Business
How to launch a CX programme in financial services
Published
1 year agoon
By
editorial
By William Perry, Head of Financial Services UK Medallia
Competition in the financial services sector is becoming increasingly heated. As a result, financial organisations have been investing huge amounts of time and money into understanding how to innovate and outpace competitors. In order to do this, many organisations have landed on optimising one key differentiator: customer experience.

William Perry
The numbers don’t lie. Organisations with a superior customer experience generate nearly six times the revenue of customer experience laggards. However, despite this, some financial businesses are finding it tricky to get off the starting blocks.
Prioritising customer experience requires an ability to listen to the voice of the customer and learn, analyse, predict and empower employees to act in the moment to improve their experience. To implement these capabilities to the point where effective decisions are being made, a strong and empowered CX programme is needed.
Here, we lay out a simple, step-by-step guide to launching a CX programme in the financial services.
Step 1: Make the case
The real work of launching a CX programme happens before you even start building. For a CX programme to truly work, the whole organisation needs to be invested in boosting customer experience. This can be tricky, for example, the risk management department probably isn’t 100 percent aligned with the customer service team on strategy and prioritisation. So how do you shift mindsets?
The idea is to find a way to anchor an experience strategy around the focus of each and every department. And it’s not as hard as you think. Afterall, when we consider that an organisation’s departments should be working towards common goals like increasing revenue, delivering stronger outcomes, bolstering employee engagement and remaining relevant and improving loyalty – the benefits of a cohesive experience management strategy – it becomes easier to persuade decision makers that an approach centred around CX is the way forward.
Step 2: Get the buy-in
Leading on from the above, it’s important to identify the key stakeholders that can affect change here – namely the C-Suite – and find a way to appeal to them all.
For example, increasing revenue is not only about driving repeat business but also about getting new business in the door. By listening to and learning from customers, financial services organisations can find a way to do both – for example, banks that act on the insight from customers can reduce churn by identifying friction in the online banking journey or pinpoint new ways to create positive banking experiences that drive new revenue potential.
At the end of the day, getting the buy-in from stakeholders is about connecting customer experience to solving business challenges and fulfilling the company’s broader, strategic aims, clearly demonstrating the ‘why’ and the ROI of customer experience.
Step 3: Establish critical factors to success
Broadly speaking, there are five pillars that build the foundations of an excellent CX programme.
- Strong formal governance – holding teams accountable for progress and empowering effective decision-making
- An executive sponsor – whether it’s a CX professional or one of the leadership team –to champion the programme internally, work to remove any roadblocks and promote ROI
- Clear internal communication – keeping everyone informed and mindful of why the programme is valuable
- A comprehensive change management strategy – this should include a contingency plan for pockets of resistance and suggested approaches on how to encourage adoption to instil a culture of CX excellence
- Effective training strategies – focused on skills development
Step 4: Leverage technology
To feed into the goals of every business function while serving broader common aims, the CX programme needs to capture insights from across the business and customer journey as a whole so that every customer feels heard across all interactions – whether that’s digital or in person. This means infrastructure needs to be in place that both supports key channels like SMS and video, whilst being able to automatically integrate feedback with key internal systems (such as customer relationship management) and digital analytics tools and extract insights at scale.
This leads us to another important point – it’s not enough to collect customer data and feedback, it also needs to be interpreted and understood. AI and text analytics can drill down into the themes and trends hidden in the data and translate them into actionable insights. These more advanced technologies are the true differentiators of a successful CX programme, allowing financial companies to pinpoint at speed exactly what needs to be done to impact the customer experience and drive outcomes.
Step 5: Work out metrics to benchmark ongoing success
The most helpful metrics are the ones which inspire you to take action and that clearly demonstrate to you the ROI of each action taken. As one of the most widely-adopted customer experience metrics, NPS (Net Promoter Score) is probably best for benchmarking a company against its competitors.
Financial services, however, might want to also look at measuring specific key metrics, such as trust, a big factor in determining whether customers choose and remain loyal to organisations operating in this sector.
