In financial services, delivering an outstanding customer experience (CX) is now a vital success factor. But the CX challenges in financial services are even greater than in other industries – so how can you achieve your CX goals? As we’ll discuss here, the design of your digital products and services is crucial for CX success.
CX puts the customer at the heart of financial services
CX is the sum of all the interactions a customer has with your organisation, and how they feel about your brand. It’s a key driver of customer satisfaction, loyalty, retention and advocacy. CX also impacts your business performance, as it can increase your revenue, reduce costs, enhance your reputation and differentiate you from competitors.
In the financial services industry, CX is especially important, as customers have high expectations for convenience, security, personalisation and trust.
However, many financial services organisations face challenges in delivering great CX often due to gaps in product and service design, such as legacy systems, complex regulations, siloed departments, changing customer needs and behaviours, new competitors and fast-evolving technologies.
“You increasingly need to deliver personalised, customer-centric products and services, crafted with thoughtful product and service design, that delight each customer,” says Leon Gauhman, Co-founder and Chief Product & Strategy Officer at Elsewhen. “But financial services organisations face greater CX challenges than other industries. When you operate in finance, banking or insurance sectors you also have to achieve this within a landscape of unrivalled competition, and strict regulatory oversight on business conduct and customer privacy.”
When you operate in finance, banking or insurance sectors you also have to achieve this within a landscape of unrivalled competition, and strict regulatory oversight on business conduct and customer privacy.
Leon GauhmanCo-founder and Chief Product & Strategy Officer
Discover our Founders Bank case study here
Understanding the CX challenges in financial services
At this year’s CX BFSI UK Exchange 2024 in London, we have gathered with CX leaders to discuss how the world of customer experience is undergoing an unprecedented shift, presenting exciting new opportunities alongside numerous complex challenges. This ranges from the difficulties of implementing a customer-centric culture and driving meaningful integration of new AI-driven technology, to the increased importance of experiences amidst economic volatility and industry disruption.
Technology is playing a crucial role in the CX space for financial services, with digital products and services now being augmented with AI to drive a personalised customer contact revolution, such as the new Klarna AI assistant being a great example. The pandemic has also highlighted the industry’s duty to serve vulnerable customers with care and sensitivity.
Authenticating the ROI from CX is a priority to demonstrate a clear relationship between CX efforts and the business goals of the organisation. Established players are also learning CX lessons from disruptive start-ups and scale-ups, fintechs and neo-banks. The ‘lean start-up’ model creates a continuous feedback loop in which your customer reigns supreme.
Learn more about the Klarna AI assistant here
Designing your path to better CX in financial services
Partnering with an expert consultancy in digital product and service design can significantly enhance your CX initiatives in financial services:
“To address all these challenges and opportunities, CX leaders in financial services tell us they want better ways of delivering their projects,” says Matt Flynn, Design Director at Elsewhen. “That's where our expert digital product design and digital service design can make all the difference. A consultancy like Elsewhen can help financial services leaders to gain vital insights, overcome blockers to change, and accelerate CX transformation.
Partnering with an expert consultancy in digital product and service design can significantly enhance your CX initiatives in financial services:
Understand your customers' needs, pain points, motivations and goals through user research and data analysis.
Design user-friendly, accessible and engaging interfaces and interactions for your digital products.
Create end-to-end customer journeys that span across multiple touchpoints, channels and devices for your digital services.
Test and validate assumptions and solutions with real customers and stakeholders.
Implement your CX solutions using agile methodologies and best practices.
Measure effectiveness and optimise your CX using feedback loops and analytics.
Innovate and iterate on your CX to keep up with changing customer needs and market trends.
A consultancy like Elsewhen can help financial services leaders to gain vital insights, overcome blockers to change, and accelerate CX transformation.
Matt FlynnDesign Director at Elsewhen
Find your CX partner for digital product and service design
CX leaders partner with digital product and service design consultancy Elsewhen to harness a cutting-edge approach to enhancing customer experience through design and technology, and deliver positive impact for their organisations. We provide three interconnected service offerings:
Digital Strategy: We help you define your CX opportunity and present it in a business-oriented way. Together, we can define your strategy, shape how it manifests digitally, and decide on the best course for implementation.
Product and Service Design: We join your in-house team to unlock and elevate your CX projects. Whether handling the product design, engineering or delivering end-to-end, we bring an objective view into your organisation and aim to radically increase the speed and quality of delivery.
Digital Transformation: We help your CX transformation programme to deliver a world-class customer experience. We guide the customer-facing stream in your programme, making sure it's truly customer-centric.
Real-world CX success stories in financial services
We have extensive experience of working with financial services organisations of all sizes and sectors, including banking, insurance, payments and wealth management. We have helped them to create world-class digital products and services that improve their CX and business outcomes.
If you’re a CX leader in Banking, Financial Services or Insurance, we look forward to get in touch and discuss how we can help you with your CX challenges.