Digitization in banks: metalworking customers-why banks must deliver immediately

This has had a profound impact on bank branches: For 67% of customers, personal advice over the counter is no longer more important than digital quotes. Bank advisors are currently only the most trusted financial advisors for 34% of customers. In this development process, more and more bank customers are willing to hand over their finances to pure online banks. Almost 50% believe that by 2040, Germany will no longer have branches. This shocking statement alone should incentivize banks and financial service providers to raise their businesses and most importantly their services to new sustainable levels with the help of digitization.

As Peter Burrows explained in an article on industry transformation in the ServiceNow blog, finance is superior to other industries, especially in IT infrastructure and network security. This is the result of a huge investment of billions of dollars in the IT budget and the extremely stringent data protection and compliance requirements that have been implemented in the financial sector since the financial crisis. Financial service providers also rank first in AI: “55% of people use AI to automate financial and accounting tasks, such as reporting and fraud detection,” Burrows said.

The main challenge that banks and financial service providers must now take seriously is directly Interface with end customers. The key question: How to create a better customer experience? According to a survey in the United States, if bank customers provide a better customer experience, they will use financial services from global companies such as Amazon or Apple.

It’s no secret in the industry: the key to long-term success is Optimize user experience Through better digital services. Because a positive user experience will bring lasting trust and loyalty. As early as 2018, 74% of bank executives in North America stated that “customer experience” was their top strategic priority. The most appropriate headline for the Accenture survey is: “Backstage, it’s time to meet customers.”

Part of the solution is already at hand, or rather on the servers of banks and financial service providers: customer data. However, the problem is that providers have not yet fully controlled their customer data, so they cannot profit from it. At least not yet.

The first step in improving the customer experience is to use data better and directly lead to the automation of different levels of customer service. According to Forrester Research, many banks receive up to 80% of all incoming customer inquiries over the phone through their own call centers, and then call a large number of independent, non-interconnected IT systems. However, the key to a great customer experience lies in the connection between the front desk and the entire organization. Separate systems cost money and are inefficient.

Melanie Abt, Senior Sales Director of ServiceNow Financial Services, said in a nutshell: “Banks have invested a lot in the front-end. But in the back-end, a lot of investment remains the same. The elegant front-end is a superficial composition, while the existing system is only a marginal unity. . The customer’s overall view: nothing.” The digitization and subsequent automation of these time-consuming and costly workflows will save billions of dollars. For an industry, this is very important, because the low interest rate phase will exhaust profits and increase cost pressure.

A comprehensive workflow platform (such as ServiceNow’s Now Platform) can help without having to touch or edit bank customer data in the current inventory system. They remain in this “system of record” but are connected to each other through the Now Platform level (“action system”). Then you can start to act.

In fact, for example, the platform appears to provide bank employees with precisely tailored information about customer concerns at a glance. Not only can it make customer communication more fluent and more targeted. Customers can also use less energy to obtain more comprehensive services. The platform actively initiates further activities and service topics through the AI ​​process. Result: Customers are satisfied with a confident user experience.

This is an addition to the “Finance Operations Management” product specially developed by ServiceNow for the financial sector. It sometimes has a framework for banking services and industry data models, and Card Operations, an application that optimizes customer queries, such as when ordering replacement cards, issuing new credit cards, or increasing account limits. This can minimize unnecessary loss of customer time. The high degree of automation makes employees and customers satisfied. Melanie Abt concluded: “From this perspective, Now Platform is like makeup-but with a deep effect.”