What trends are shaping banking in 2026? Join the live discussion.

REGISTER NOW
Coconut Software Logo

Tag: Omnichannel

How to Attract and Retain Millennial Customers in 2020

Blog Hero - Attract and Retain Millennial Customers

As the first generation to be raised with the absolute ease of technology – the norm of face-to-face interactions for banks and credit unions has shifted. Because of this, banks and credit unions face a difficult challenge; how do you attract and retain millennial customers who want to minimize interaction, and crave an enhanced digital experience. For those up to meeting this challenge – it could signify their greatest opportunity for growth.  Over the next 10 years, 75% of customers seeking wealth management and personal financial services will be millennials. This is a concerning statistic for many finserv organizations since the millennial customer shows a number of differences in the way they prefer to interact with organizations compared to older generations. We will discuss the differences in how to communicate with a millennial customer and how an appointment management solution can help attract the up and coming generation and reduce churn. How can Coconut Software upgrade your institution’s digital presence and capabilities? Download the Ultimate Guide to Digitally Transforming the Appointment Experience today. Attract and Retain Millennial Customers – The Challenges 1. Millennials Have Higher Customer Service Expectations Millennials have grown up in the midst of the digital transformation and are used to the benefits that come with it. The digital experience has enabled many industries to increase the quality of the services they provide in terms of customer experience, and millennials have become accustomed to premium treatment. Financial Services is one of the oldest industries in the world, and also one of the last to begin the digital transformation. This is causing the millennial customer to seek out businesses that provide them with convenient digital service that they desire. 2. Millennials Prefer to Interact With Brands Digitally Millennials are a digital-centric generation, meaning they rely strongly on technology in their daily life, specifically their smartphones. Millennials expect immediate, online access to their finserv provider, whereas older generations were very comfortable picking up the phone or waiting for their service provider to get back to them. Millennial customers, more than other generation, are asking themselves, “if I can schedule a massage, order groceries and buy flights online, why can’t I book an appointment with my bank?” 3. Millennials Won’t Stay Loyal Just Because You Have a History Millennials are 2 to 3 times more likely to change service providers than any other generation. They are used to a digital experience with enhanced customer service, and they are not worried about leaving a current provider for an organization that meets all of their needs. And soon, those customers will make up the majority of the workforce. In fact, 30% of millennials report they have left their current bank or credit union because they found another finserv organization that provided a better experience. Attract and Retain Millennial Customers – How Appointment Management Solutions Help  The increasing demands of the millennial customer are concerning to the legacy structure of the finserv industry, however, there are ways to keep the value of your business interactions while implementing solutions to attract the growing population of millennial customers and reduce churn. An appointment management tool offers multiple solutions to your millennial customer problem. 1. Improve Customer Experience With New Insight Into Customer Behavior When your organization leverages an appointment management solution, you will gain additional insight into the customer’s behavior and history with your organization. When you have an integrated scheduling platform, your customer-facing staff can access all the information collected during the appointment-booking. This will allow them to prepare for their upcoming appointment with the customer, enabling them to provide the enhanced customer experience the millennial customer craves. 2. Give Your Customers What They Want With Real-Time Online Appointment Scheduling With an integrated appointment management solution, you can offer real-time, 24/7 online appointment scheduling. This will allow your customers to schedule in-person interactions with your organization whenever and wherever they want, minimizing human interactions with your organization, which the millennial customer loves to avoid. Additionally, when your customers book appointments online, they will also receive reminders on their smartphones, which the average millennial checks about 43 times a day, reducing the chances of no-show appointments. 3. Keep Customers Loyal With Direct Feedback With an appointment management solution, your organization can send out automated follow-up emails to customers to gain feedback on the experience they had. People love to be asked their opinion, and asking your customers about their experience with your organization will make them feel valued and earn you major brownie points. We know millennials are less loyal than previous generations, but we also know customers who feel their financial services provider listens to their needs are more likely to remain loyal to that brand. Following-up with millennial customers and asking about the experience they had with your organization makes them feel like their opinion matters. Streamlining the digital experience up to the in-person interaction, while leveraging technology to provide a premium experience, will set your organization apart. Millennials are a completely new type of customer for the FinServ industry, and by leveraging a digital experience, your organization will be able to provide the services the millennial customer desires in order to attract new business and reduce churn. Discover A Modern Way to Engage Get In Touch What Next? Ready to learn more about upgrading your institution’s digital presence and capabilities? Download our Ultimate Guide to Digitally Transforming the Appointment Experience today. Looking to boost revenue and deliver a premium experience to your clients? Schedule a consultation with Coconut Software to learn more about how our appointment scheduling solutions can get you there.

