How Financial Services Can Improve Customer Experience With a Data⁠-⁠Driven ⁠Approach

The pandemic has significantly changed customer behaviour across industries. To meet the evolving needs of customers, many businesses are accelerating the digitalisation of their services. Financial services institutions, in particular, are witnessing a rapid shift to the digital-first customer experience — where customers prefer to access a service virtually while expecting a seamless experience across channels. From opening a bank account online, to making investments or an insurance claim digitally in minutes, today’s customers expect quick, convenient service with minimal in-person interaction. 

To meet these growing expectations of customers, many banks are transitioning from traditional banking to ‘open finance’. This new model allows customers to access an online marketplace and choose from a range of financial services, including banking, insurance, and wealth management, tailored to their specific needs. It gives customers better control of their finances and increases access to fairer and more equal financial services. This shift to digital-first customer experience is here to stay and will continue to evolve.

According to McKinsey, 75% of first time digital channel users will keep using these channels, even as lockdowns and social restrictions continue to ease. This has also significantly shifted the service standards expected by customers. 76% of customers expect consistent interactions across marketing channels and departments. And if the customer service offered by a business is good, 91% of customers want to maintain that relationship.

To deliver these hyper-personalised experiences, financial services institutions need to have a comprehensive view of the customer journey. So how are they developing their digital capabilities to meet the service standards expected today?

Turning challenges into opportunities

Gaining insights into customer needs is critical in delivering fast and seamless service. While financial services institutions have digitally transformed their systems, many have been slow to embrace service transformation. Siloed customer data on legacy systems makes it a challenge for service agents to seamlessly engage customers.  

63% of customer service agents say they struggle to balance speed and quality of service. And 79% of service professionals say it is impossible to provide great service without a complete view of customer interactions. These challenges faced by service agents are impacting customer experience. Only 27% of banking customers say they received great customer service and support. And 80% of customers will switch to another company after just one poor experience. 

To meet the high expectations of today’s customers, financial service institutions are investing in improving quality of service. C-suite executives are increasingly making customer experience and engagement a top business priority. One of their key focus areas is the transformation of the contact centre — an important customer experience touchpoint. 

Critical to the contact centre’s quality of service is the ability to understand changing customer needs. Service agents need to have a single view of customer data across channels and departments. They also need to access financial transaction data (e.g. credit card, investments, loans etc.) from systems outside the organisation. Being able to bring all this data together to gain customer insights provides an important opportunity to improve customer service. This allows service agents to stay informed of customer behaviour and provide them the best experience.

Good data culture delivers a great customer experience

A cloud-based CRM is a powerful tool that can help your customer service teams stay connected to customers. It enables service agents to access customer data and interactions from anywhere in a secured online environment. When combined with a visual analytics platform like Tableau and CRM Analytics, your CRM can unlock the power of data and gain actionable insights to deliver faster, more efficient service. 

Tableau empowers service agents with these data-driven insights to accelerate their decision-making. By prioritising data-driven decision making, you can build a good data culture in your teams. And by giving each team member insight into exactly what they need to make excellent decisions, you can help them consistently meet their customer service KPIs. 

When a leading insurance provider in the Asia-Pacific region used Salesforce with Tableau, they were able to better understand the customer journey. This empowered their contact centre with insights to provide faster, more impactful service. Tableau analytics dashboards helped their teams track application status and issue policies in a timely manner. By combining data from across teams, Tableau helped their teams gain visibility into customer engagements and the end-to-end insurance journey. This significantly improved their speed and quality of service. Their senior executives were also able to continuously monitor business performance on dashboards and quickly respond to market changes. A data-driven approach helped both their C-suite and contact centre achieve operational excellence.

Adopt a winning approach, driven by data

Together, Tableau and Salesforce Customer 360 can empower your financial services institution to meet the expectations of today’s digital-first customers. Your service agents have access to unified customer data in a “single pane of glass” with key insights across the customer journey. Your business can see the world through your customers’ eyes.  

With a comprehensive overview of the connected customer journey, financial services providers have all the information they need to elevate customer experience, improve operational efficiency, and drive loyalty. By adopting a data-driven approach, you can develop a distinct competitive advantage and transform your business from a cost centre into a revenue driver.

Learn how to delight your customers by crafting an unrivalled and personalised customer experience through connected data, digital intelligence, and automation.