JOHANNESBURG - According to the recent Customer Experience in Banking
Survey, getting the customer experience right is vital to South African banks
as 67% of respondents would lodge a formal complaint with their bank about bad
customer service.
By the same token, only 28 percent of South Africans would change
banks because of bad service, the lowest out of all countries polled. 68 percent of
South African customers cited getting the same level of experience and service
across all channels as a priority.
Following that, customers want their problem to be resolved
on the first point of contact, with speaking directly with a customer service
agent seen as least important. The challenge to financial institutions is
getting it right, because if you do, your customers will stick around – better
yet, they’ll tell their friends about great customer experience.
Getting customer
experience right
Your customers don’t want to be kept waiting, nor do they
want their calls transferred to different agents without problems being
resolved – worse, still, they don’t want to have to go into the branch to
resolve an issue if they’ve queried something via phone or online. Channel
integration can enhance processes leading to improved customer experience.
Financial institutions, like any other businesses, have
customers whose preferences have shifted to digital channels. While voice is
still the default option for contacts, customers also want to be able to use
email, chat or even social media. The challenge is bringing all of those
channels into a place where information is accessible to all who need to use it.
Omni-channel is the goal of a seamless approach to
communication that seeks to provide the customer with an ordered, consistent
experience whether the customer is communicating online from a desktop or
mobile device, by telephone or in a bricks and mortar branch.
One of the benefits include bringing touchpoints into one
environment, the contact centre, so that agents can deal with information being
updated in as close to real time as possible.
This translates to agents being able to accurately access
information, work off that information when it comes to outbound or inbound
calls and it also means that customers, whether liaising via voice, email or
any other channel integrated into that environment are more likely to
experience improved levels of service.
Omni-channel helps to move the customer journey along across
touchpoints, while calls may need to be transferred between agents, the agent
taking over will have details about what’s already happened, so the customer
won’t be repeating entire conversations.
Agents will also have
access to all profile data, leading to an improved view of the customer and
their preferences. In the financial environment, it’s often necessary to have
multi-layered interactions, in the case of a customer having to do identity
verification checks or go through a contract; these may involve agents with
varying responsibilities – the trick is to ensure that the customer gets
optimal service at all points.
You can avoid the need for long hold times or repeated calls
by having a call-back option in your contact centre introduced, meeting your
customers’ needs according to their preferences, too.
While efficiency is ideal, it must always be optimised with
customer experience in mind; in the financial sector, seamless communication is
a must.
Wynand Smit is the CEO of INOVO, a contact centre and business services provider.