The Top 4 Ways Branch Technology Can Match Customer Interest

Blog Hero - Branch Technology - Matching Customer Interest

From Teller Lines to Teller Less: Highlights From the Future Branches Report With the rise of Fintech and a customer base that’s becoming increasingly comfortable with the ease and convenience provided by new technology, banks have had to work harder than ever at bringing people into their physical branches. Tablets, video conferencing, digital signage and other technology has become standard in most modern banks and credit unions, and investments in personnel training has risen significantly. But how successful have they been in their efforts? Which branch technology implementations have been successful in matching customer interest? And importantly, what strategies have been most effective at keeping the branch ahead of the competition? Diving into the facts around customer-facing technologies, this report investigates how changes in the industry are transforming the physical branch. To compile this research, Future Branches conducted an industry survey of 100 banking professionals to develop a clear view into the current state of the branch experience, and where it’s heading in the years to come. View a summary of some of the highlights from their findings below, or download the full report to discover what banks are doing to match customer interest. 1. Banks are investing heavily in self-service technology The top 4 investment priorities reported in this study were digital signage (61%), video conferencing (58%), self-service tools (54%), and tablets for customer use (54%). Based on these results, it’s clear that banks are prioritizing customer-facing solutions — specifically, self-service technologies and digital display technologies — above others. The fact that over half of respondents are prioritizing video conferencing technology is significant. This is indicative of an ongoing trend to expand branch services into new geographical areas by creating “hub and spoke” branch arrangements and by enabling internet-connected customers to reach trained personnel from the comfort of their own homes, which fits in with another reported priority of banks in the study — to make banking more seamless with their customers’ personal lives (50%). “The bank wants more customer interaction at the branch. We believe we can achieve the desired levels of interaction through technology services.” – Information Technology Professional, Regional Bank For more in-depth survey results and expert insights, download the full report now. 2. Larger banks have a tech advantage The study found that 21% of banks believe they are behind their competitors in terms of the sophistication of their in-branch technology—that is, the degree to which they have modernized their physical branches. This study found that the majority of banks reporting themselves to be in this situation categorize themselves as regional or community banks or credit unions, while every global and the majority of national banks tended to claim they were “already a leader” or that they were at least “competitive”. But smaller banks and credit unions are rising to the challenge. While 21% believe themselves to be behind the competition, 20% are confident that they are making meaningful progress. “We have been an attraction for technology consultants and service providers over the years to try new technology which they have developed, and which we can use in our branches.” – Marketing Professional, Regional Bank For more in-depth survey results and expert insights, download the full report now. 3. Customer-facing tech is viewed as the safer investment With the wealth of tech available to financial institutions today, it’s perhaps not surprising that nearly half of banks (48%) are prioritizing implementing new technologies across all their branches. To support these new technologies, banks are prioritizing the training of in-branch personnel on customer-facing technologies (47%) and to a slightly lower extent, back-end technologies (41%). Looking more closely at the numbers, it appears that the difference could be resulting from pain points in training for new back-end systems, with banks reporting pain in that area sitting 3% higher than those reporting the training as a priority. Conversely, just 36% of banks report pains in training staff on customer-facing technology — more than 10% below those prioritizing that area of training. Looking at this, it appears that in their aim to match customer interest, most banks view investing in self-service style customer-facing technology to be much easier to implement. “Our bank wants to give complete experiences to our customers and to keep them excited by introducing new technologies on a regular basis.” – Marketing Professional, National Bank For more in-depth survey results and expert insights, download the full report now. 4. Banks are keen on overcoming pain points in training As discussed in the previous point, in order to take advantage of the latest technologies, banks are prioritizing the development of robust training regimens to get their in-branch personnel up to speed. The value of this high investment in training is clearly reflected in responses showing that 68% of banks rating themselves as ‘competitive’ or ‘a leader’ in terms of their in-branch personnel, but it isn’t without its challenges. In the study, respondents cited the struggle to create comprehensive training programs which accommodate branch personnel of different backgrounds and different levels of experience as a major pain point. Furthermore, measuring the development of personnel after training, keeping training relevant as new technologies continue to disrupt the industry, and retaining personnel after investing in their training are all issues that came up multiple times. “Retaining the personnel after we have spent on training them on the technology that they have [is our biggest pain point]. When they choose to move to another organization, we have to spend on training the next person, which does have a cost challenge.” – Sales and Service Professional, Regional Bank For more in-depth survey results and expert insights, download the full report now. Discover A Modern Way to Engage Get In Touch What Next? Ready to learn more about the way customers view the role of the branch in this rapidly changing digital landscape? Download the full Future Branches Study — From Teller Line to Teller-less: Aligning Your Mix of In-Branch Employees and Technologies with Customer Interests.  Looking for more unique perspectives on the

