We are in a fast tech-transforming world, where customer needs are changing rapidly. To meet those needs, our banks and finance companies need to make the customer experiences better each day and fulfill their expectations. The only way we can address those needs is by implementing better technology.
Today, technology supports preparing strategies for sales, distribution, risk management and operations’ effectiveness which largely focus on bringing in customer-centric objectives as one common goal. With technology today, we provide quick and instant service. Today’s technology landscape provides better options to improve the efficiency in our business and gain competitive advantage in a market place.
Technology-Backed Customer Service
With right technology, providing customers with accurate and quick service won’t cost more. Unlike in earlier days, customer service centres give you the means to contact customers using your preferred methods such as phone, email, or chat. These centres can be run independently as a unified communication system. Integrating your phone and records management systems into your CRM provides your staff access to the most current customer data anywhere and as quickly as possible. This clearly signifies the way forward for using technology.
Lowering the Cost of Operation
Investing in software and service-based technologies is one of the best ways to reduce bloated spending. For example, print management software sets control and offers recommendations to help reduce expenses that can eat up one to three per cent of your income. Moreover, cloud computing technology leverages virtual and off-site technologies for storing apps and data and making it accessible from anywhere. That way, you can minimise the costs of hardware maintenance during times of expansion or contraction and improve the security of your system.
Operations Efficiency
It is necessary to streamline processes as your business continues to grow. Today’s technology such as BPM software and content management solutions allows you to optimise your business processes. As such, it becomes easier to restructure repetitive paper-based processes such as account payable procedures and work order processing. Additionally, modern communication systems improve operations through instant messaging, emails and video conferencing. That way, critical information can be relayed as quickly as possible.
Extensive Use of New Technologies and Automation Empowering Customers
Automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI), already an important part of consumer banking, will penetrate operations far more deeply in the coming years, delivering benefits not only for a bank’s cost structure, but also for its customers. Digitising a new loan process to the closure of the loan fulfilment experience, for instance, will speed up the process and give customers the flexibility and freedom to view and sign documents online or with their mobile app. Typically, consumers have to wait at least a few weeks to get approval for a mortgage loan, digitising this process and automating approvals and processing would shrink wait time from days to minutes.
The same goes for call centres. Instead of waiting on hold or being pinballed between different representatives, customers could get instant and efficient automated customer service powered by advanced AI.
AI and advanced analytics could also improve dispute resolution. Customers can contact their bank any time through the Internet, mobile, or email channels and receive quick and real-time decisions. On the back end, systems would perform almost instant data evaluation about the dispute, surveying the customer’s history with the bank and leveraging historical dispute patterns to resolve the issue.
Simpler Organisation – Eliminating Silos
Banks and NBFCs have always functioned with an organisational trinity, front offices (branches), middle offices (call centres) and back offices (operations). In the next few years, this trinity will evolve dramatically. As we’ve already noted, back offices will slim down. Call centres will all but disappear due to AI bots and automation, and branches will be scaled down in number and transformed in function. As more customer transactions move to digital channels, front-line branch employees will operate as skilled personal advissrs, helping customers get answers to complex questions that can’t be addressed digitally, giving advice about bank products and features, and generally serving as a one-stop-shop for customers in need across journeys. This is a new paradigm in which customers will receive personalized advice, relying on a simpler organisation.
Build a Roadmap to Accelerate Digitisation
Banks need to act now to develop an aggressive tactical roadmap that outlines the plan for digitisation and automation. Banks that lack a clear long-term automation plan, one that will result in a fully digital operation a decade from now, will struggle to meet customer expectations.
The future will look very different for banks and their customers in 2030. Banks have a unique opportunity to lay the groundwork now to provide personalised, distinctive and advice-focussed value to customers. It helps financial services companies and other organisations harness digital technology and stay ahead of emerging trends.
Two-thirds of businesses say that an organisation’s ability to transform itself is extremely important to its future existence. Therefore, it is vital to reduce the probability of failure. Putting the customer at the heart of transformation will be the key to success. This requires a large investment in people, data and research, and, above all, a change in mindset. Banks should consider these key questions as they begin to embrace customer-centricity.
