With digitalization sweeping the globe, businesses are now adopting a digital-first mindset. As a result, we can see a substantial shift in customer expectations. This shift is prominent in many sectors, especially in banking. Banks require an omnichannel approach in the modern day; a multichannel strategy won't cut it. This is why omnichannel banking is the go-to strategy many banks are going for.
In this blog, we will look at how omnichannel banking benefits both businesses and customers.
Digital technology has revolutionized several businesses throughout the years. This is also very evident in banking. Changes that were implemented have significantly changed how customers conduct their banking.
With a digital-first strategy, financial institutions are bridging the online/offline banking gap, enhancing customer experience. This helps to recruit new customers while simultaneously cutting operational expenses. Nearly all retail transactions now include a smartphone app, making online sales and marketing a typical technique for financial institutions and retailers.
Whether you visit a bank office or use an online app, individualized customer care is the cornerstone of every retail banking strategy. While in-branch transactions are still significant, the next era of genuine omnichannel banking is over the phone or a digital platform (mobile, internet, social). Financial institutions must keep up. Thus tactics to integrate digital channels with client data are constantly being developed.
Let's start by defining omnichannel:
'Omnichannel makes the same services available on all channels, both digitally and offline.'
When it comes to banking, clients can perform the same banking operations whether they use a mobile app, website, call centre or any available channel.
When understanding the omnichannel approach, it is often confused with the multichannel approach. The easiest way to remember is that omnichannel focus on interactions, whereas multichannel is more concerned with transactions. The customer is the main emphasis of omnichannel, which offers them a tailored message in a seamless, unified experience. Since all the channels are interconnected, the client may readily obtain information from any of the channels.
It is important to note that the omnichannel banking platform allows you to synchronize all relevant data, enabling you to switch to any channel while retaining data. This way, customers can start communication on one channel and finish it on a different one without the need to provide the same information over again.
Additionally, omnichannel banking affects back-office operations in a big way. A platform like this may enhance marketing effectiveness, streamline onboarding procedures, increase client retention rates, and much more.
These days, most customer interactions happen through online channels.
The reason is that customers will face multiple choices when using any of the touch points to conduct daily tasks, including withdrawals, payments, and other activities. They will probably look at your services online when they must make complicated selections like taking out a loan or making an investment, but they need encouragement to make a choice.
With the help of the omnichannel strategy, you can recognize potential customers and help them make a decision.
This will provide your sales and marketing team with information about such leads and make the process easier.
Also, per one of Mc Kinsey's researches, customers using multiple channels are likely to buy more products from you.
These solutions also collect data about your existing customer and share insights for your team to upsell with personalized communications.
Technology is evolving; customers have higher expectations, and demands for communication on multiple channels are at their peak. In this section, we will give you some of the reasons why omnichannel banking is the way to go.
With the fast-changing technological landscape, providing the best customer service is crucial. This is especially true for banking. Now, more than ever, customers prefer the use of digital channels. A study by McKinsey in 2017 showed that about 60% of banking customers use digital channels. Considering the pandemic and easier access to technology, you can imagine this number is much higher.
Digitalisation is great. However, with all its benefits come many challenges. Rather than a traditional call centre or customer office, there are many more touchpoints to consider. Email, mobile apps, chatbots, surveys, social media-these and many more are all channels your customers may want to contact you through. This is why presence across all channels is necessary. Not only that but making sure they are integrated with one another.
Customers should be able to contact you interchangeably through multiple touchpoints without the need to explain their issues. This will make them satisfied and loyal for many years to come.
If you get anything from this article, it is that omnichannel is a way to a superior banking experience. We all know that how you treat your customers makes any business successful. Satisfied customers are more likely to continue supporting you.
In the banking industry, customers deal with sensitive savings, investments or payments issues. Often, there is a strong need for communication on multiple channels. Omnichannel offers smooth transition across numerous touchpoints, easing communication and making customers satisfied.
If you already use an omnichannel banking solution, you can check out our blog about improving omnichannel customer experience.
Whether you have an inbound call centre focusing on customer inquiries or an outbound call centre, contacting existing or potential customers, omnichannel is crucial for success.
The omnichannel strategy helps with both- increasing contact touchpoints and strategies to improve the quality of customer experience. It is also great for proactively collecting customer feedback via quick surveys.
The omnichannel approach to inbound call routing automatically assigns a call to the suitable agents, which helps a problem resolve quickly.
It is difficult to personally answer every call you receive even though you set up automatic agent dispatching. But, by enabling Interactive Voice Response (IVR), it gets much more manageable.
This makes omnichannel an excellent option for both inbound and outbound call centres.
We've all been there; you have an issue and report it via email. Then the case gets complicated, and you need to contact a bank via phone. Then, you need to explain everything once again. And then, you call them for feedback and describe the issue with a different agent.
Wouldn't this be much easier if the agent had a record of all your previous communication? Omnichannel banking enables banks to keep a record of each customer interaction. This dramatically reduces call response time, which allows both customer and bank representatives to get into the issue and resolve it quickly.
Omnichannel banking makes the same services available to customers across all digital and offline channels. Customers can duplicate financial transactions using a website, a mobile app, a contact centre, a bank branch, or another available medium.