Why Integrate CRM With Your Appointment Management Solution

Coconut Software - Blog Hero - Integrate CRM with Appointment Solution

Appointment management software plays a critical role in any organizations digital transformation. To get the most out of your solution, integrating your CRM software is a necessity. Doing so avoids a disjointed operations and a silo’d workforce, not to mention setting your organization up for future success. If you choose to implement and integrate a appointment management solution with your business CRM, you’ll want to ensure both applications provide an open API. This will allow your business to integrate both systems and experience the ultimate benefits of enhancing your operational processes. The Risks of Not Integrating Your CRM If your organization chooses a appointment management solution that does not provide integration options, you are placing yourself at an increased risk of slowing down operational processes, increasing informational gaps, and creating a disjointed customer experience. Impact on Operational Processes The information necessary for appointment management appointments, that also has to be stored in your CRM application, will require duplicate data entry if your appointment management solution is not integrated with your business CRM. This is going to be a nightmare for staff responsible for recording customer information, as they’ll have to re-input data that already exists in another application. And it will cost your organization money due to wasted staff time. Duplicate data entry is also problematic since it leaves room for error when an individual is asked to manually transfer information from one application to another. Disjointed Customer Experience Not integrating your appointment management solution with your CRM application may mean you are inadvertently delivering a disjointed customer experience. At the time of the appointment scheduling, your customer can give additional insight into their needs, and what they hope to accomplish in their upcoming appointment. But, if up-to-date information is not available when your customer-facing staff check the scheduling system to gain insight into a customer’s needs, they’ll end up working with outdated or no information at all. If you were the customer who scheduled an appointment with your financial services provider, imagine how frustrating it would be to answer several questions during the appointment scheduling, only to find out their advisor doesn’t have access to that information. Now, they have to answer the same questions again, since their advisor prepared for the appointment based on outdated information. Process without a CRM, appointment scheduling integration in your contact center Individual contacts your organization to book an appointment Contact center representative asks the individual for their basic information Contact center representative has no idea if the individual is a current or new customer Contact center representative has to input all the customer’s information to schedule the appointment Once the appointment is scheduled, the representative has to log into your business CRM to manually input this information for the second time, taking up time and leaving room for error Process with a CRM, appointment scheduling integration Individual contacts your organization to book an appointment Contact center representative asks the individual for their basic information Contact center representative can see if the individual is a current or new customer If the individual is a new customer, the information put into the scheduling system will also be saved to your organization’s CRM If they are a returning customer, the CRM will be able to populate the fields in the scheduling system, saving time for both the call center representative and the customer The result is a more streamlined reporting and back-end process The 3 Benefits of Integrating CRM When you are an appointment driven business, you want to ensure you are providing a premium experience to your customers, so they want to continue working with you. Integrating your appointment management solution with your CRM will enable your institution to communicate more effectively with your clients, streamline operational processes and improve communication. 1. Streamline Operational Processes Having a single, integrated platform, it will eliminate the task of duplicate data entry. Once both of your applications storing customer information are integrated, your staff will no longer have to input the same customer data into multiple applications. Not only does this streamline operational processes by removing a time-consuming task, but it increases the accuracy of customer information. Coconut Software’s appointment management platform allows your appointment analytics to directly sync to your CRM application so you can track metrics such as attempted and completed customer interactions with your business, and the customer information collected when the appointment was scheduled. The customer and company data is updated in real time, ensuring your advisors have the most recent customer data, allowing your organization to provide a premium customer experience and enhance operational efficiencies. 2. Enhance the Customer Experience Having your appointment management solution paired with your CRM application allows for all customer information to be stored in one place, enabling you to use multiple channels and streamline operational processes. Coconut Software’s appointment management platform allows you to capture and track information about the products your specific customers are using, and their previous behavior with your organization. With this information, you can tailor future interactions to meet their needs. For example, one of your customer-facing advisors checks the history of a customer with an upcoming appointment to discuss insurance plan options. While looking into their history, the advisor can see the customer has invested in a TFSA with your organization in the past. With this insight, the advisor prepares a pitch for another type of investment account to share with the customer during their appointment. This allows your organization to potentially up-sell customers and shows you are in tune with their needs and past behaviors. 3. Enhance Company Communication Another benefit of integrating your appointment management solution with your CRM application is that you can improve communication within your organization by having all of your employees working from the same platform. When a customer schedules an appointment through either your business’s online channel or contact center, the information collected at that time will also be visible in your CRM. This allows your customer-facing staff to have the necessary insight into

