CX Strategy and Workshops
Helping companies become more customer-centric.

The Consumer Banking Journey

To win customers and keep them, banks need to re-imagine BOTH EXISTING AND NEW customer relationshipS and find new ways to:

(A) Engage their customers - interact with customers at the right moment, in their preferred channels, with the product and service offerings they most desire.

(B) Really understand them - understand their financial goals, motivations, patterns and behaviors, to best tailor and personalize their experience.

(C) Make it easy for them - make it simple and easy to business with you, providing a customer experience that is as effortless as it can be.

(D) Earn their trust - pro-actively do the right thing to build strong digital and offline relationships.

CONTINUE READING TO LEARN MORE

LandingPageArrows-01.png
pexels-photo-950902.jpg
 

The Banking Customer Journey

Assessing the Customer Journey from the "outside-in"

Banking Customer Journey.png

WANT to learn more about Mapping the BANKING Customer journey and/or how to blueprint the IDEAL CUSTOMER experience.

 

Listening Strategies

Applying different listening strategies

To adequately assess the banking customer journey it is critical to capture the voice of the customer listening with intent to their motivations, expectations, want and needs as well as their assessment of the existing customer experience.

Depending upon the type of qualitative research you are conducting one or more different listening strategies (see below) can be utilized to capture the voice of the customer:

 

#1 Switching Behavior

Listening to build an understanding of why individuals "hire" your product or service to make progress in their lives.

+More

All customers are seeking to make progress in their lives. When someone "hires" your product or service they are typically "firing" someone elses product or service. They "hire" your product because it helps them make progress against a goal (or job-to-be-done) better than something else. This is referred to as 'switching behavior' during which several motivational forces at play: push, pull, allegiences, and anxieties. Understanding these forces an inform how you message and interact with prospective customers to drive growth for your brand.

#2 Path to Purchase

Listening to uncover the different steps in the process taken by customers before deciding on your product or service.

+More

The path to purchase typically varies by targeted customer segment. The challenge to understanding path to purchase is that organizations only have visibility to actions taken by consumers which involve their own channels: sales representatives, website, email, chat, outbound calls, inbound calls, etc.. These touchpoints however only account for a small fraction of how individuals actually discover and learn about your brand, product, or service. A dialogue with customers who have recently transacted business with you can help uncover their actual path to purchase.

 
 

#3 Customer Expectations

Listening for unmet customer expectations, wants, and needs (functional, emotional, or social) across the entire customer journey.

+More

Understanding customer expectations is critical to delivering a good customer experience. Customer expectations are the basis for how individuals assess whether each interaction with your brand is 'good' or 'bad'. The sum of these interactions, across multiple touchpoints, makes up their overall customer experience. Customer expectations can be analyzed hierarchally with aspirational and emotional needs often being of greater importance than functional ones in regards to their customer advocacy or loyalty.

#4 Customer Effort

Listening to identify undue customer effort by customers at different stages of the journey; identifying opportunities to make the journey simple and easy.

+More

Simplifying or reducing the effort expended by customers is an important aspect of deliverying a good customer experience. Customer effort when analyzed comes in many different forms: physical effort, cognitive effort, emotional effort, and/or time-based effort. All forms of undue effort impact the overall customer experience. Determining ways in which to reduce effort across the customer journey aids in improving the overall customer experience.

Applying different listening strategies helps you empathize with your customers to build a better understanding of them as individuals as well as identify opportunities across the entire customer journey to improve the overall customer experience.

Once you have identified opportunities to improve customer experience (e.g., address unmet customer expectations, want and needs, reduce customer effort, etc.), conducting an Ideal State Journey Mapping workshop, is a great way in which to envision what the ‘ideal’ customer experience might look like.

 

Listening Strategy One

Understanding Switching Behavior using the Four Forces Model


Building an understanding of what made them "switch" (change) financial institutions. Forces promoting a change in behavior (e.g., selecting a new bank) and forces potentially blocking a change (e.g., staying with existing bank). It is important to remember that every time someone "hires" your financial institution they are "firing" another one. Building an understanding of why they switched is critical to both attracting new customers and retaining existing customers.

 
The Four Forces Model.png
 
 

A Simple Banking Example

Banking Four Forces Model - Push and Pull.png
Banking Four Forces Model - Habits and Anxieties.png
 
 

We'd like to improve customer acquisition by building a better understanding of the four motivational forces at play during a customer's banking journey.

