Offering mobile or online banking services isn't enough to be competitive. Customers increasingly expect a user experience with great functionality and innovative features. Banks should place themselves at the center of an ecosystem, enabling customers to manage financial accounts in one place.
Offering mobile or online banking services isn't enough to be competitive. Customers increasingly expect a user experience with great functionality and innovative features. Banks should place themselves at the center of an ecosystem, enabling customers to manage financial accounts in one place.
For banks looking to grow their clientele, creating the right digital experience should be priority number one. Customers look at technology offerings and digital experience as a major factor in whom they choose to bank with. It’s a major reason why so many customers are choosing to bank with fintechs or neobanks in Latin America.
The perception of technology capabilities and digital experience is very important. This goes beyond just mobile or online banking, customers want tools that make their banking life easier, faster and more efficient.
Experiences are just as important as the final offering when driving loyalty. 80% of people agree that the experience a bank provides is as important as the product or service it offers.
When it comes to what type of digital experiences banks need to offer to attract more clients, there is “no magic bullet” but the general area of focus should be around usability. A surge in digital transactions brings new competitive threats.
70% of banks agree that loyalty is more difficult to maintain than ever. The functionality and user experience should be presented in a way that is very intuitive and user-friendly, and not clunky. Banks should put the customers at the center and figure out what digital tools and services they need, rather than try and shoehorn them into existing products and services.
Herein lies the secret to humanizing digital banking: intelligently understanding how to deliver a personalized and frictionless experience for frequent, simple tasks, while identifying exactly what a customer is looking for.
Providing relevant information doesn’t mean bombarding consumers and prospects with offers just because they fit a certain affinity or profile, meaningful personalization always drives direct value to the customer. Clients want banks to meet them where they are, know their tastes, life stage, priorities and give them targeted offers making sure they’ve been fully taken care of.
Rather than force-fit customer needs to existing products, banks should determine the type of customer they want and then fit the product to the needs of that segment.
For the bank to figure out what to prioritize from a digital experience and UX perspective, they first need to determine what type of client they want to grow with and then figure out what are the right digital features to fit the needs for that particular segment.
Looking closer at the digital customer journey down to individual sessions on the bank's website or app reveals relevant information to customize offers at pivotal moments. When banks can tell what a user saw, time their interactions, and register what friction they encountered, they can identify patterns and implement large-scale improvements with confidence.
To remain competitive, financial institutions need to meet the future digital needs of their clients as well as their present needs.
Three major digital trends stand out: the ability to offer their customers buy now, pay later services, being able to pay with their loyalty points everywhere and swapping points for cryptocurrencies.
Ultimately, the best digital experience that will win customers in the future will involve banks becoming “ecosystem facilitators.”
An ecosystem facilitator can plug all applications into one utility, allowing the clients to manage them all from one place. This way you can provide proactive insights and personalized product recommendations. This is where the world of banking is heading.
Banks play a very unique role in people’s lives. They are trusted, even if they are not necessarily seen as innovative. There is a big opportunity for banks to get out of their traditional mindset. While most banks are not currently playing this role of ecosystem facilitator in Latin America, they should seize the opportunity.