3 Reasons to Digitally Transform Your Contact Centers

Coconut Software - Blog Hero - Digitally Transform Contact Centers

In todays digital era, consumer needs have evolved. It’s no longer a matter of “if” banks will become fully digital, but “when.” The prospect of a digital transformation in the financial services industry does not necessarily mean the end of all traditional customer experience channels, like contact centers. In fact, using technology to improve the communications channels that are already in use and familiar to your customers is a great way to ease both your client base and your staff into the future of banking technology. As the first touchpoint for many appointment-driven businesses, 75% of organizations view the customer service provided in contact centers to be a key differentiator between competitors. Is your organization’s contact center providing your customer with a positive experience? Ready to learn more about upgrading your institution’s digital presence and capabilities? Download Coconut Software’s Ultimate Guide to Digitally Transforming the Appointment Experience. According to a study done by Cornell University, the financial services market tends to leverage larger contact center operations compared to other industries and is lagging behind in implementing contact center management software. While many banks and credit unions depend on contact centers as a channel for scheduling appointments with customers, many have little to no visibility into contact handling process efficiency. Unfortunately, this sluggishness to modernize the back-end is resulting in customers waiting, and waiting on the line as contact center agents try to assist them while navigating archaic processes on the other end of the line. As you look for ways to transform your contact center, it is important to highlight areas that could be made more efficient by implementing digital tools. For example, lengthy contact handle time, poor customer experience and high operational costs are all issues that likely plague your contact center and affect your organization as a whole. Enterprise appointment scheduling is one type of contact center technology that can help improve contact efficiencies, reduce operational costs and improve the customer experience. Here’s how. Digitally Transform Your Contact Centers With Appointment Scheduling Decrease Call Handle Time The number of calls that contact center representatives can accommodate in a day is a key success metric that impacts many other areas of the business. For appointment-driven financial services organizations, more completed phone calls equal more appointments and more revenue for your branch locations. And yet, 23% of companies still do not measure call handle time in their contact center. Long call handle times lead to long hold times for customers waiting in the queue, and 80% of customers drop off the line after being placed on hold for over 1 minute. One of the ways you can make significant inroads in increasing call handling efficiency is by implementing an enterprise appointment scheduling solution. Implementing a scheduling solution creates a more streamlined appointment scheduling process that allows your contact center representatives to accommodate more calls in a day. This can also contribute to improving the customer experience by reducing the amount of time customers have to spend on the line with your organization, just to schedule an in-person appointment. Additionally, by speeding up the appointment scheduling process you can schedule more appointments, driving more revenue to your organization’s branch locations. Improve Customer Experience 57% of companies can relate improving customer experience levels to revenue growth. For appointment-driven businesses, the contact center is the first point of contact between your organization and its customers, and so it absolutely must deliver a positive first impression. If you are an appointment-driven business and your contact center schedules the majority of your appointments, it is crucial that the customer information collected at the time that the appointment is scheduled is passed on to the advisor meeting with that customer. There is nothing more frustrating for a customer, that already had to go through the tumultuous process of scheduling an appointment, to show up to an advisor that has no insight into their needs. However, 54% of customer information collected at the time the appointment was scheduled is not relayed to the customer-facing advisor. An enterprise appointment scheduling solution can be integrated across all channels in your organization and allows for information that is collected from one customer-facing channel, to be stored on one platform that can be accessed by another customer-facing channel. This means that your organization can capture additional information at the time of the appointment scheduling by adding custom questions integrated into the scheduling process. The answers to these custom questions can then be accessed by the customer-facing advisor, enabling them to better prepare for their upcoming appointment with the particular customer and tailor the appointment to their needs. An additional benefit to implementing a scheduling solution into your organization’s contact center is that it allows you to add new touch-points to the customer journey that will reduce the appointment no-show rate, as well as make your customers feel valued. Your customers will be sent a confirmation email reminding them of the service, date and time of the appointment they just scheduled as well as any additional information they need in order to be prepared for their upcoming appointment. Additionally, SMS and email reminders can be sent out to customers reminding them of their upcoming appointment, reducing the chances of a no-show. Customers will appreciate these additional touch-points as we live in a busy world and it is easy to forget the commitments that they have made, and it makes them feel looked after and that their scheduled appointment is valued. By integrating your contact center channel into other customer-facing platforms in your company you can drive more revenue into the organization and provide customers with a premium experience. Decrease Workforce Costs Forrester recently reported that call volume is expected to increase over the next 12 months and 46% of global contact center decision makers project their contact centers to grow by 5% to 10% to accommodate the increase. Many organizations are pouring more of their resources into increasing rep headcount in their contact centers to manage the call volume, but this is

