Today, customer experience (CX) has become a crucial differentiator for businesses across industries. As consumer expectations continue to rise, organizations are under immense pressure to deliver seamless, personalized, and delightful experiences at every touchpoint. The BFSI sector is no exception, with customers demanding exceptional digital experiences that cater to their evolving needs. Embracing innovative technologies and adopting agile approaches have become imperative for companies to stay ahead in this highly competitive landscape. This blog discusses how OutSystems, a leading low-code platform, can help organizations in the BFSI industry craft omnichannel experiences that exceed customer expectations.
Breaking down customer experiences for SMBs and enterprises
Customer experience or CX is a significant interaction between a consumer and a brand across multiple touchpoints, as a user builds their perceptions and behavior around that experience. CX is built over a long period of time through a series of interactions, from introduction till the whole process of the sales cycle. CX amplifies all the departments sales, marketing, customer service encouraging new sale, referral and customer retention. Customer experience is vital for every business operation as it impacts the key metrics and creates impressions of the brand. In fact, 64% of consumers are more likely to recommend a brand if they have a great experience hence according to a survey, 25% of organizations will unify marketing, sales and CX by 2023. A good customer experience has a lot of importance such as:
- Improves customer retention
- Decrease customer acquisition cost
- Increases brand loyalty, awareness and builds reputability
- Gives businesses a competitive advantage by connecting with customers in more dynamic ways
- Increases accessibility and provides personalized CX everywhere.
Often customers go out of their way to buy from brands they are loyal to hence attracting and retaining customers in a competitive business environment is no easy feat and brands that provide seamless, effective customer exp leads to better profits and achieve customer satisfaction. This means if the customer experience that does not align with customers expectations could impact brands reputation and customers can switch to competitors. A great CX has an impact on how effectively a company is acquiring customers. Furthermore, now businesses are approaching delivering exceptional CX and connecting with customers in a more dynamic way by leveraging technology. Earlier a great CX was a straightforward approach about optimizing touchpoints, mapping out customer journeys and user experience that customers want. But today how we interact with brands and what we need has transformed exponentially and requires constant change. To adapt with these changes rapidly often legacy systems are incapable and hence a low-code platform like OutSystems.
The current state & trends of CX in BFSI industry
Customer experience stands as a significant competitive advantage in the banking and financial industry. Whether it is to call customer service, transferring money in your mobile app, or paying bills, with every transaction customer is expecting a seamless digital experience across all the channels. Banking and financial industries are constantly looking to wow and retain customers. The current state customer experience in BFSI has heavily influenced the industry. Banks and other financial institutes were struggling to meet customer expectations which now have changed overnight as it required digital transformation to handle a higher number of transactions, user inquiries and new financial products. Let’s take a look at the current state and how it has impacted BFSI:
- According to PwC’s survey for digital banking customers it is estimated that 61% of banking customers interact on a weekly basis with their institutions' digital channels. On the other hand 32% of customers actually prefer to avoid going to branches.
- Customers are seeking for a hybrid experience wherein they opt to go branch to resolve complex issues and this has made the relationship between banks and customers more vulnerable. Now banks pay close attention to customers' behavior patterns to provide seamless customer experience across demographics.
- Now banks are expected to provide immediate assistance through live chat support and also to adapt to real-time digital payment technologies.
- Customers are looking for personalized and self-service portals that are tailored to every unique customer expectations.
Now that we know the current state of CX in banking let’s talk about trends that are shaping BFSI industry and more in 2023:
- Prioritizing personalizing digital interactions in the form of alerts, notifications, chatbots for personal interactions.
- Building great customer experiences through artificial intelligence(AI), big data, machine learning allows us to detect customer behaviors and personalized services.
- Enabling access for people with disabilities for online banking, remote services and offline capabilities.
- Customer self-service portals and automated onboarding are two of the emerging trends that are shaping the BFSI industry.
The challenges while crafting CX
Focusing on CX is now more important than ever and creating customer experience can be a challenging and complex process. Dealing with high customer expectations, savvy fintech competitors, and cybercrime on the rise making businesses find themselves in a constant state of evolution. Here we will talk about some of the major challenges that impacts CX:
#1. Development takes too long
One of the significant challenges in crafting an effective CX is the time it takes to develop and implement new technologies and systems. Businesses are continuously looking to adapt and innovate to meet evolving customer expectations. However, lengthy software development cycles can hinder their ability to respond quickly to market demands.
#2. Difficult and expensive to hire talent
Building a team with the necessary skills to design and implement cutting-edge CX solutions can be challenging and expensive. Attracting and retaining top talent can strain businesses financially in this competitive economy.