Additionally, in a sector where customers expect a seamless experience – especially online and when dealing with hard-earned income and savings – if something is going wrong and there’s a point of friction along the way, it’s imperative it’s logged and resolved as quickly as possible. This means response to alert time is a key behavioural indicator for financial services to measure and track in their CX programmes.
Baking customer experience into company DNA
Those companies that are moving in lockstep with shifting customer expectations in an increasingly digital world are building a huge competitive advantage. Organisations in the financial services sector that are finding ways to predict future customer needs are able to better transform their businesses and empower employees to affect in the moment actions that improve customer satisfaction, loyalty, trust and lifetime value.
Companies that are serious about transforming their operations are implementing strong and empowered CX programmes that bake the importance of customer engagement into the very DNA of the organisation.
Banking
Building towards an inclusive financial future
Published
4 days agoon
September 22, 2023By
editorial
By Catharina Eklof, CCO of IDEX Biometrics
From the visually impaired to displaced migrants, the unbanked, and people living with dementia – a burgeoning financial gap exists across many areas of society. In fact, as of late 2021, almost one-third of adults around the world were reported as unbanked according to the World Bank Group. That’s around 1.7 billion people – with half coming from the poorest 40% of the world’s population. Being financially excluded in this way means not having access to common financial services including savings accounts, loans, a credit rating, or even a bank account. Those who are awaiting clearance to join a country’s financial ecosystem, such as migrants, are also finding themselves left behind by the modern financial infrastructure.
As societies reliance on digital and contactless transactions over cash continues to grow, this financial gap is only set to widen. In less than 10 years, the share of Americans not using cash for payments has increased by double digits, reaching 41%. By 2031, cash payments are expected to make up only 6% of all transactions.
Fortunately, biometric smart cards can bridge this gap for people in the Global South, migrant populations, as well as those with visual or cognitive disabilities worldwide, who deserve to feel secure, included, and independent.
The challenges surrounding passwords
COVID accelerated the transition from cash to contactless payments and the use of digital wallets, creating a challenge for many. By 2024, it is expected that digital wallets and cards will account for 84.5% of all e-commerce spend.
Digital transactions traditionally rely on the use of PINs that can easily be forgotten, as studies have found that we manage 100 passwords on average across various sites and services. In the US alone, consumers report relationships with more than three financial institutions and have more than four accounts per household. The challenge of password recollection is only growing. To counter rising cybersecurity threats, several countries now mandate two-factor authentication for retailers and service providers, creating further complexity.
However, organizations are responding to financial exclusion. Card provider Mastercard introduced its contactless PayPass offering, as well its Touch Card developed alongside Amjan Bank which enables the visually impaired to distinguish between their cards. Both look to provide a better customer experience for people struggling with the digital changeover. For those living with dementia, Mastercard has also partnered with Sibstar and the Alzheimer’s Society to create a specific card where limits, transactions, top-ups and notifications can be viewed and managed via a complementing app. Likewise, Turkish neo bank Papara introduced a Bluetooth debit card that provides visually impaired users with audio prompts when making payments.
Protecting the visually impaired
There are at least 2.2 billion visually impaired people globally. In 2019, it was found that 89% of visually impaired have been victims of fraud or have made errors when paying for goods and services. This figure comes prior to the pandemic, and the proliferation of digital transactions, suggesting an even bigger concern today.
PINs present an obvious security issue for this demographic, with others able to oversee their inputs and then manipulate them. Contactless payments go some way to solving that problem but pose the risk of fraud as there is no PIN verification below the increasing threshold amount, now at £100 in the UK, where the average annual wage is £27,756. In India, where the average annual wage is 9,45,489 rupees (roughly £9000), contactless limits are set to 5000 rupees (£48). Many accounts also require visual-based inputs to prove identity, such as CAPTCHA, proving as a barrier for the visually impaired.
Enhancing awareness on a regulatory level is key for driving change and reassuring vulnerable groups. The EU Accessibility Act is an example of how payment service providers are obliged to comply with accessibility standards. This includes making interfaces perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust, to ensure that individuals with disabilities can effectively navigate payment interfaces.
