CX is vital for any company that is looking to both grow and remain on top. If we look at financial institutions in detail, there is a real need to build a strong CX strategy, now more than ever when a new shift has moved most operations online. Not only are customers doing their operations online, but many employees also had to start working from home, and many wish to keep working from home. This brings new challenges in terms of training, monitoring, security of data… something that many companies have to learn to deal with in this new reality - and we can help them learn how to overcome these challenges.
Trading Places
Covid-19 had a drastic effect on how industries have changed their way of operating, bringing digitalization to the front of all priorities. Looking at banks, customers unaccustomed to digital devices found themselves facing big changes, suddenly having to go online or use phone services to deal with their financial needs. Restrictions probably didn’t bother those who had already adapted to this way of using banking services, but some generations found themselves facing something new, and somehow frightening. If you read the news around mid-2020 you probably know it was quite daunting, not only the prospect of losing access to local branches, but the fact that it all happened in such a rush, resulting in customers reaching out to their banks by phone. Banks had to cope with both an influx in call volumes and a reduction in staffing levels due to work from home. Increases in waiting times led to poor customer experiences. The real issue here, was that this situation was amplified by poor processes as they were suddenly scaled up to a very visible level.
Let’s step in the shoes of a customer and imagine what it would feel like were we the customer having to wait or having to suddenly use online services... Generations that have grown up using technology will probably not struggle with such a scenario. But imagine back in 2020 when 65-year-old and older customers had to turn to smartphones or the internet, when many are not really used to them. We hope most to have found appropriate solutions. However, there are many reasons why some may still be afraid of online banking. Instead, they choose to call what they considered their trusted supplier of banking services, to realize the customer experience is not on par. Several banking companies clearly had to add call centers back to their list of priorities to enhance the customer experience through this channel – all you need to do is look at a couple of commercials to understand that trust is at stake when banks cannot deliver a good customer experience or competitive products.
Similarly, the insurance industry has been impacted, and online presence had to become stronger, essential to the customer experience. We all know how much attention it requires to pick the right insurance as it is a very individual need to cover. Now we are facing the prospect of having to go over that online, without a human contact in front of us to discuss the limits of such or such clause, what happens if… Finding the right insurance can be difficult to deal with already, and somehow time consuming, so it is vital that the online experience offered to customers is made easy. Trust is one of the most important values between insurances and customers. Thus, many customers have chosen human interaction through call centers to ensure they meet the level of trust they are after with their insurance company, driving insurance companies to reassess their digital strategies and turn their attention to contact centers.
If debt collection may not require as much online work, it’s all about how you as a company can connect with the customer. Customers don’t choose to go to debt collection; however, it is possible to make them feel like they are getting a good customer experience, and through the good customer experience make them a good and loyal customer yet again. We probably all agree that dealing with debt collection is the last thing we wish to do, so finding ways to make it easier for your staff would be a great help for a debt collector’s culture and employee work life, along with an easier task for customers.
Hence there are many aspects to re-consider when building a contact strategy for your customers and customer facing entities. Identifying the cross-channel issues that impact a smooth, convenient, customer experience has never been more important. On top of that training your agents to deal with remoteness becomes a skill companies need to address for the future, especially since they may have started to work from home rather than in a call center or other kind of office.
However, providing both service content, performance, ease of use, efficiency, safety, reliability, and aesthetics is all parts of providing good customer service. They all have to work together in balance – if not then the customer experience is impacted, to the cost of customers leaving you for a competitor. This is exactly where Nexcom and RevealCX can help you!
Between the lines ….
If the general digitalization strategies implemented over the past 20 years changed the world of finance, the pandemic showed just how important the human factor is when it comes to building trust.
Our tool, RevealCX, is not only built to check that processes are being followed but also to identify what gaps in processes result in customers not getting their inquiry or issue resolved. Good processes avoid unnecessary calls. Unnecessary calls drive costs as well as poor customer experience which doesn’t help when trying to sell more or retain a customer.
As an automated tool to collect data, identify defective customer journeys, automate reporting, and streamline internal quality processes, RevealCX generates cost reductions within your contact centers and provides your organization with the business intelligence it needs to pinpoint and address the reasons behind all unnecessary contacts that create dissatisfaction.
It’s all about how you can read your own data. Nexcom guides you through a method based on many years of best practices within process optimization of customer touchpoints. It’s your data, we simply write a different book with it than what you’re used to, telling you the true story of customer experience.
After more than 2 years of learning to overcome the new reality, we doubt a switch back to the old local office is likely for many companies. Now is the time to systematically meet customer expectations and design processes that are solid, reliable, and scalable. Making your customer comfortable, and building trust, enables you to be in a position of strength when they experience how convenient the comfort of dealing with financial institutions at home is so much easier than queuing to do something that may take only a couple of minutes at the local branch or office. We offer the solution for you to identify those exact processes that you can successfully move permanently into the digital space.
We’re not here to build your app or website, but our expertise can help you keep track of all interactions with customers, to facilitate the communication when staff will be communicating with customers resulting in that data being analyzed and identifying root causes or process evaluations. Our data, collected since 2021 shows that 75% of the contacts that are un-resolved in the first interaction are actually related to processes, system limitations etc... rather than a result of something your staff did. Just imagine what using your own data efficiently can generate with the right tool.
For more information about RevealCX, visit our website