#3. Integration with legacy systems
Some organizations still rely heavily on legacy systems that do not easily integrate with modern CX solutions. And, bridging the gap between traditional systems and legacy systems can be complex and costly, limiting the agility of businesses to deliver seamless customer experience across channels.
#4. Evolving customer expectations
Customer expectations are in a constant state of flux, influenced by market trends, technological advancements, and competitors' offerings. Adapting to these shifting requirements while maintaining a consistent and exceptional digital CX can be challenging. Companies must be agile and willing to adjust their strategies to stay relevant.
#5. High quality UI/UX is very hard to achieve
Creating a high-quality UI/UX is essential for a positive CX. However, achieving this level of excellence can be challenging. It involves in-depth research, design, and continuous improvement. Meeting user expectations for intuitive and visually appealing interfaces demands a dedicated effort.
To overcome these challenges and ensure a superior CX, businesses need to adopt strategies that prioritize agility, innovation, and customer-centric thinking. For thriving in this ever changing landscape a great customer experience is not just a priority it's a necessity and effortless, consistent and self-service CX will delight customers.
- Nowadays customers are impatient and want everything to be fast and easy. So a great CX is when you make everything effortless for the customer. A business can do so by reducing friction in customer journeys and improving CX.
- Customers look for consistent omnichannel experience across all the devices hence consistency is essential be it in customer journey, communication or the brand messages that you are providing.
- Sometimes customers expect to solve their issues themselves hence self-service portals help users to do it instantly and in their own way. Self-service helps customers and leaves a good impact showing a positive ROI.
How OutSystems help crafting omnichannel experiences for BFSI?
Delivering a great customer experience is hard and it demands significant changes, budget, technology, people and processes altogether. OutSystems, a leading high-performance low-code platform, has always been a top priority when thinking about delivering customer experiences. OutSystems provides you with tools, features, and pre-built integrations which is fast, cost-effective and non-disruptive to deliver innovative banking applications. Here are some of the use cases that can be developed through OutSystems ensuring superior CX in banking like simplifying onboarding process, self-service portals, token generation portals etc.
#1. Onboarding in banking:
Currently BFSIs are still following traditional customer onboarding processes i.e. manual and inefficient. A bank needs to capture data from customers, process it, check with third parties and file it. All this is a manual and time consuming process happening on Excel docs, CRMs and external databases leaving customers frustrated, with no idea where they are in the process.
How does OutSystems help in the onboarding process for banks?
- OutSystems allows you to build an application layer that sits on the top of your existing systems binding them together to make the information flow seamlessly and securely between departments.
- OutSystems enables you to plan workflow efficiently using an intuitive drag and drop interface.
- SMS or email based alerts are automatically updated which reduces churn and accelerating onboarding while keeping customers in loop.
#2. Token generation portals
Token generation in banks provides a great customer experience with ease of managing your passwords, reducing unnecessary frictions. Customers who are tech savvy generally look for easier banking processes using their mobile devices, and prefer contactless services. Banks generate two kinds of tokens i.e. hard token like smart cards, and soft token such as standalone authentication application from an app store or integrated with a mobile banking application. The tokens can be used for two-factor authentication like OTP(One time password). Traditionally banks were having tabs or systems for customers in the branch itself which was hard to maintain due to heavy costs, wear and tear. Hence banks switched to mobile apps, and self-service portals which made banking procedures easier, contactless and with the convenience of transacting from anywhere. In the present day banks are now replacing these systems with websites or apps and then generate a token to guide the customers for specific requests.
How does OutSystems help in token generation portals?
- OutSystems provides you with CI/CD approach to modernize legacy systems and keep your existing systems updated through integration of new functionalities.
- OutSystems modernizes your legacy systems and helps BFSIs to move from monolithic systems to modernize systems in just a few weeks.
- OutSystems also reuse pre-built components, and virtual development assets such as data models, business processes, logic, APIs and UI components.
Why Ranosys for customer experience transformation?
Delivering exceptional customer experiences is no longer an option but a necessity for survival and growth. By leveraging OutSystems' low-code platform and partnering with Ranosys, organizations can accelerate their CX transformation journey, streamline processes, and create seamless, personalized experiences that resonate with modern customers. As a trusted OutSystems partner, Ranosys' industry expertise, combined with OutSystems' powerful capabilities, empowers BFSI businesses to stay ahead of the curve, adapt to changing customer demands, and drive long-term success through continuous innovation and exceptional customer experiences.