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November 9, 2020
Like it or not, digital transformation has helped in shaping people into digitally-savvy consumers, and expectations are higher than ever. The scene of banking is changing, and no two consumers are the same. It’s essential to keep in mind that customers define their experience and the direction of each customer journey. They also demand personalized experiences according to each banking interaction with your products or services.
With the onset of Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things, and cloud-based software, banks must stay abreast of how the latest technologies affect their business. The pressure to remain relevant and stay ahead of your competitors has never been more significant. Having a meaningful customer journey program in place is crucial for continued growth. Identifying a consumer’s goals, pain points, or motivations can help map journeys to fit each customer’s persona.
And focusing on your unique selling proposition can save you both time and money. Automating your processes with a customer-centric mindset ensures each customer experience is satisfying, better than the one before, and worth telling others about. In 2019, it was forecast that digital banking users would surpass 161 million in the U.S. alone. Considering the stats from 2014, this is a 20% increase, mostly due to the convenience of using smartphones, the growing number of FinTech firms, and other digital technology.5
What is digital transformation?
First, let’s start by defining what digital transformation is and its impact on the banking industry. According to Salesforce, a software company, “Digital transformation is the process of using digital technologies to create new — or modify existing — business processes, culture, and customer experiences to meet changing business and market requirements.4 Because of the ease of accessing technology, consumer issues can’t be ignored.
Banks and financial services firms have to understand the importance of digital transformation to stay on the cutting-edge and out-pace the competition—it’s more than gathering variations of new technologies hoping they’ll work. Digital transformation has to fit your business model. That’s why creating meaningful customer journeys is the perfect starting point for yielding scalable results.
Something else to keep in mind is a study released by Boston Consultant Group (BCG) on how customers interact with their banks. BCG found that 24% of those who responded say they plan to use banking branch operations less or stop visiting them altogether.6 So ensuring your online banking services provides customizable journeys is vital in meeting and exceeding the customer experience and connecting with your company or brand.
Customer Journeys Improve The Way Banks Do Business
Traditional banking processes no longer allow banks to grow or attract new customers. Having a business model whose primary focus is accepting deposits, dispensing cash, or providing loans isn’t enough to keep the banking industry afloat in the 21st century. Years ago, the customer experience wasn’t given the priority it deserves. And now, it’s a disservice to your customer base and infrastructure if you fail to provide personalized journeys that build meaningful relationships with your customers.
Customer journeys have improved the way banks and financial service firms do business. Research done by EverFi, says “Many banks make mistakes by taking on a series of separate digital initiatives, which struggle to succeed because they don’t have the support or coordination to compete with digital-native solutions.”1 If this is so, it makes sense that banks would need a reliable and efficient program in place that’s relevant to consumer needs.
Martek Ventures, a Salesforce Consultancy, can skillfully help you build a customized customer journey plan that makes the consumer experience cohesive and integrate your digital banking technologies under one umbrella. Caring about the overall experience can save time since a good customer journey platform requires fewer people to make it work. The marketing and sales teams would still have to connect, and the cost-savings can eventually be passed onto the consumer, which is a win-win deal for both sides. To learn more, fill out the online contact form today!
Online Banking Impacts The Digital Customer Experience
The following is a basic example of how online banking works. A customer needs financing and fills out an online application at the initial contact with your banking product or service. It’s essential that the customer journey smoothly transitions from one touchpoint to the next. Throughout the entire process, the customer should feel that each step is effortless or intuitive. And each step throughout the transaction process should be handled all within the same platform or tool.
Mapping your customer experience involves building the right tools at the right time to help guide the consumer in each phase of the journey. Financial services mapping goes something like this, states EverFi: “a digitized customer journey allows a customer to click on an ad, sign up for an account online, receive tutorials and on-boarding information through their app, receive automated loan decisions, and pay bills or send funds online.”1 In the ever-evolving digital transformation, the end result is to better understand who your customer is and strategically mapping each journey to accommodate multiple consumer types.
Online banking impacts digital customer experience. When tailoring customer journeys to create the desired results, banking and financial services must first put the customer’s needs and wants. This involves investing funds into building the necessary framework to succeed. This will allow for crafting sufficient customer relationship management (CRM) systems that deliver a more personalized experience by tracking past interactions or reviewing responses from survey submissions.
Digital Transformation Creates Meaningful Results in Customer Journeys
According to a survey on the State of Digital Transformation, TEKsystems, 2020 states, “four out of 10 technology decision-makers aren’t satisfied with their organization’s current reaction to digital trends.“3 Digital transformation creates meaningful results in customer journeys. By pinpointing the purpose of your journey and the type of experience you want your customer to have is a good starting point. The next step is aligning that purpose with your company’s brand, then delivering on your promises.
With the growing popularity of FinTech companies, competition is stiff as we see an ongoing shift in the banking industry. Handling consumer demands for convenience and personalized services have companies on their toes in providing 24-hour assistance. To streamline the steps involved in delivering the most favorable outcome requires having the best software to complement your business model and continue driving transformation and growth. Martek Ventures offers the best in SAAS tools for creating customizable customer journeys.
According to Hitachi Solutions, “The emergence of FinTech/non-bank startups is changing the competitive landscape in financial services, forcing traditional institutions to rethink the way they do business.”2 Understanding customer journeys’ unique role and the positive impact in creating meaningful results is key to rising above the technological challenges in the banking and FinTech industries.
Recognizing the overall cost-savings of digital transformation makes it worth looking into. Martek Ventures is here to help by walking you through several pain-free steps that will empower you to thrive in this modern technological climate. They deal in the finest, yet easy to use, customer journey tools to streamline and reshape your current processes. This is done through innovative solutions that scale ongoing growth for banks, credit unions, and other financial service companies.
What are you waiting for? Book your free consultation today by filling out the online contact form.
References
- EverFi. Last updated on May 6, 2020. What is Digital Transformation in Banking? https://everfi.com/blog/financial-education/what-does-digital-transformation-in-banking-mean/
- Landy Wingard. Top 10 Banking Industry Challenges – How you can overcome them. Hitachi Solutions. https://global.hitachi-solutions.com/blog/top-10-challenges-banking-financial-organizations-can-overcome
- TEKsystems. 2020 State of Digital Transformation. https://www.teksystems.com/en/insights/state-of-digital-transformation-2020?ecid=ps_tek_p_cli-pro_xx_sttfdgtltrns_google_xx_xx_20191209_7475bd03&vendor_id=4100&gclid=CjwKCAiA-f78BRBbEiwATKRRBHxjRrPGcH68eahBTgwPisPTbrGP7bV-8yvdaAoxEUyhbA7z0JYIVxoC3OcQAvD_BwE
- Salesforce. What is digital transformation? https://www.salesforce.com/products/platform/what-is-digital-transformation/
- Statista Research Department. Number of U.S. digital banking users 2014-2019. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/455418/number-of-digital-banking-users-usa/
- Dmitry Dolgorukov and Forbes Finance Council. COUNCIL POST| Paid Program Money. Sep 29, 2020. Forbes. What Drives Digital Transformation In Banking? https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesfinancecouncil/2020/09/29/what-drives-digital-transformation-in-banking/?sh=5f49b2ce7dc5
