Summary:

• Banking businesses are facing the onus of balancing digital and physical infrastructures.
• Leveraging AI, machine learning, and customer analytics is crucial for a successful CX evolution.
• Digital literacy promotion and intuitive CX ensure hassle-free audience consolidation.

According to a Gartner report, 81% of organizations compete mostly (or entirely) on the basis of customer experience, making it a critical differentiator for financial institutions in 2022 and beyond. 

Owing to the wide-ranging impact of the pandemic on how business is conducted across sectors, banking CX will likely undergo more major evolutions in the near future.

In this article, we take a look at a few key trends worth the attention of banking business leaders trying to reconstruct their banking CX.

AI and ML take center stage

No longer mere baubles in a company’s claim of “advanced technology in CX” with little substance, AI has seen widespread practical applications in all stages of the banking consumer lifecycle, a development accelerated by the social distancing measures during the pandemic. The sheer variety is impressive, ranging from:

• 24/7 chatbots 
• AI-driven mobile messaging responses 
• Predictive marketing analytics 
• Backend algorithms that optimize entire processes

The rewards that AI will bring are multifold. Banking organizations will see their staff freed up by AI-automated processes and technologies. Prefiguring another trend, AI will give organizations the space and resources to design and maintain interactions that convey a personal touch.

Making the banking experience minimally manual

Being stuck inside for extended periods of time has accustomed people to handling things online or with minimal contact. For banks, this means tight hygiene measures, as always.

More importantly, these new habits should drive banks to examine their various processes, customer journeys, and touch points with the goal of digitizing manual interactions as much as possible. 

The bank can, for instance, implement technologies that pre-fill forms or auto-suggest personalized next steps for online visitors to eliminate unnecessary queries. Now, what happens to the physical branch itself after this digitization overhaul?

Reimagining the brick-and-mortar bank branch

With more and more functions moving online, banks across regions have started exploring the new shape the brick-and-mortar branch itself should take.

While still largely experimental, the time is ripe to scrutinize how face-to-face interactions, in-depth consultations, and immersive experiences can be weaved into the new banking customer journey. All of these new components will entail a keen understanding of the individual client, one made possible by unifying untapped data in multiple systems.

Understand the new banking customer

The digital future is fueled by data. If siloed and of subpar quality, customer data will slow down banking operations, hamper customer journeys, and cause the loss of valuable prospects. 

When designing the CX transformation roadmap for the bank, business leaders need to lay out a plan for unifying all the data at their disposal and studying it to gain a reliable idea of what all the new segments emerging after COVID-19 want.

Ensure digital literacy for all consumer groups

Not every consumer has made the digital leap, or at least with the same comfort level. While certain markets have seen considerable strides in digital adoption, this is by no means true of the entire world. 

Leaving the more traditional segments behind would be unwise. The bank has to then create use cases and content for bringing them into the digital fold. 

• Can we use SMS messages, which elders do use, as a starting point in a multi-step process where they can be directed to opt into digital bank touch points? 
• Can reinvented branches offer digital adoption resources and long-term online finance support?

The future of banking CX in the post-pandemic era will take on a shape quite distinct from the one before. With the right technologies, strategies, and intelligence on today’s customers, banks can secure an edge over competition and turn digital upheavals into sustainable growth opportunities.