omnichannel Experience In Banking?
While most of us prefer the quick digital experience that comes with internet banking, studies have shown that 50% of the customers also want branch services on top. Again, while digital channels constitute only 25% of the sales, a very high number of customer touchpoints occur digitally. Needless to say, digital channels have changed the way we pictured banking.
The enthusiasm for digital adoption, although, depends a great deal on the demographics and personal choice. Given that, the banks must come up with a solution that provides a solid amalgamation of personal and digital interactions instead of keeping the channels separated as they currently are.
While it will obviously require a lot of backend implementation and tectonic shifts in the corporate culture and technical design, omnichannel experience goes a long way into changing the way you do business. It can boost marketing performance, ease up the onboarding process and improve customer retention. It has the potential to open up new revenue streams, enhance communication, digitize operations, improve security, and above all, lower costs in a more quantifiable manner.
Methods To Deliver Seamless Omnichannel Experiences In Banking
For banks to deliver truly omnichannel experiences to their customers, they will have to motivate their sales force, employ the most advanced analytics tools, and personalize their marketing strategy across all channels. Here we have listed 5 ways through which these can be achieved.
1. Invest In Onboarding Process
A hybrid model with physical infrastructure and digital interaction has been a success all across the world in almost every industry. This calls for banks to adopt a holistic approach towards customer outreach.
Consumers often begin filling applications but don’t get around to finishing them. This is very common in the retail sector, and they have a way of following up with their potential customers. We know this because many precedents of physical to digital transitions exist. Financial institutions, on the other hand, have been rather slow in this aspect. And this calls for banks to invest in the digital channel as a gateway for the establishment of a singular relationship that crosses both digital and physical channels seamlessly.
2. Offer Cobrowsing For On-The-Go Solutions And An Uplifting Experience
Suppose your customer is trying to apply for a credit card. They’re on their browser, on your website, and now they are on the page dedicated to what they’re looking for. As they find the form and are filling it, something clicks, and they decide to complete it later. Except they don’t return. Co-browsing can prevent this from happening, and much more.
Cobrowsing or collaborative browsing is the practice of simultaneous navigation of a website by a couple or more people and i’s being used by all the big players. Cobrowsing software is easy to install and use, obviously secure, and extremely customizable.
Not only will it help your support staff resolve issues faster, but it will also actively fight churn.
3. Recalibrate Customer Journey In Banking
According to a study conducted by Econsultancy and Adobe, creating an enhanced digital experience will prove to be one of the key topics in banking in the coming years. While bolstering a solid customer journey can fiercely make a positive difference in banking, various hurdles like separate online departments, decentralized data silos, and legacy systems often cloud the currently distant vision.
Given the need for action, the banks must bring a paradigm shift in the way they imagine the customer journey. It’s time to put the customer in the spotlight, design a journey that reflects their needs and all through digital transformation. For that, banks need to fetch data from all the different channels, package it and then link it across the channels in a more seamless manner.
The customer should be able to access the data with full transparency, both online and offline, 24/7 and should have the means to make changes. Similarly, it is important that every process be kept simple and not redundant, all the while making it quick with real-time updates.
4. Configure Advanced Analytics For Better Targeting
Using data collected from digital transactions and interactions, the banks can (and must) leverage advanced analytics to increase their omnichannel sales. It is also possible to identify high-value customers (the ones that provide a disproportionate revenue share) through data mining techniques that can pinpoint a customer’s spending patterns and online behavior in general.
5. Offer Training To Customer Support Team
Now that we have talked about the technical macro-steps involved in delivering seamless omnichannel experiences, we must pay equal heed to the human aspect of it. The banks need to ensure that their customers’ digital behaviors are conveyed to their support team so that they can cater to them with agility.
Reducing response times on social media for mentions, tweets, messages, etc., goes a long way into improving customer relationships. It’s that simple. But going beyond, you can also invest in digital training platforms for your support team or host highly educative webinars. Knowing the right sales and support network capabilities can make customer interactions quick and successful.
Final Thoughts
Without a doubt, financial institutions have had to rapidly adapt to digital technologies, all for the sake of providing better experiences to the customer. Now, omnichannel banking is the next big thing and is on its way to shape the future of finance. It’s for the best that everybody gets on board before it becomes more of a necessity than forward-thinking.
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