5 Benefits of Digitizing Your Back-End Process

Coconut Software - Blog Hero - Digitizing the Back-End Process

Organizations are scrambling to stay ahead of their competitors in the finance industry, with digitizing the back-end process being at the forefront of innovation. However, 87% of financial organizations don’t believe their current core systems can keep pace with customer-facing initiatives. And with 60% of customer dissatisfaction originating from the back-end of financial organizations, it’s clear that inefficient back-end processes can have a negative impact on customer experience. Complex legacy IT systems, manual paper-based processes and orphaned data sources often result in high costs, poor agility, plus the customer issues of delayed response-time and lack of a seamless experience. 64% of consumers saying that they expect companies to respond to them in real-time, however, how are they able to correspond with your organization in real-time if your back-end isn’t digitally enabled and ready to respond? Digitizing the back-end process within your financial organization is crucial for the success of customer-facing channels and can have a significant impact on your organization’s potential growth. Ready to learn more about upgrading your institution’s digital presence and capabilities? Download our Ultimate Guide to Digitally Transforming the Appointment Experience today. Improve Customer Experience, Increase Efficiency, Cut Costs One of the key reasons to digitize the back-end is that it enables you to differentiate your customer journey, and offer customers unique benefits such as 24/7 access, real-time responses, and personalized experiences. Other than improving the customer experience, digitizing your back-end process also allows for an increase in efficiency and cut down on costs.  Lloyds Banking Group invested in a digital back-end technology that reduced the time it took to do certain processes by 90%.  By reducing processes within your organization you will increase efficiency and subsequently boost revenue.  According to Capgemini, automating back-end processes can help banks save 30% of their annual costs. From the process to error remediation, to training costs, overall savings can be significant. Digital Optimization Implementations Digitizing your back-end process in order to support your customer-facing channels, improve customer experience and enhance the productivity of your business may sound like an overwhelming undertaking. Where should your organization start? Ideally, you should start by automating one section of the customer journey. You can start by asking yourself a few questions: Which elements of the customer journey require significant manual effort to deploy on the back-end Which elements of the customer journey are resulting in significant customer dissatisfaction? Are there tactical solutions available to automate these manual processes? Which solutions can be implemented quickly to start delivering benefits immediately?   