Creating a Smooth Customer Experience in Digital Banking: Trends and Tips for 2022

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Financial institutions are increasingly adopting digital banking to keep up with the rising consumer expectations. Banks and financial service providers strive to deliver high-quality services to ensure a good user experience. In the banking and finance industry, customer experience means that banks take all possible efforts to make their clients feel important when interacting with them. As per Digital Banking Report, improving the customer experience in banking should be the first goal for banking institutions and financial service providers.

What Expectations Will Customers Have From a Bank in 2022?

Poor services may lead to clients leaving their banks. People change and so do their banking behaviors. With the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, people have rapidly moved online to leverage digital banking services, ranging from getting a consultation about banking services or opening new accounts. According to one of the latest online banking surveys, about 27% of the British (14 million people) own a digital-only bank account, which is a significant increase compared to online banking statistics in the UK in 2019. Though bank customers have been adapting to the new digital reality, they still want to take advantage of quality banking services. Thus, financial institutions that want to ensure good user experience should consider what their customers expect from them: 

• Mobile access to banking services. PwC’s 2018 Digital Banking Consumer Survey found out that 15% of banking customers were mobile-dominant, while Statista reports about 64.85 million smartphone users in the UK by 2025. Considering this rapid growth, mobile users will expect to be able to access their digital account online. 

• 24/7 assistance. While some people would prefer to help themselves through self-service resources, others want to get instant assistance from professionals. According to Accenture’s survey, 49% of customers say instant support is key in building loyalty. 

• Personalized approach to online service delivery. COVID-19 has accelerated the adoption of digital banking, and banks risk losing the level of personalization provided by banking staff. Personalized approach still matters to customers. 
• Strong data privacy and security. COVID-19 has accelerated digital migration, which diminished consumer trust in terms of data privacy. 2020’s Global Banking Consumer Study shows that although most consumers believe that their banks, to date, have responded adequately to COVID-19, only 29% trust them to look after their long-term financial wellbeing, compared with 43% two years ago.

• Assistance through video conferencing. The pandemic also contributed to online video conferencing adoption in digital banking. As Accenture’s study shows, only 11% of consumers had spoken to a bank advisor via video call before COVID-19, but 44% they would be ready to do this when branches reopen.

Considering the expectations of their customers, banks that manage to improve customer experience will be able to increase profits, retain more customers, and reduce costs.

How to Improve Customer Experience in Banking?

Gain Feedback from Clients

Before developing any strategies to improve customer experience, banks need to figure out what their clients want and need. Customer experience differs depending on the communication channel, so banks should collect data across all touchpoints to figure out customer behavior patterns. By tracking these data, banks will get insights into the weak sides of their services.

Offer Multiple Communication Channels

If a bank or financial institution offers only one communication channel through calls, it’s time to reconsider their strategy. Chatbots are quickly becoming a new norm for banks striving to digitize their services. With thousands of people online at the same time, an AI-based chatbot can take over simple but time-consuming queries. The client gets help in a simple and timely manner without having to consider business hours, and the customer service personnel can dedicate more time to challenging requests that require emotional intelligence.

Increase Security to Protect Your Customers’ Data

Digital banking has transformed the banking and finance sector by making transactions faster and more convenient. Still, many users believe that digital banking is not secure enough. With increased volumes of cashless transactions, the financial sector has become the target for cyber criminals and can be exposed to the threat of data breaches. In particular, the British financial sector has been experiencing cyber attacks, while 32% of 1600 fintech companies say they want to develop a proper cybersecurity system to eliminate threats. When it comes to user experience in digital banking, it would mean the loss of trust. Therefore, banks need to take strong security measures to ensure protection of their customers’ sensitive data. 

Personalize Digital Services

Hyper-personalization in digital banking is an approach that ensures unique user experience every time a client interacts with a banking app or website. Clients that get used to visiting physical bank branches often complain about the lack of personalization when going online. That happens when banks try to promote their services to as many people as possible. Still, if banks dig deeper into the needs of each customer group, they will be able to provide better user experience. 

Provide Custom Solutions

Custom banking solutions are software apps that are tailored to the needs of a specific business. Most off-the-shelf software lacks custom functionality that allows a company to function more efficiently and better serve its clients. Custom software is tailored to the company's own workflows or customer needs and provides features that will increase the efficiency of its business processes. In simple terms, it will adapt to fit the way the company does things rather than the other way around. A software development company can help bridge the gap between the experience a bank offers, and what it can offer through digital technologies.

While custom software development might be costly, it can be offset by increased efficiency and revenue from new and returning clients, and what is more there's no need to upgrade the software every few years.

The Time to Act Is Now

The customers of digital banking services will constantly change their expectations influenced by global events and tendencies. Those banks that will start the adoption of the current trends will succeed in 2022. It’s vital not to delay this initiative if they want to increase customer loyalty to their services. By listening to their customers, banks will be able to deliver high-quality services their customers want.