Our Thoughts on “Financial Institutions Failing To Humanize Digital Banking Experiences”

By Katherine Regnier - Jan 25, 2021

I recently read “Financial Institutions Failing to Humanize Digital Banking Experiences” by Jim Marous and was nodding my head along the entire time. 

I believe in a world where financial institutions can, and must, create long lasting relationships with their customers. As I dove deeper into the article by Mr. Marous, “Phone and branch-level customer service still outrank digital solutions in importance at banks and credit unions worldwide” stuck out for me.

We know many banks and credit unions have taken a digital first approach in order to preserve market share and the strategy makes sense – it is a natural response to want to plug the hole where the water is leaking in. Digital first has its place and I believe that place is in transactional everyday operations. Where it starts to fall short is when the customer just wants to talk to someone to resolve their question or problem. We’ve seen this proved out in our own research, and that of groups like Forrester. The human to human connection will always be the ultimate human experience. A chatbot or mobile app won’t replace that, but imagine in the app you could click a button and a human was on the other side, ready to answer your questions. Giving your customers, members and prospects the opportunity to choose how to engage with your brand is a leading factor in increasing engagement, improving experience and gaining and retaining market share.  

“If customer service means showing empathy and appreciation for a customer’s issue –  what most banks and credit unions strive for these days – financial institutions must address all the touch points where human service counts the most.” 

In order to have a huge home run, I would suggest that FIs look at how digital solutions can strengthen the relationship with their customers, not replace it. Changing that perspective will provide an impactful and meaningful outcome with your customers. 

This was my favorite part of the article. 

“To overcome the innate coldness of digital channels, companies should apply The Human Conversational Model to their digital customer experience design efforts.”

It reminded me of a presentation that I attended at Web Summit. There was a designer on the stage and I will never forget his words. “We need to stop working on the screens, and have the screens start working for us.” When I read about empathic agility and emotional reflection this is what customers want! No matter how good we make technology, which I think we have a long way to go, we all better make sure we think of people first. How are we actually solving their challenges? All things considered, is their life getting easier or better having done business with their financial institution? Are we making it easy for them to tell us how and when and where they want to engage with their bank or credit union representative? 

I really loved this article by Jim Marous as it hones in on the crux of the issue facing financial institutions – how can we humanize banking once again.