Banking and insurance industries are among the most complex and sensitive in terms of managing communications with their customers.
The type of requests, cumbersome processes and technical difficulties, as well as the handling of sensitive personal data, are aspects that make interactions with customers quite complex, but at the same time essential.
Is it possible to talk about customer engagement within industries such as these?
The answer is yes. And this is increasingly seen by customers as a differential value when choosing a bank or insurance company.
It is necessary for a bank to value engagement with its customers in order to establish a lasting relationship with them and have the opportunity to increase customer loyalty while simultaneously improving brand consideration.
Customer engagement becomes the needle in the balance toward the success or failure of those in the banking and insurance industry, who are anything but unaffected by the disruptive action of the digital revolution.
Creating a valuable relationship with one’s customers is not easy. Digital solutions are a valuable resource to be leveraged to achieve this goal.
Customer engagement trends
The Financial Brand’s annual report on trends related to customer engagement highlights that the key success factors for the banking industry in 2023 will be: optimizing human resources, an omni-channel approach, and enhancing digital solutions.
The right balance between digital and human
It is little wonder how in times of economic recession consumer behavior tends to change.
As a result, the so-called “relationship banking” becomes more vital today than ever before. To keep up, banking institutions must be able to prioritize the level of human assistance provided by making the most of their digital channels.
According to J.D. Power’s Retail Banking Study (2022), 78 percent of customers say they value banks that offer a meaningful customer care experience.
When asked how they expect their main banking institution to support them, customers’ responses indicate that they would be interested in greater responsiveness and timeliness with respect to their service requests.
Interaction as a differential factor
The vast majority of respondents (94%), said they expect a response to a question or request made to a company via email within 24 hours. Among them, nearly half (48%) expect an interaction during the next 6 hours, while 15% would like it within 60 minutes. This is according to a report by Aircall, which highlights how critical it is for customers to know that their contact person is working to offer them a quick and proactive solution.
Today people expect greater promptness from customer care services, especially when it comes to financial matters.
Digital assistants, chatbots and self-customer service tools often cannot handle complex requests. In some cases, operator intervention and one-on-one human interaction is needed and required.
If this option is not offered to the customer, the result will be a great frustration, which will inevitably challenge the customer’s relationship with the bank or insurance company in the short and long term.
To care about customers’ needs, at all times
The key element in creating effective customer engagement is customization.
Companies need to be able to offer their customers an omni-channel approach that allows them to choose which channel to use for their specific needs and to receive assistance regardless of the point of contact.
This leads to the user having an experience tailored to their needs. The main challenge is to ensure consistent and positive experiences across all channels. This will be the key to ensuring the relationship banking the customer expects in 2023.
How can Stip help banks and insurance companies
Here are some of the solutions Stip offers to FCA Bank and more companies in the sector:
- Thanks to its Artificial Intelligence (AI), Stip boosts the performance of internal or external customer service operators by 300%. By integrating Stip’s AI into its customer service processes and within the company’s CRM, its clients are able to automatically handle all requests for simple assistance or information. This reduces the volume of requests at the operator’s end, allowing agents to handle more complex interactions with greater customer focus. In the case of more complex requests, Stip automatically collects the data useful for the operator to manage the request, enabling him/her to solve 95% of complex cases in a single interaction with the customer, reducing all customer support related costs by 70%.
- Stip makes it possible to quickly connect customers who need support to the right operator, at the right time, through the digital channel they prefer. With an omnichannel approach, Stip’s plug-ins monitor all company’s digital channels. No matter which channel customers choose, with Stip they will not be forced to switch platforms or repeat the same information to different operators. For their part, operators will be able to use a single platform to respond to the customer on their chosen channel. Enabling customers to access support and information on their own terms and helping them easily switch from digital support to an operator is key to building good customer engagement.
- With the omnichannel management platform that Stip provides, operators have easy access to customer information. One of the main difficulties for operators is precisely identifying and using the information they need to do their jobs better. With Stip, operators will be able to offer highly personalized customer care by knowing their history and taking advantage of Stip’s AI-based response suggestions. In addition, the operator can design any workflow for handling requests and talking to the customer, changing contact channels in one click.