 
 

Listening Strategy Two

Understanding different Paths to Purchase


Building an understanding of path to purchase taken by different targeted customer segments. Determining when they started to consider a new or different financial institution, the number of banks they considered, the length of their search/evaluation, the critical factors behind their decision, and the physical and/or digital channels they used.
Bank Customer Path to Purchase.png
 
 
 

We need to improve our understanding of the customer's path to purchase.

 
 

Listening Strategy Three

Listening for unmet Customer Expectations, Wants, and Needs.


Delivering a good or better yet exceptional customer experience starts with understanding customer expectations. Every time someone interacts with your brand, website, bank personnel, ATM, branch signage, branch environment, call center, marketing communications, etc. an impression is informed. The sum of each of these interactions makes up the overall customer experience (with certain touchpoints mattering more than others).


TYPES OF CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS

 

FUNCTIONAL

The "utility" customers expect to receive from the product or service.

What they want to "receive" and/or "be able to do".

A Few Examples

Bank from where ever I am at the moment rather than have to visit a branch

Ask my personal banker questions without having to visit a branch

Transfer money to friends or colleaques from my phone

Easily review my available balance before I make a significant purchase

Set realistic savings goals based upon my cash flow

Emotional

The "positve feelings" customers expect to feel when they interact with us.

How they want "to feel".

A Few Examples

I am getting top-notch financial advice

My loyalty to your bank is appreciated

I don't have to shop elsewhere to get a good rate

I am not getting nickle and dimed with transactional fees

My personal banker has my best interests in mind

My personal and financial data is safe and secure

Social

The "manner" in which customers expect to socially interact with others.

How they desire to be "treated" or "perceived" by others.

A Few Examples

Everyone I interface with is both friendly and helpful

Any issues are resolved quickly and effectively

I am a valued customer regardless of the size of my assets

My time is important and therefore I am not kept waiting

I am perceived as being smart with my money

 
 

We need to improve our understanding of customer expectations, wants and needs in order to better serve our customers.

 
 

Listening Strategy Four

Listening for Unnecessary or High Customer Effort

When it comes to serving customer's needs, companies create loyal customers by helping them solve their problems quickly and easily. Therefore, reducing customer effort, making the experience as 'frictionless' as possible, is a critical strategy towards improving the overall experience.


TYPES OF CUSTOMER EFFORT

Types of Customer Effort.png
 
 

To learn more about the benefits of analyzing and assessing "customer effort" we recommend reading The Effortless Experience by Matthew Dixon and the folks at the CEB.

 
Book The Effortless Experience.jpg
Business+Case+for+Customer+Effort.jpg
 
 
 

We need to assess where we are making things too difficult for our customers - move towards creating an effortless experience.

 

Capturing the Voice of the Customer

Leveraging an Online Focus Group

While there are many different methods for capturing the voice of the customer we have found that Online Focus Groups are one of the most cost-effective methods for developing a deeper understanding of customers and/or identifying customer experience improvement opportunities.

Pre-Research

→ Define what success will look like (desired outcomes)

→ Define scope of Online Focus Group and determining listening strategies to be applied

→ Defin participant recruitment strategy (whom best to speak with)

→ Design screener to select desired participants

→ Design activity guide to support conversation with banking customers

Online Focus Group

→ Invite and select desired participants

→ Launch Online Focus Group (2 to 4 days)

→ Apply various listening strategies: switching behavior, path to purchase, customer expectations, and/or customer effort

→ Close Online Focus Group and payout participant incentives



Post-Research

→ Publish transcript from Online Focus Group

→ Analyze and tag (code) customer conversations

→ Summarize core themes from Online Focus Group

→ Present findings and make recommendations

→ Determine next steps based upon recommendations

You too can leverage the voice of the customer to inform how to improve the consumer banking journey.

SPRINT DURATION: 5 to 6 weeks

 

Client Testomonials

What our clients have to say


A few examples of strategic insights they gained from listening to their customers input and feedback regarding interactions with their brand:

 
Client Testimonials Listening Strategies.png

Learm more about how we've helped clients across industries acquire strategic insights to inform how to improve customer experience:

 

It's Time to Assess The Banking Journey

Does this sound like your company?

That’s us. We could learn alot by conducting an Online Focus Group and listening to what our customers have to say about their banking relationship and overall banking journey.


Schedule a quick chat to learn more about how to capture the voice of the customer to inform customer experience improvement opportunities.