Digitalized interaction inspires customers
Digital and personal forms of interaction do not contradict but complement each other.
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The challenge
Building bridges – the epitome of customer satisfaction
More and more often, products are offered in digital sales channels before the potential customer even notices the need for them. The messages accompanying these offers are often highly personalized for the respective recipient – especially in digital channels. This development, which has been enabled by new technologies and artificial intelligence, is the most important driver for taking individualized sales to a higher level in the coming years. It promises to attract new customers and retain them by going above and beyond their needs.
Digitalization = Personalization – can this principle be transferred to products and services from the financial industry?
When it comes to interaction between banks or financial services providers and their customers, the latter have higher expectations than ever, and for good reason: Their needs and priorities have changed radically due to the many new possibilities digitalization has given rise to. Personalized digital environments allow for convenient and intuitive use with direct feedback and constant availability – this is already standard and sets the customers’ expectations when it comes to interactions with financial services providers. However, those customers often find that there is quite a big gap between their expectations and reality – and they’re not particularly happy about that deficit.
Three ways to bridge the digital gap
AI as a tool to get closer to the customer
In these times of increased cost and competitive pressure, digital solutions are indispensable – smart approaches make use of artificial intelligence to help meet customer demands, set new benchmarks and automate resource-heavy activities. This is how financial services providers become future-proof. They should aim to communicate with each of their customers personally, individually, anytime and promptly. When all of their expectations are fulfilled and even exceeded, the customers will not just be content but enthusiastic.
1. Customer Journey
The customer journey covers all parts of a company that affect how it is perceived in customer interactions. This includes all touchpoints with customers that have a conscious or subconscious effect on customer loyalty. These touchpoints are where valuable data can be collected to be analyzed and interpreted. Organizations can derive measures from this data to further optimize those touchpoints with the goal of providing the best possible customer experience and customer journey. The more complete and precise the understanding of the customers and their wishes, the easier it is to derive suitable measures. This ultimately strengthens sales along the customer journey.
2. Customer Analytics
Customer analytics, also known as sales analytics, involves the systematic collection and processing of data to understand the customers’ needs and assess their satisfaction at as many stages as possible. Data analytics methods derive valuable insights on customers from customer and transaction data, including behaviors, affinities, habits, and intentions. This makes it possible to get a more personalized impression of each customer and understand their individual motivations in order to set targeted sales impulses and approach them in a more efficient and effective manner. Moreover, the collected data makes it easier to predict, for example, customer churn. Sentiment analyses and clustering techniques help the sales, marketing, and product development departments improve their pricing and services, plan campaigns, and optimize their spending.
3. Digital assistants
In the digital context, customer proximity can no longer be exclusively achieved through a physical branch network or staff to serve as contact persons, but above all through technical proximity in the form of direct access to the bank around the clock. The underlying digital infrastructure is often built upon chatbots or voicebots, which are capable of intuitive communication in natural language. Communicating with them should feel as authentic as possible – like communicating with a human being. In that regard, it is not only important that they provide meaningful answers, but also that they have their own personality. A good bot is characterized by responding individually to each user’s personality. In addition, it should be closely connected to the human service infrastructure and able to transfer customer requests directly to a human call center agent, if needed.
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AI is not a question; it is the answer to profound changes in the market for financial services providers. Do you want to inspire your customers? We look forward to helping you tackle your challenges!
