Despite customer experience becoming an increasing priority for many enterprises, recent findings from the UK Customer Satisfaction Index show that customer satisfaction rates are actually going down.
In our last post, we looked at why this might be the case; here we look at how enterprises can prevent it from happening.
According to the latest edition of the UK Customer Satisfaction Index, there is a clear link between high customer satisfaction and high levels of trust, recommendation, loyalty and reputation, especially in the Banks and Building Societies sectors (see below).
Financial services, therefore, need to ensure they are trustworthy and reputable enough that their customers remain loyal and ultimately recommend them to someone else. Simple, right? Well, in principle yes, but in practice, keeping your customers satisfied is a lot more difficult. Not only is every customer different, with varying expectations and preferred channels of interaction, but the purpose of each interaction is also likely to be different, depending on the complexity of the request.
Get to know your customer, personally
Banks should therefore take steps to understand the personal context of a potential customer journey. In its research, the UKCSI found customer experiences that are either “personally very important or happen at a difficult time can generate powerful emotions when handled well or badly, with significant impact on levels of trust and recommendations.”
For example, a negative customer experience for a simple transaction, like a bank transfer, is unlikely to be as frustrating and stressful as a negative customer experience for either a complicated process, like applying for a mortgage, or for an emotional customer journey, like notifying a bank of a loved one’s passing.
Knowing how your customers are likely to feel during different interactions and whether they will require any assistance shows that, as a company, you not only know your customer, but you understand the most optimal way they would like to communicate.
High tech vs high touch
Banks have invested huge amounts in digitising their processes as part of larger digital transformation strategies, all in pursuit of creating better and more convenient customer experiences that are also more cost-effective for the bank. Many, however, are struggling to offer either satisfying and sustainable self-service customer journeys or convenient and cost-effective high touch (such as in branch) experiences.
This is because while high tech digital solutions may be the optimal way of completing simple processes, like checking bank balances, they often fail when customers attempt to complete more complicated, high-stake transactions, such as a mortgage application. Digital interactions may be more convenient for the customer and a lower cost for the bank, but they lack the human touch and do not provide the customer with the sense of trust and reassurance, as an in-person interaction does.
Customers, therefore, often end up going offline and revert to ‘high touch’ for sending, and waiting for, documents, and taking time out to visit branches. These high touch experiences, however, can be inconvenient for the customer and costly for the bank.
Personal approaches for every person’s purchase
By recognising the myriad of personal contexts of different customer journeys, companies will have a better idea of when customers want digitised self-service channels and when the customer may prefer a more personalised assistance.
At Vizolution, we offer customer-centric solutions that enable customers and agents to interact remotely, over the phone or online, to share, display, exchange, complete, verify and sign documents as if they were face-to-face. This unique high tech meets high touch CX solution allows the customer to not only complete a transaction in their preferred channel, but also ask for assistance, seek reassurance and do and feel everything they could in a face-to-face interaction but in the comfort of their home. This is important in every interaction, but especially in complicated or emotionally-charged situations.
