Jay Sanderson, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Digital Experience at Progress
Providing customers with outstanding digital experiences is now a must for organisations in all sectors, and the financial services industry has its own specific set of needs in utilising technology to engage with customers. The rise of Open Finance is giving way to digital-only banking entities actively setting a benchmark for an increasingly open, inclusive, and technologically oriented financial environment that customers expect – The human touch and personalised customer engagement has never mattered more in financial services.
Financial institutions (FIs) can consider new technologies such as AI and ML to add human elements into digital experiences through personalisation, omnichannel content delivery, and conversational AI to make interactions more user-friendly, engaging, effective and secure.
And these technology developments are further accelerated by customer demand – Recent research by Sopra Steria reveals that nearly four out of ten customers now have an online bank, with mobile applications and websites being the primary communication channels for 58 per cent of those surveyed. With this significant segment of consumers adopting digital banking, FIs need to work harder to attract and retain customers. Users’ digital experience is critical to brand reputation.
The pressures to stay relevant to consumers are driving financial brand leaders and challengers alike to explore ways to elevate digital financial experiences that impact the bottom line. Security, accessibility, and customisation have become priorities for all products and services.
The state of personalisation in the financial services industry
In order to take the right approach for their organisation, tech leaders in banks and financial organisations should first understand what personalisation should look like in 2023. For consumers, it’s all about the experience. 2023 marks the UK’s sixth year of the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) publishing of the services quality league table of personal and business current account providers. Personal and small business current account holders are asked to rate their banks on how likely they would be to recommend them, giving feedback on areas such as the quality of online and mobile provision, branch and overdraft services. This promotes competition between providers and clearly highlights the leaders and laggards.
Delivering high quality services through an app or website is now table stakes to attracting and retaining consumers. With the explosion of available data and analytics, their customers’ experiences also need to be tailored to improve relevance. This might be offering behaviour-related products and services or spending habits to identify suitable marketing promotions or make personalised recommendations.
Despite customers desiring a high level of digitisation, it is important to note that human interaction is still important when making high-value financial decisions. By incorporating human interaction into digital experiences through methods such as omnichannel content delivery and conversational AI, organisations can make interactions more engaging and personalised to consumers.
The opportunity provided by AI and data analytics
Technologies such as data analytics, mobile development, artificial intelligence, and APIs can be used by financial institutions to deliver value to customers while still maintaining a human touch. Conversational AI tools like chatbots let financial institutions offer 24/7 support. Chatbots can handle routine inquiries and transactions and hand off more complex queries to virtual assistants. Banks must use their most important asset – their customer data – to offer tailored recommendations and promotions.
It has become critical for banks and other financial organisations to use digital technologies to facilitate visibility and interaction between themselves and their users through more and more digital channels. Those brands that offer customers access to the right information when they want it can easily secure new account openings, loans, and other products. Financial institutions now need the right tool to enable them to offer a consistent and seamless experience across channels which incorporates the right mix of digital interaction and human touch.
Delivering centralised financial services content with a DXP
Building trust and familiarity with customers comes from delivering consistent online content across all digital assets and applications, and managing it all in one place, and there is one clear frontrunner for this – a digital experience platform (DXP).
What makes a great digital financial experience possible is timely and relevant digital content that keeps customers abreast of their financial situation. This is why a DXP, which manages all digital content and delivers personalised experiences, is the way forwards. A DXP enables banks to harness and manage all digital channels, such as websites and mobile apps, in a centralised manner. Delivering highly tailored content requires customer insights, data intelligence, and content management processes to be streamlined through reliable, future-proofed technology.
In addition to simplifying content creation and management, a DXP can also ensure consistency across digital channels. Details like specific offerings, rates, and locations change frequently and a DXP can be used to publish changes across multiple sites more quickly and efficiently.
A DXP also enables integration with other systems, such as marketing automation platforms and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Integration creates the opportunity to offer personalised experiences based on the account portfolios and branch locations of customers.
A DXP enables digital channels to be optimised for different devices and methods of consumption. FIs can develop responsive websites and mobile applications for different devices and screen sizes, which is essential for customers to access financial services anywhere, anytime, and on any device.
Maximising the value of a DXP
A DXP has the capability to deliver a huge breadth of unique customer experiences to a wide variety of audiences, specifically tailored to the complex financial sector. Choosing one which features built-in security, auditing, and compliance capabilities will deliver engaging digital experiences in the most efficient and valuable way and enable secure data transfer.
With a single command and control centre for targeted campaign management and analytics, banks can not only boost revenue, by helping financial institutions increase loans, grow deposits and issue more cards. They can also reduce costs by eliminating siloed communications and redundant efforts. This generates a higher return on investment and eliminates unnecessary or redundant operational costs. For financial organisations that are looking for a way to achieve personalised, consistent, and relevant messaging for consumers and impact the bottom line, the DXP is a trustworthy solution.
