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The delivery of personalised customer experiences at scale across all customer touchpoints has significant revenue potential for financial institutions. We now live in an age where instant gratification and access on-demand is the norm.
Years ago, back when I was in school, this was called the ‘me-me’ syndrome (I want it for me and I want it for me now), an attitude which would have been considered unreasonable, childish, and even spoiled.
Modern technology and digital services have conspired, however, to create a new generation of banking customers where easy is the new loyal.
Essentially if you make it easy for me to do business with you quickly and seamlessly, even if this means paying a slight premium, I will continue to bank with you and remain a loyal dedicated customer.
Today’s average banking customer, under the age of 35, is a lot less influenced by the credibility and steadfast reassurance offered by traditional financial institutions. What they want and demand is sophisticated mobile banking capabilities and flexible financial services that fit around their everyday lives.
This particular demographic are much more willing, moreover, to switch banks if their existing provider falls short of the mark. According to a recent Accenture study, 18% of U.S millennials have switched their primary bank within the past 12 months, nearly double the average of other consumer groups. This is a clear-cut signal that all financial services providers must now sit up and pay attention to changing consumer demands.
“What millennials want is sophisticated mobile banking facilities and flexible financial services that fit around their everyday lives”
What’s clear is that financial institutions need to engage in a two-way digital conversation with their always-on customers – by listening and actively layering the rich customer data at their disposal to deliver compelling, personalised experiences at critical moments in the customer journey. Nowhere is this more significant than at the start of the journey: the customer onboarding process.
Ineffective onboarding can cost medium-sized banks in the region of €1,000,000 a day. This staggering figure not only relates to customer acquisition but also lost revenue in terms of advancing the customer relationship through follow-on cross-sell and up-sell activities. So what proportion of this occurs on the mobile channel? Over 50% of U.S and European financial consumers are constantly checking their finances via mobile, including account balances and personal budgets. With this in mind, it’s safe to say that the issue of ineffective onboarding overwhelmingly applies to digital channels.
“An ineffective onboarding strategy can cost medium-sized banks in the region of €1,000,000 a day”
Insufficient analytics and insights, lack of coordination and siloed customer data are three of the major factors that pose challenges to financial institutions as they seek to improve their onboarding strategy.
In order to deliver a customer-first experience, a bank must clearly identify the key areas of friction using highly granular customer insights and deliver personalised onboarding communications based on customer needs at every relevant step. This level of customised service delivery ensures each user has the best possible experience.
“Banks must deliver personalised onboarding communications based on customer needs at every relevant step of the onboarding journey”
Let’s say a new banking customer downloads their bank’s mobile app for the first time on a Wednesday evening at 8pm. They attempt to complete registration but subsequently abandon the in-app registration process at step 3.
Using a complete analytics and engagement platform, a bank can immediately identify this customer and pinpoint where and when they dropped off the registration journey. They can then automate helpful communication to the user in a multitude of ways to help them complete the onboarding process in a proactive manner.
In this instance, the bank chooses to deliver a targeted push notification directly after the moment of abandonment, offering in-app assistance from a live customer care representative. The message is timely, immediate and specifically tailored to the exact step where the customer dropped off.
Post-registration, the bank must continue the conversation with this customer, based on their unique individual user profile, to enhance usage and ensure full adoption of the bank’s products and services.
Ongoing actionable user insights will: a) identify the relevant services for each unique customer and, b) indicate the best possible communication channel to reach out and connect with these customers to achieve maximum engagement.
This level of highly personalised customer communication results in frictionless user experiences, which markedly drive user retention, boost overall customer loyalty and hugely improve the bank’s bottom line.
“A highly personalised ongoing customer dialogue results in frictionless user experiences, which markedly drive user retention and boost customer loyalty”
Ultimately, an effective mobile onboarding strategy should centre on an integrated, well organised, user journey flow that is more customer-centric than product-driven. Banks should leverage their digital channels to better understand their customers’ needs and continually utilise these insights to deliver meaningful experiences that bring value to their consumers’ everyday lives.
About us
Xtremepush is the world’s leading Multi-Channel Marketing Automation Platform. We enable hundreds of leading enterprise brands to drive revenue and maximise customer experience and loyalty through their digital channels by combining powerful user insights with multi-channel engagement functionality.
As a trusted partner to leading financial institutions and FinTech companies, we empower marketers to analyse, segment and target their mobile app and web users effectively, enabling the delivery of data-driven contextually relevant communications at the optimum time and location.
Download our digital engagment playbook for the Retail Banking industry here.
