Omnichannel Solutions For Banks And Their Clients
Complex technological solutions are becoming part of our everyday life. There is an active process of blurring the boundaries between our actions on the Internet and in actual life. Therefore, organizing a high-quality customer experience in which the consumer does not feel discomfort when changing the consumption channel is one of the main goals of the business, regardless of the industry.
The banks’ tasks of ensuring an excellent customer experience and meeting the new requirements of electronic interaction can be achieved by optimal and competitive solutions – omnichannel technologies.
Omnichannel does not only mean the work with different channels. It is the interaction between the client and the bank through various communication methods. It is not just a technological trend, but a requirement of a competitive market.
Content
- What is omnichannel banking?
- Why use omnichannel in retail banking?
- The importance of omnichannel for the financial institution
- Omnichannel banking common challenges
- What does omnichannel banking mean for a client?
- Frequently Asked Questions: Omnichannel Banking Solution
What is omnichannel banking?
Today, banks provide services through both physical and digital channels. That includes offline branches, ATMs, call centers, Internet banking, and mobile communications. Thanks to such integration and coherence (that is omnichannel), they achieve a better level of interaction and success in building the banking service that the modern client needs.
In particular, with omnichannel banking, the client now has access to its finances, control, and management wherever and whenever. And if earlier such a service was provided by a few banks, now it is the basis for most financial institutions.
The term omnichannel is associated with communication between the client and the company serving him, with the provision of a seamless customer experience across any communication channel. The supplier of products and services must provide its customers with a smooth and complementary consumer experience through the use of interaction channels with him (all at once or separately). Thus, the transition from using one channel to another is consistent and not fragmented.
Omnichannel allows the financial institution to interact with the client at all points of contact, record his intentions, track behavior and preferences, and personalize his communication with the bank. Due to omnichannel technologies, the financial institution maintains a consistent customer experience, helping the client reach the solution to his problem or inquiry whether the customer uses a website, mobile app, call center, office branch, or any other available channels.
Why use omnichannel in retail banking?
When the Internet entered the life of the mass consumer, retailers received a new sales channel – online stores. In turn, banks that focus on this are gaining a significant share of the financial services market.
Client-centricity and value propositions built on unique customer experiences have become drivers for retail banking. To respond to this market challenge, omnichannel is the clue. It takes customer experience to the next level and makes the client the center of sales channels. You know what your clients need and can personalize your offerings by combining customer data across multiple channels.
Another critical reason to use omnichannel in retail banking is its convenience. It is a faster and much easier way to get the information about a customer and his behavior through online channels than offline. That concerns the client’s personal data, information about what products he views and what interests him. All this helps to find an individual approach to the client and provide the best service.
The importance of omnichannel for the financial institution
Omnichannel banking allows financial institutions to focus on the client and his experience of interacting with the bank, study his preferences, and, thereby, get an opportunity to improve the quality of customer service. The bank will be able to improve its segmentation depending on the identified customer behavior and its primary communication channel. In addition, it can make personalized cross-selling, and optimize the cost of customer service.
Omnichannel allows you to get the maximum effect from all sales channels of the bank, carry out the necessary promotion of digital self-service solutions, and use proactive contacts with the client to maximize the customer’s equipping with the banking products he needs. Thus, the financial institution gets the client’s loyalty, increases sales efficiency, and creates fundamentally new banking services the modern customer requires.
What is more, omnichannel allows you to reduce costs, efficiently distributing tasks between self-service and bank employees. Operators process at least two times more requests, and chatbots for the company’s channels can take a load of similar questions.
Omnichannel banking common challenges
The first and, foremost, major difficulty around omnichannel banking is the security issue. After all, hackers do not sleep and constantly work on their spivvery. That is why financial organizations need to highly care about their security systems, regularly maintain updates and carry out preventive measures. Here, partnering with a trusted IT vendor is the key to solving this difficulty.
The second important challenge is the user-friendly interface for any customer. Not all banks have such conditions. And this is a huge fact, which is a brake on the development of a more advanced system of Internet banks.
Also, it is difficult at once to shift existing customer service models, since there is a natural resistance to changes among employees. To illustrate, attention to tools and changes in front office work often falls out of focus when implementing omnichannel banking. However, the staff is the first promoter of digital solutions and omnichannel customer experiences. Therefore, it is necessary to involve in-house employees in the implementation of changes and to conduct programs to introduce new opportunities in the behavior of bank personnel.
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What does omnichannel banking mean for a client?
- A process started by a client in one channel can be continued in another.
That means that regardless of the initial communication channel, the client can keep processing his financial issues on another method of interaction, without losing his previous customer experience. For example, if the client does not have a copy of the document with him, he can send it later via the Internet bank. Moreover, the financial institution can create a payment document in the Internet bank, and send it for execution from the mobile application when information about the receipt arrives.
- Unified information about the client’s actions and services in all channels.
In other words, after the withdrawal of money, the balance on the customer’s account is simultaneously updated on the Internet bank, mobile application, and front office at the bank branch. In turn, the bank receives complete information about the client’s actions performed through different channels. Also, when the client contacts the online consultation, the manager will know everything about his operations in the Internet bank – about past, rejected, and also not fully completed documents.
- A bank is a safe place to keep private information.
If a client once submitted a document that (from the point of view of internal regulations) is valid for a certain period, then the bank no longer requests it again, even when registering a new product or service for this customer.
- Common preferences and interests of the client.
If the client indicated in one communication channel that a specific offer of the bank is not interesting to him, then in another it would not be duplicated.
Frequently Asked Questions: Omnichannel Banking Solution
Omnichannel in banking means continuous and consistent interaction between the client and the bank. Its main goal is to provide customers with the same set of banking services, both digital and physical. This way, customers can carry out any banking transactions, whether they use a website, mobile app, call center, bank branch, or any other available channels.
Omnichannel allows banks and other financial institutions to interact with the client at all points of contact, record his intentions, track behavior and preferences, and, after, to personalize the communication and services. Another, not less important, advantage is the ability for the client to have access to banking services from any device and at any working time of the communication channel.
The characteristics one can relate to omnichannel banking include:
1. Integration of distribution channels in real-time. Only in this case, the client will be able to start solving his problem through one channel and continue in another without re-entering the information.
2. Flexibility and availability of open banking. The client-oriented approach of omnichannel banking requires the subsequent integration with external services that the client uses.
3. Using detailed marketing segmentation and big data. That will allow determining behavioral patterns and ensuring the maximum solution of the client’s problems.
By using omnichannel marketing techniques, banks can measure clients’ time spent on certain topics, track customer clicks on web pages, and use that data to deliver personalized messages. For the proper implementation of these strategies, banks and other financial institutions must coordinate their clients’ actions across different channels. Otherwise, the lack of coordination can lead to the opposite effect – loss of customers.