One great place to start is your first customer touchpoint: scheduling an appointment. Having appointment scheduling as the first touchpoint means that it is your customers’ first impression of your organization, meaning that you have the opportunity to form a positive relationship with your customers based on the quality of the experience that you provide. Identifying an area in the customer journey in need of change is a great place to start, and implementing a tool that is user-friendly and able to integrate into both customer-facing and back-end processes is an effective first step. The digital transformation occurring in the financial services industry at the moment is relatively new and your organization, as well as your customers, need something that will allow a smooth transition into the future of banking technology. Enterprise appointment scheduling is a tool that enhances customer-facing channels while also streamlining the back-end processes in your organization.  It can be implemented organization-wide, into your contact center’s appointment scheduling process, in branch as well as online, providing a new appointment scheduling channel to your customers.  This is beneficial to the back-end processes of your organization for multiple reasons such as … Consolidated Customer Behaviour Data Because the channel is integrated organization-wide, every appointment scheduling channel–contact center, branch locations, head office– will have access to the same appointment data.  This allows for your organization to speed up the scheduling process because there will be no need to correspond with other employees in other areas of your organization to ensure that no appointments are double booked or missed by advisors because they were not informed of the scheduled appointment. All scheduled appointments and staff availability would be sync across all platforms to ensure appointment scheduling accuracy and that no appointment slots or advisors get double booked due to miscommunication between the two channels. Track Appointment Analytics Integrated appointment scheduling syncs data across all appointment channels in your organization, but also offers your contact center staff the ability to capture additional customer information prior to the appointment, like past financial needs, what brought them to your organization, and who will be attending the appointment. This can help improve the quality of the in-person interaction. Post-appointment, having the ability to track appointment success rate as well as no-show rate allows your organization some insight into valuable sales information around product and services, as well as operational inefficiencies that you can address with a more targeted plan in the future. Coconut Software offers clients a host for appointment analytics which helps highlight friction points in the customer-facing appointment scheduling journey such as: Where in the scheduling process customers are dropping off before submitting the appointment request What branch locations book the most appointments which staff are providing the highest customer satisfaction according to customers.   Using the back-end process of enterprise scheduling to track analytics allows your organization the ability to assess the processes it has in place in order to provide the best service possible to its customers. Optimize Staff Times in One Program In large organizations, it can get chaotic to keep track of all of the information on customer-facing staff in order to schedule appointments. You need to track staff availability as well as updated qualifications, and hosting all of your customer-facing employee data on one platform allows your organization to run as smoothly as possible.  With enterprise scheduling, you can host advisor data on a platform that is organization-wide and able to be updated in real-time. This enhances the organization within your

