Ryan Tamminga, SVP of Product and Services, Alchemer, on how financial services providers leverage customer feedback to drive excellent experiences.
CX is the differentiator for financial services companies
Financial service providers are aching to differentiate themselves. Their services often seem commoditized and repetitive to the consumer. It takes amazing experiences across every customer touchpoint to persuade customers to stay with your bank or credit union.
So, how do you differentiate your financial institution’s experience?
Customer experience (CX) is the answer. Customers expect a seamless and personalized experience, both online and in-bank. Salesforce reports that 73% of customers expect companies to understand their unique needs and expectations.
And CX has a direct impact on the business. Deloitte reports that customers spend 140% more with companies that offer outstanding experiences.
It’s time for banks and credit unions to prioritize CX and offer personalized services that truly differentiate your company from the hundreds of other options.
So, how do you begin to offer truly personalized experiences?
The answer is simple: just ask. Your customers often know what would enhance their experience, but this feedback often remains isolated within a CX silo. By listening and understanding what customers say, then piping that data back into the systems your teams use every day, will enable your financial services company to achieve success and truly differentiate in a crowded market.
After all, when customers feel heard and know their feedback was valued, they remain loyal and advocate for your company over the long-term.
Use CX to reduce customer churn
The current landscape for customer experience in financial services presents significant challenges. A recent J.D. Power report showed that “consumer trust in retail banks has declined significantly during the past two years, with unexpected fees, poor customer service and bad press being key threats to a customer’s trust. This year, 13% of bank customers say they are likely to switch institutions in the next 12 months.”
As the friction of switching banks or credit unions decreases, financial services companies must do something to retain their customers. The path to success is clear: institutions that prioritize relationship-building, problem-solving and experience improvements will distance themselves from competitors.
If financial services companies want to differentiate themselves by presenting personalized experiences and if they want to reduce customer churn, they must adopt a robust CX program. At Alchemer, we identify three key elements in the evolution toward a customer-obsessed business
- COLLECT comprehensive customer feedback
The customer journey for financial services companies is complex. There are numerous touchpoints across branches, online platforms and mobile apps. Each of these touchpoints is an opportunity to collect valuable customer feedback about their experience.
Feedback collection is critical to understanding the full customer experience. Financial institutions require a strong CX platform to gather and analyze this valuable feedback, helping to identify where breakdowns happen and where opportunities arise.
- CONNECT that feedback to business systems your teams already use
One of the most significant challenges financial services organizations face is integrating feedback across multiple channels, particularly when internal silos exist. When departments work in isolation, valuable insights from one channel may not be shared across the organization, resulting in fragmented customer experiences. For instance, consider whether CX survey responses are seen in Salesforce or another CRM.
To overcome this challenge, financial institutions must foster a culture of collaboration, where feedback is shared across all departments. Integrations make it possible to view CX data in almost any other business system – whatever your product, support, marketing, and service teams use today.
- CLARITY about your ideal customer experience
After collecting feedback and integrating it into your business systems so teams can use it, the last step is gaining clarity about your customer journey. You will likely identify numerous improvements that can be made to your customer’s experience.
Along with helping you prioritize improvements to customer experience; clarity also involves offering the personalization that customers desire.
For instance, funneling CX data back to marketing teams will enable them to personalize communication, adapt to personal preferences and offer customized promotions. Getting data to your product team will help them prioritize big fixes, optimize the mobile app, and inform their product roadmap.
And the last part of clarity is closing the feedback loop with customers. Letting them know their voice was heard and their feedback was valued will deepen relationships, help reduce churn and foster long-term loyalty.
Collect-Connect-Clarity in action
A large credit union focuses on CX to ensure they are providing the best experience for their members. The challenge they faced was attracting new members at the beginning of their financial journey, while balancing those needs against those of existing, long-standing members.
The credit union used Alchemer to survey both populations about the experience they wanted. Based on the feedback they received, they prioritized digital advances to attract newer members (more likely to use an app or digital communication methods) while paving the way for a differentiated in-branch experience for existing members (more likely to visit in-person).
By collecting feedback, integrating it across their business systems and analyzing the feedback closely, they were able to determine how to serve the business needs of both new and existing customers. They solved a common challenge by acting with empathy, asking new and existing customers what kind of experience they wanted – and delivering it.
Collect-Connect-Clarity enables you to differentiate your experience
Bank and credit union customers want a deeper, more personalized experience. And if they don’t get it, the cost of switching is low. Smart financial institutions will implement changes to improve CX -knowing that it drives bottom-line value for the business.
The personalized services you offer to customers is possible after asking for feedback, connecting the data with teams who can use it, and gaining clarity on what to tackle first. This new, better experience will drive customer retention and loyalty for years to come and help you stand out among the crowd.