Paving the way with biometrics
Including braille on cards for easy identification is a crucial step for the visually impaired. This can also be used on biometrics smart cards, with sensor textures to confirm the user has selected the correct method of transacting. Not only do these cards provide convenience and inclusivity, but they also promote ultimate security by linking a person’s identity directly to their fingerprints. This data is encrypted within the card itself, reducing any concerns surrounding fraudulent behaviour or of data being lost via a centralized breach or large-scale hack.
In this context, biometrics can be used to serve the unbanked and those currently unrecognized within national infrastructures. South America is an example of an early adopter of biometrics, turning to the solution to cope with swelling population sizes, and the challenges associated with accessing proof of identity when setting up traditional bank accounts. Meanwhile in India, pension payment fraud has dropped by 47% thanks to bypassing the need for prior credit ratings or credentials.
Liveness detection, however, which ensures the biometric sensor is reading a true biometric source (rather than a false or recreated image of one), is vital to the success of financial aid programs globally. Securing remittances through biometric authentication ensures transparency and better fund control. Directing funds to cold wallets or biometrically authenticated cards can also improve program efficiency, safeguarding the interests of individuals and communities.
Overall, the biometrics market is expected to grow to US$87.4 billion by 2028, at a CAGR of 17%. Whilst its value as a simple and secure method of transacting is growing substantially, you can’t put a price on its impact on those who have so-far fallen through the gaps of finance’s digital revolution.
Business
Euro deep tech M&A deal value expected to reach $20bn+ in the next 15 months
Published
4 days agoon
September 22, 2023By
editorial
Written by Oliver Warren, Associate at DAI Magister
Investment in European deep tech has mirrored the broader decline in the technology sector; it has halved since the peak of 2021’s boom, reflecting investor preferences for ventures with lower capital expenditures and associated risks. Start-ups within the following verticals: Health and Bio, Transportation, Energy, and SaaS and AI experienced the most significant drops.
However, Dealroom data shows stark differences in funding for deep tech start-ups at the early, breakout (Series B & C), and late stages. After experiencing a modest deceleration between 2021 and 2022, early-stage deep-tech fundraisings have been surprisingly healthy, bucking the market trend, due in part to the hype surrounding Generative-AI and in Q1 2023 they received the highest infusion of capital for over a year.
However, this positive trend conceals a sharp decline in B and C round fundraises, which have seen investment activity plummet to $1 billion in Q1 2023 from a peak of $3 billion in Q1 2022. Late-stage rounds (>$100M) have also experienced massive declines, falling almost 70% from $2 billion in Q1 2022 to $634 million in Q1 2023.
$20bn+ worth of deep tech M&A in the next 15 months alone
While venture capital continues to show interest in the sector, the retreat of growth investors and the genuine prospect of a prolonged down cycle ahead has left growth-stage deep tech companies needing to implement stringent cost-cutting strategies to curtail expenses and extend their runways. But even those fortunate enough to have secured inflated funding rounds during the exuberant market conditions of 2021 will soon need additional investment.
Deep tech companies typically have high burn rates due to their heavy focus on research and development, requiring funding approximately every two years on average. With dwindling access to VC cheques, a non-existent IPO market, and practical limits to self-sufficiency, M&A is already emerging as a valid route to realising substantial profits for investors and founders, even if it doesn’t deliver the lofty $1bn+ valuations seen in 2021.
We’re already seeing more companies take this route. European deep tech M&A activity has rebounded to levels not seen for years and across our focus verticals, spanning Advanced Materials, Space, AI & ML, Cybersecurity, and Robotics, European M&A transactions have already rebounded to surpass 2020 levels (183 this year, annualised versus 176 in 2020), with some notable exits such as InstaDeep’s sale to BioNTech and SLM Solutions metal 3D printing business being acquired by Nikon.
In 2024, we forecast 250+ M&A deals in European deep tech, with at least 20 above $100m, making it the strongest M&A year since 2016. A key driver of this resurgence is the substantial increase in established deep tech companies across Europe, with many more companies fielding 100+ employees and sizeable, valuable engineering teams. The funding-driven growth in the size of European deep tech companies now makes many more sizeable, more strategic targets for international acquirers.
Overall, we anticipate the remainder of 2023 and 2024 will be banner years for European deep tech M&A, with potential deal value reaching $20 billion or more in the next 15 months alone.
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