Think back to the last time you interacted with your bank, or credit union; was there personalized service involved. Was it easy to get in touch? Did the organization recognize who you were–online or over the phone–and make you feel like a valued customer? How fast and easy was it to do business? These are all potential points of friction that can (and frequently do) create frustration for customers when trying to connect with their financial services organization.
87% of people think brands need to work harder to create a seamless experience for customers and for many forward-thinking organizations, this has become a corporate priority for 2018. While the motivation to change often arises from a combination of empathy for a poor customer experience, and a mandate to digitally transform customer-facing touchpoints, the business case arises when you begin to lose customers to competitors who make it easier to do business, online or in-person.
Financial services organizations who are seeking to differentiate themselves can do so through the power of personalization. Why is this important? As a customer, you can probably empathize with the desire to be recognized, valued and respected as an individual, by the organization from which you’ve decided to buy a product or service. This can help inspire loyalty, reduce churn, and increase customer retention.
While striving to deliver an exceptional customer experience is not a new concept, creating an ‘omnichannel experience’ is a relatively new buzzword circulating in the industry to describe how organizations go about providing a personalized service, at scale. For appointment-driven businesses, enterprise scheduling can play an integral role in the customer’s omnichannel experience.
What is an Omni-Channel Experience?
An omnichannel is an experience that is created by integrating multiple channels to provide customers with a seamless, personalized service. For example, whether a customer calls in with a support inquiry, is looking to book an appointment with you online, or visits a physical location, they will be recognized as the same person.Why is a Non-Omni-Channel Experience Frustrating to Customers?
It’s terribly annoying to be treated as a different person on every channel that you use and every interaction you have with an organization. For example:- Contacting an organization through their contact center for customer support means you’ll have to to recap all details with every new representative.
- Logging into the website, you’ll have to provide the same information again because it is treated as a separate channel.
- Walking into a retail location for an appointment, you’ll have to provide the same information you’ve already entered online and over the phone.
Reducing Customer Churn with an Omni-Channel Experience
How do you start to shift your appointment-driven organization towards offering an omnichannel experience? Base your strategy around customer experience trends that are sweeping your industry. Below, we’ve identified some of the key customer experience trends we’ve noted for 2018, and how implementing an integrated scheduling solution can help deliver a competitive edge.Customer Experience Trend #1: Build experiences that tie together online, contact center, physical locations
64% of customers expect to receive real-time assistance regardless of the customer service channel they use. Offering the same experience across channels, gives people the luxury of choosing the scheduling method that best suits them, which results in feeling valued and respected as an individual.How an integrated scheduling solution helps
Implementing a scheduling solution can help your organization offer a differentiated customer experience, by providing easy access for customers to book appointments regardless of the channel that they prefer to use. Customers will be able to book appointments online, through your organization’s contact center, as well as in branch, and the integrated platform offers the same data and appointment availability, all in real time.Customer Experience Trend #2: Revamp the underperforming areas of the customer experience using collected customer data.
Offering a personalized service is becoming a requirement to ensure the success of your business and 69% of people believe customer service expectations are increasing year-on-year. The financial services industry is competitive and customers have many options to choose from, making it imperative that your business offers a premium customer experience. The challenge that organizations face is that it is difficult to create a personalized service without accurate customer data.How an integrated scheduling solution helps
Coconut Software enables organizations to capture appointment analytics which track the customer journey across channels, from the time the appointment is booked, through to the appointments completion. By tracking metrics across the appointment lifecycle, you can begin see which areas in the scheduling process have room for improvement, while gaining additional insights into your customers’ appointment needs. Here are just some of the analytics that we enable you to start tracking …- Appointment cancellations, no-shows and completion rates
- Drop-off rates in online appointment scheduling process
- Weekly, monthly and yearly trends in appointment scheduling
- Customer appointment satisfaction
- Top performing locations and staff
