Practically everyone uses the financial services industry to some extent. If your business operates in this industry, you have access to possibly the widest base possible. But you’ll only be able to take advantage of that massive customer base if you provide a sterling customer experience through and through.

In fact, your business’s financial service customer experience is arguably the most important part of its operations. Today, let’s take a look at how you can improve your financial service CX across the board.

Why Does Financial Service CX Matter?

CX matters for financial services for the same reason that it matters everywhere else: It’s the best way to generate brand loyalty and secure as many sales as possible.

Look at it this way: Financial services companies, ranging from banks to credit unions to lenders, have to compete with themselves and with the bank accounts of their target audiences. 

For someone to use your financial service, whether that’s a mobile banking service or a brick-and-mortar bank, you need to convince them:

• Your brand is better than all the competing financial services brands in the area.
• Your services are worth whatever hit their bank account will take, whether it’s purchasing a product, depositing a certain amount of money to open an account, and more.

Marketing will only take you so far. In an industry like financial services, ongoing business relationships are arguably just as important as your initial impression. After all, people who sign up for certain financial services should theoretically continue to use them for months or years.

Therefore, you can’t just do a so-so job drawing people to your financial services company. You need to keep them there for the long haul to turn a profit and build up a stellar reputation.

The secret lies in your customer experience. If your target audience members have a phenomenal experience at your bank or credit union, they’ll be more likely to stay with your financial services organization overall. They’ll also be more likely to spread the word about your brand, helping you draw new clients to your financial services company.

Bottom line: financial services CX matters a great deal for long-term health and profitability. It’s the best way to make your brand stand out from the competition and the only way to ensure our users are satisfied in perpetuity.

7 Ways To Improve Your CX in Financial Service

Good news: There are many ways to double down and improve the experience in financial services companies. Let’s take a closer look.

1. Make It Easy To Open or Close an Account

For starters, you can do wonders for your CX and financial service by making it easy for clients to either open or close accounts.

Lots of banks and credit unions already do the first thing, but many more don’t make it easy for people to close accounts. This leads to worries, frustration, and an overall bad customer experience for those who do want to close up shop with your brand for one reason or another.

Make it easy to both open and close an account under any circumstances. Even if it hurts to lose a customer initially, you’ll do a better thing for your brand’s reputation in the long run by allowing that individual to leave gracefully. Plus, if your departing client has a pleasant experience, there is always a chance that they may come back when your brand’s offerings align better with their needs and budget.

With that in mind, make sure that opening or closing an account takes less than a day and doesn’t require a bunch of hoop-jumping. Your customers, both current and past, will thank you for it.

2. Offer Several Ways To Control One’s Funds

Make a great financial service customer experience for everyone by giving them several ways to control their funds. That includes in-person, over the internet, and over a proprietary mobile app.

The more ways your users can access and control their funds, the better. It makes your customers feel like they are in control of their money: something that’s absolutely crucial for any financial services organization. The moment your clients don’t believe this, they may be liable to withdraw their funds from your company and go to a competitor.

3. Give Your Customers Fast Online Payment Options

In keeping with the above, give your users access to very quick online payment options, especially if you are a bank, credit union, or lender. Customers like to be able to feel that they can pay their bills on time, especially with auto-pay features.

If you incorporate these basic functions, your customers’ experiences are much more likely to be fruitful and enjoyable. For even better results, let your clients submit payments over secure mobile apps.

4. Prioritize Streamlined Customer Support

From time to time, target audience members will have a question, complaint, or simply require assistance with something. Therefore, you should streamline customer support efforts across your organization. After all, how you handle complaints and questions makes up a big part of the impression your CX will make in the minds of your consumers.

Whether that means using personalized chatbot software, hiring more service agents, or something else, make sure that support tickets and resolutions go by smoothly. You should streamline operations so everyone can submit tickets quickly and easily. Have enough staff on hand to respond to those queries promptly.

However, training a complete call center can be a drain on resources, especially the oh-so-scarce resource of time. That’s why some of the top companies in the world rely on Awesome OS for white-glove customer experiences.

Awesome OS has an NPS score of 86 (with the industry average at 54). Our CSAT score is 96% (as compared to the industry average of 88%). For dealing with complaints, upselling, cross-selling, and more, our highly-trained support teams can handle anything you need, wherever you need it. 

5. Ensure Customers Can Block Cards or Accounts Easily

Identity theft is a real threat, so your clients need to be able to occasionally block cards or accounts to prevent it. Ensure your organization is set up so that a quick block or account cancellation is possible and your company can send the affected individual a new card ASAP.

The faster you can handle things like this, the more capable and professional your company will seem. Furthermore, prompt responses and ease of use will make your customer happy that they’re working with you instead of a competitor. Even though identity theft wouldn’t happen in an ideal world, handling it right can go a long way toward smoothing things over.

6. Personalize Customer Journeys

Personalization is just as meaningful in financial services CX as it is elsewhere. So it’s a good idea to personalize your customers’ journeys everywhere you can, such as by:

• Send clients personalized marketing emails with special offers and discounts based on their needs, previous purchases, and more.
• Reference your customers by first and last name wherever possible, such as with chatbots.
• Assign a dedicated experience agent to each big spender customer. This can be particularly valuable if you have a few huge accounts that pay most of the bills at your company. Giving them one point of contact will do wonders for making them feel special and valued.

Above all else, double-check that your customer experience agents know not to make your target audience members feel like they are just numberless entities. Every customer is valuable, and your people need to know it. For highly-trained customer experience representatives, rely on AwesomeOS’ customer support specialists, who are already properly trained in the fine art of five-star service. 

7. Adapt to New Technologies

Lastly, and more broadly, don’t hesitate to adapt to and adopt new technologies as they come around.

For example, lots of banks were caught off guard when mobile app banking took off. They were left in the dust while their competitors quickly pivoted to the new digital frontier in banking and financial services technology. Nowadays, practically every financial company has a proprietary app, but that wasn’t the standard a decade ago.

As new technologies grow and evolve, your business needs to be at the forefront of their adoption if they fit your needs and are desired by your target consumer. When push comes to shove, users will leave your brand for competitors if they have better tech or better services. A company must always appear to be modern and competitive in this arena.

Reach Out to AwesomeOS Today

In the financial services industry, customer experience is everything. With AwesomeOS assisting you, your brand will be well-positioned to capture more of your target audience than ever.

For example, we provide back-office support for your staff members, plus help you develop or improve a financial platform or website for better customer results. Whatever you need, we’re sure we can assist you in providing phenomenal customer experiences with your financial services, so send us a message and let’s get started.

Sources:

How To Deliver A High-Impact And Personalized Customer Experience | Forbes

Importance and Components of the Financial Services Sector | Investopedia

How to Prevent Identity Theft in Your Business | Inc