Banking customers want more, and the standard services banks have traditionally provided are no longer meeting these expectations. Customers seek personalized and seamless experiences across every interaction with a bank — whether that’s online or offline.

On top of that, they demand transparency, sustainability and ethical practices. They now know more and so expect more.

Banks must anticipate, meet and exceed these expectations — and the future belongs to those who understand and adapt to the changes with intelligent automation.

What Is Banking Customer Experience?

Banking customer experience (CX) involves the impressions and interactions customers have with a bank across various touchpoints and stages of the customer journey — this includes their experiences when visiting a branch, using an ATM, engaging with customer support, using mobile banking tools and more.

The goal of CX, especially in banking, is to ensure that customers have a seamless, easy, convenient and positive experience when interacting with a bank or financial institution. This is because every exchange or experience where a customer deals with your bank cements their perception and opinion of it. It becomes a key decider on whether or not customers will come back to your bank to do business or go to your competition.

Why is customer experience important in banking?

In recent years, banking CX grew in importance as the market became more competitive with new, tech-savvy banks entering the scene. These newer banks were able to differentiate themselves with their use of digital channels and, in doing so, altered the behaviors and expectations of customers about what banks can provide. When one company improves customer experience, others are expected to keep up or follow.

Now, all banks offer digital banking, so they needed to find a way to differentiate themselves from the competition and the frontrunner is customer experience.

At the same time, as we mentioned in the introduction, customers have started to demand more personalized, efficient and secure banking services. Meeting these expectations influences whether or not you can retain customers and build customer loyalty.

Common customer expectations

Generally, customers now and in the future expect:

• Immediate service and availability: Access banking services and support almost instantaneously.
• Fast and efficient transactions: Quick processing times for transactions, loan approvals, account updates, etc.

• Personalization: Customized recommendations, solutions and services based on their individual needs and requirements.

• Personal interaction: Availability of customer support, and for that support to have the full context of their needs.

• Seamless offline to online banking experiences: Consistent services across mobile, online, phone and in-person interactions.

• Transparency: Clear and upfront information, instantly, about fees, rates, policies, environmental, social and governance info, etc.

• Continuous innovation: Regular and useful introduction of new features, tech and services to improve their customer experience.

Banking Customer Experience Trends

These expectations have led to the following trends we’re seeing in customer experience strategies in banking:

1. Prioritizing conversational experiences

Customers no longer see banking online versus offline as distinct experiences; they expect everything to be connected. That also means that banks must be able to effortlessly shift between different platforms, conversing with customers without losing any context of the interactions they’ve had previously or interrupting how far they got.

2. Improving personalization efficiently

Before, personalization required significant resources, time and effort to achieve for each customer. Now, automation and artificial intelligence (AI) allow institutions to scale this effectively and efficiently without straining existing resources. It also does it flexibly, so banks only need to automate what they can while keeping an element of human touch.

3. Streamlining the delivery of products and services

Simply put, when processes are smoother and quicker, customers are happier. For example, streamlining the mortgage application process can significantly enhance customer satisfaction with your service. By using technology to speed things up, businesses can meet what customers expect: A stress-free experience. This not only keeps customers happy but also helps businesses grow as customers keep coming back.

Get detailed banking technology automation trends.

Common challenges for banks

However, there are still some challenges that prevent banks from meeting customer expectations that require addressing:

• Limited integration between digital and physical channels.
• Complex and outdated IT systems.
• Slow response times to customer inquiries.
• Insufficient personalization of services.
• Inadequate security measures against cyber threats.
• Regulatory compliance burdens.
• Difficulty in adapting to rapidly changing technology.

A proven way to improve customer-centric banking, overcome these common challenges and stay ahead of trends is through digital transformation, and this includes customer experience automation as part of that strategy.

How can I improve my customer experience in banking?

Customer experience automation is the automation of routine customer experience-related tasks. It uses technology from intelligent automation (IA) to improve the interactions between a business and its customers. This can include responding to customers, updating customer information, feedback collections, etc.

With customer experience automation, banks can:

• Remove mundane work — Automating routine tasks such as account inquiries, transaction processes and onboarding can free up resources so that employees can focus on addressing more complex customer needs and personal interactions.

• Protect customers — Automation can automatically monitor systems for suspicious or strange activity and digital workers can flag any potential threats to a human employee to review further.

• Round-the-clock support — Digital workers work 24/7 with no breaks and no holidays. Customers can carry out simple banking services at their own convenience.

• Ensure compliance — Banks can set their IA solutions to have access management features, detection and response workflows and regular reporting to ensure they keep on top of compliance. Digital workers also maintain detailed audit logs and records for an easy trail to follow. Customers can rest assured their data is secure, meets regulatory requirements and is handled appropriately.

• Improve insights — Digital workers, AI and machine learning (ML) can analyze data in real time for banks to extrapolate accurate data on their customers. They can then use this data to better serve their customer base.

• Connect ecosystems — IA and process orchestration connect disparate systems and applications together into one unified view and control center. Banks can then manage and optimize customer experiences, ensuring that every interaction is seamless.

• Enhance efficiency — By using automation to streamline routine tasks and processes, customer requests can be handled more quickly and efficiently. Digital workers also provide accurate and consistent service delivery, reducing the need for rework and minimizing errors that may occur with human workers.

Examples of improved customer experience in banking

Simplifying card requests with a chatbot

Nordea successfully implemented a chatbot powered by intelligent automation for banking that helped customers’ requests cards. Instead of sending people to the customer center, customers could use a mobile application with a built-in chatbot to register their requests. This relieved resource pressure on their customer center and turned their mobile banking app and chatbot into an entirely new communication channel.

Faster response to customers

ABANCA, a Spanish retail bank, aims to redefine operational efficiency and customer experience in the banking sector through their digital transformation initiative. To do this, they’ve utilized technologies like intelligent automation from SS&C Blue Prism, generative AI and natural language processing (NLP) — they can now respond to customer inquiries 60% faster.

Speeding up loan requests

Banque Internationale à Luxembourg (BIL) used intelligent automation and an SS&C Blue Prism digital workforce to address key strategic objectives to improve customer experience. They put this technology to work by automating their mortgage loans workflow — which has resulted in customers receiving their mortgage loan offers much faster.

Explore more RPA & IA banking automation use cases.

Outlook in Banking Customer Experience

Customer expectations and behaviors will always be changing as new technologies, innovations and standards emerge. While it’s difficult to predict exactly what the future holds, one thing is certain: the financial services industry needs flexibility and comprehensive insight into how customers experience their interactions with them. This requires them to digitally transform with a solution that combines both automation and orchestration.

Automation provides the flexibility and adaptability needed to meet future expectations by enabling quick pivots in processes. Digital workers also free up human employees from mundane, repetitive tasks, allowing them more time to focus on delivering exceptional customer service.

Orchestration ensures continuous monitoring and optimization of workflows across the entire enterprise. This comprehensive oversight of both technology and personnel ensures seamless collaboration and efficiency.

Differentiate By Experience

By embracing one comprehensive solution, banks can stay ahead of changing customer demands and successfully win customers based on their customer experience.

Learn more about an intelligent automation solution for banking.