As costs for everyday items continue to fluctuate and reports of company layoffs and budget reviews increase, economic uncertainty around the world has people on edge.
In banking, these dynamics all place a strain on services. A continued tight labour market also makes it difficult to fill open jobs and keep expertise and staffing at the rights levels.
Consumers too are dealing with a considerable amount of stress to make ends meet. When they reach out to banks, employees on the frontline often find themselves the undeserving targets of angry customers. People get anxious when they are unable to quickly resolve their financial questions. And this has an economic impact for banks too – angry consumers are more likely to air their frustrations on social media, leading to reputational damage.
On top of this, there’s considerable tension between banks and their employees as many are ordering return-to-office mandates, with JPMorgan Chase recently joining the list of many organisations making this a requirement. Employees are also faced with concerns that their jobs may be displaced with the rise of automation and AI, leading them to feel increasingly insecure. Under these conditions, it is more important than ever that banks invest in their employee experience to support staff retention and in turn, customer satisfaction.
David Porter, Managing Director of Financial Services at Genesys, discusses the impact of increasing pressure on banking services and their employees, and how banks can deploy the right tools to alleviate this.
How have customer expectations of banks changed in recent years?
As technology evolves, customer expectations are continually being reset. People today want more. More convenience, more ease of use, and more seamless experiences. Brands such as Uber, Google and Amazon are setting this standard. Being able to self-serve has become a differentiator between those that deliver on customer expectations, and those that don’t. These expectations are no different to the ones the banking sector now faces.
In the banking industry, customers want digital experiences that allow them to perform tasks with ease, such as checking balances, transferring funds, and setting up recurring payments, all without having to step foot inside a branch. Any issues that may arise must be addressed quickly and efficiently, but this hasn’t been straightforward to achieve. And when you look at the data, it’s easy to see why – only 18% of banking executives have reported being in a ‘mature stage’ of digital transformation efforts.
What barriers does the banking sector currently face approaching their customer experience?
An executive at Citi recently shared with me that efficiency, quick wins, and employee engagement were top priorities at present – and they’re not alone as it appears to be a growing industry trend. This is a step change, as typically, the employee experience has been viewed as secondary to that of the customer experience within banking. However, as the industry increasingly faces challenges in hiring throughout customer service functions, from front to back office, the employee experience has become increasingly important. Banks are far more open to exploring introducing tools and capabilities to improve this. Yet barriers to implementing these tools remain.
Banks are highly regulated, meaning that adopting technology in a way that is compliant with industry standards is always a challenge. Any new channels or capabilities that are deployed need to be properly reviewed and risk assessed, which in some cases means a slower time to market.
While the industry has seen huge progress, with challenger banks accelerating the transition to a digital-first banking model, many financial services companies continue to be held back due to legacy technology infrastructures and silos between department; particularly larger traditional banks. This results in disjointed customer journeys. In fact, according to our own recent research, only 26% of financial services companies today offer multiple channels for customer interactions and have integrated technologies and connected data. With consumer demand for digital skyrocketing and contact volumes increasing, more needs to be done to accelerate the transition to a unified omnichannel experience that provides visibility into the customer journey end-to-end.
What has the impact of this been on employees?
Employees are under increasing amount of strain to meet heightened customer expectations. For example, when a customer reaches out for assistance, they expect employees to have the necessary information on how and why they got there. Customers don’t like having to repeat authentication processes and the details of their issue. Being met with unsatisfying solutions can quickly lead to frustration as they feel like they’re going round in circles. Employees often take the brunt of these frustrations.
Additionally, with banking services seeing an increasing number of customers reaching out, employees are being stretched to meet service demand. This means that customers are not always matched with the best person with the right expertise to deal with their issue, leading to additional stress on both sides if a meaningful solution isn’t found.
Why is it important that banks invest in their experience?
For banks to be successful, they need to recognise the link between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction. This will require an overhaul of traditional thinking around the employee experience.
While many banks are reverting back to office-based working, hybrid continues to be favoured by employees. As such, for banks to be competitive at a time where both customer and employee experience are closely tied, they need to cater to employee needs and empower them with ways of working that suit them. However, with no one set definition of what this looks like, banks are navigating doing so in a way that meets both employee and business needs.
At the same time, banks have faced an overhaul in service delivery. Branch-based service models have been in decline, which has pushed more customers to reach out via digital channels, increasing strain on services. When employees are under this amount of pressure, without the appropriate means to manage it, the outcome is often a high turnover of staff. Banks are then having to work harder to recruit new talent for roles that are increasingly difficult to fill, and remaining employees are increasingly stretched due to understaffing, which has a domino effect on the customer experience they deliver.
This has forced banking leaders to recognise the importance of employee engagement. With banks struggling to fill job vacancies, especially in the back office, they need to find ways to reduce employee frustration and make jobs more efficient, simpler and quicker. While the priority has been equipping customers with self-service options, now banks need to turn the table and provide employees and invest in the right tools to provide them with real and meaningful support.
With advancements in technology, particularly AI, banks have an opportunity to reimagine traditional work processes and empower their employees with the means to thrive. It’s important that instead of succumbing to fears about AI replacing employees, these are positioned as tools to help supercharge performance and create satisfying experiences for employees and customers alike. Doing so will not only drive greater efficiencies, but improve customer loyalty.
What technology can banks implement to improve their employee experience?
Banks stand a lot to gain by investing in modern cloud-based technologies. While banks face challenges in overhauling multiple legacy systems and ensuring solution aligns with strict regulation, adopting a single cloud-based platform means banks can better sync operations across the business for a more seamless experience for both customer and employee across the board.
At the same time, layering modern technologies, like AI, on top of this can add additional complexity, particularly when banks are dealing with sensitive customer information, meaning they need to have stringent measures to ensure data is handled securely. However, banks have already made significant progress with AI – predictive engagement and routing capabilities are supporting banks to offer personalised services by predicting customer needs and behaviours, and offering tailored products and solutions, vastly improving the customer journey.
Bots powered by generative AI are proving to be a gamechanger here, improving efficiency and outcomes for customers. Bots can quickly sort and prioritise knowledge content most relevant to customer inquiries, whether that’s on how to set up a saving account or where their local bank is. Through this, employees can save time resolving queries, while ensuring the solutions they provide are meaningful to the individual customer.
Additionally, investing in modern employee experience technologies tightly integrated with their customer experience can help banks improve engagement with their workforce. AI too has a role to play here. For example, through AI-powered coaching and real time insights, they can provide employees with valuable guidance on how to improve performance, supported with recommendations and training plans personalised to their specific need. This creates a continuous learning loop, where human capabilities are enhanced by AI’s support and insights.
Through implementing tools like these, and more specifically, AI, banks can become more employee centric and show themselves as employers who truly care. Employees have the support they need to thrive, allowing them to deliver an experience in line with what today’s customers want.