Omnichannel banking is about exceeding the customer's expectations by anticipating their behaviour, allowing them to interact with their bank across all channels, and supply them with the same services digitally or offline.
Day by day, agents face all kinds of customers. Some of these interactions are positive, and some are not so much. Not to mention large amounts of unnecessary administration that reduces the time they can use to help customers. Customers often end up resolving their issues over multiple calls, usually switching from different agents.
Omnichannel helps with several aspects of this issue. For example, one customers gets assigned to one agent. Agent can then focus on resolving the issue throughout the whole process. This makes resolving time much quicker and effective. Another critical factor is automation. Some repetitive tasks are done automatically, and agents can focus more on meaningful communication with the customers.
Today, more than ever, data analytics are crucial for handling any business. This is also evident in banking. These insights enable banks to understand their customers better and thus provide better service and targeted marketing campaigns.
Banks can, in many ways, benefit from analytics on the data produced by online banking and consumer transactions. This is evident in the potential to boost omnichannel sales effectiveness significantly. Analytics provide banks with critical information about customer behaviour that can be used to target better and adapt their product offers.
As we discussed before, customer experience is a focus of any successful business. Customers care about consistency, accessibility and personalized support. How you go about it may seem a challenging task. This is why, now, more than ever, omnichannel banking solutions are go-to for doing any customer-related task efficiently.
Now that we discussed what omnichannel banking could do for you, it is time to start thinking about the right solution to bring all these benefits to reality. Here are some of the features you should look for when choosing an omnichannel banking solution:
The main point of banking solutions is to provide customer experience across all touchpoints like websites, chatbots, mobile apps, phones, email etc. What's even more important is making sure customers can effortlessly switch to any of the given platforms. This is where omnichannel solutions shine.
Since its inception, it has spread to industries like telecommunications, media, and retail banking. Financial companies can save costs through process automation while increasing revenues through enhanced client experiences with omnichannel banking.
The point of omnichannel banking is to provide users with a unified multichannel experience. It should be compatible with your retail bank's mobile app, website, social media, and any other possible touchpoint. The customer should be able to move between channels without interruption.
The Omnichannel banking system should be scalable across all channels and allow a smooth transition.
Banks understand that to transform their multichannel products into a genuinely omnichannel banking experience, they must act fast.
When choosing an omnichannel banking solution, there are many questions you can ask yourself. The first thing that comes to mind is the solution's features and tools. However, thinking about how to adapt solutions within your existing systems is also essential. Also, consider how long it will take to fully implement everything and run the process? How cooperative is the team that will assist you with the integration?
You should ask those essential questions before sticking to particular omnichannel banking solutions.
This is one of the most critical elements before implementing any solution. Because the platform will have complete access to your customer's data, security will never be jeopardized. Customer safety, as well as the protection of your data, is essential. This is especially true in the banking industry since there is a lot of handling of sensitive information.
Remember that a single mishap with data safety can lead to tremendous consequences. Stay safe and choose a solution that grasps the security protocols in the best way possible.
There is no more annoying situation than when outdated, slow and hard-to-navigate software, whether you are an employee or a customer. What you want is hard to get. You go from one place to the other and never find a solution.
Omnichannel philosophy can make this even harder. Here, you deal with multiple channels at the same time. Let's make it even harder-we are talking about the banking industry. You deal with customers and their savings and payments. They need to trust you and think you are there for them. Bad user interface and user experience design can result in a lack of trust your customers give you.
This is why you should strongly consider omnichannel banking solution that takes their UI UX design seriously. Customers should feel like reaching you is a no-brainer. Not to mention your employees- they deal with a large spectrum of customers daily. Make their job easier by ensuring their tools are working for them and not against them.
If you want to know more about the Importance of employee experience and the tools they use, check out this blog.
Each bussines is difefrent. Different businesses require different solutions, and they should be based on their needs. This is especially evident in banking. Not all banking institutions deal with the exact domains.
With that in mind, you don't want to invest money in a rigid solution that can't be customized according to your expectations.
Start with an omnichannel banking solution that can be customized per your needs. Maybe you want it focused more on the telephone or email, or you need a debt collection solution.
Also, before implementing the solution, consider whether it would feel disconnected from your brand. It should deliver smooth sith between channels and perfectly merge with your brand's look and feel. A true omnichannel solution will allow you to do that.
It is straightforward to conclude that if you are a bank of any size, you need an omnichannel banking solution. Customers and employees want more.
An omnichannel banking solution can assist you in improving the customer experience while increasing revenue.
The concept of banking is evolving. Customers interact with banks in various ways as they become more comfortable with technology. Unlike previous generations of customers, these enlightened and empowered customers will not accept "cookie-cutter" treatment. They expect to be treated as individuals with their own preferences. Customers can enjoy seamless, personalized service across all touch points when you have a solid multichannel infrastructure and provide an omnichannel experience. The time has come for banks to take advantage of the wealth of customer information. As the world becomes more digital, capitalizing on the omnichannel opportunity may mean the difference between thriving banks and those that can no longer compete.
Solutions like LIVE offer you many features and solutions that help you automate, improve and smooth out your customer experience!
Learn more about how the Live product family can help you support and improve your customer experience strategy.