Partnering With Fintech for Your Digital Transformation

Coconut Software Blog Hero - Improving Member Experience

Last year over 70% of financial institutions globally placed “improving the customer experience” as one of their top 3 strategic priorities. With the financial services industry evolving at a rapid rate, many banks and credit unions are feeling the pressure to evolve, partnering with fintech might just be the answer. Partnering with FinTech to Keep up with Digital Transformation Banks and credit unions are presented with a few options for innovating the customer experience. If your financial organization opts to develop its own homegrown technology, you risk losing time-to-market and end up being left in the dust. On the other hand, if your organization chooses to collaborate with third-party vendors, you have the advantage of enhancing the customer experience with existing, proven technology before your competitors catch up. According to Capgemini, 41% of financial institutions are implementing digital enhancements to improve their organization’s customer experience. As customers are migrating to online channels, this is becoming critical to the success of financial institutions.  Digital behavior such as mobile banking and online appointment scheduling has grown from 27% to 46%, as human interaction channels such as contact centers and in-person appointment scheduling have shrunk from 15% to 10%. Which part of the customer journey should we digitize first? As technology improves and enables customers to interact with companies more easily, service expectations will only continue to rise.  And evidence of these expectations is already apparent: Consider that 91% of banks already want to collaborate with FinTechs to provide their customers with an enhanced experience.  In particular, appointment-driven businesses rely on customer retention to stay afloat, so keeping up with digital trends related to customer experience is imperative. Customers like innovation, however, they do not like change. The technology that you choose to implement has to ease the transition into the future of banking customer experience.  Enterprise appointment scheduling allows your appointment-driven businesses to meet customers’ expectations when it comes to interacting with your financial organization through its appointment scheduling channels. For new customers, scheduling an appointment is one of the first touch points they have with your brand and it is in your best interest to make a good first impression.  And for existing customers, implementing enhanced and efficient scheduling channels will be a welcomed improvement to their service experience. Partnering with FinTech to Implement Appointment Scheduling Solutions On average, in-house IT projects run 45% over budget and 7% over their initial time-frame, while offering 56% less value than predicted.  Additionally, 19% of IT projects are scrapped completely after a significant amount of time, resources, and money have already been invested.  Why not opt out of the sleepless nights you anticipate and instead consider the benefits of implementing an enterprise appointment scheduling solution. Quick Implementation Transitioning the customer journey to digital channels can be a valuable differentiator, but only if you get the integration to market on a reasonable timeline and before your competitors. Working with a third-party FinTech provider means that you are working with a product that has already been developed, and available to begin implementation as soon you are. When working with a third-party provider you have access to a support team who is experienced with the product and will be available to help you every step of the way to ensure that your implementation runs smoothly and quickly, allowing you to keep up with your competitors. Established Solution When implementing a customer-facing solution, you want something that will provide your customers with an enhanced experience.  Working with an established solution allows you to rest easy knowing that the solution you are implementing is able to provide your customer with the service that they desire. Your appointment driven enterprise business requires a solution that can accommodate enterprise complexities.  Working with a FinTech provides you with an established solution that you can depend on to help centralize appointment scheduling within your organization. Experienced Team Enterprise software implementations can be complex.  However, partnering with a pre-developed solution provides your organization with a support team who knows the product, and is committed to ensuring that the implementation is a success. Working with a FinTech provider comes with the benefits of devoted Project Managers and a Customer Success team that will support you every step of the way.  Rely on the experts to guide you through the implementation process, as well as provide follow-ups to ensure that your new integration is delivering the premium customer experience that your organization and its customers will benefit from. How Coconut Software Solutions Enhances Financial Services Digital Transformation Coconut Software integrates into your business’ contact center to help streamline the existing scheduling process and improve the back-end operations behind the customer-facing appointment scheduling experience.  When customers call in to book an appointment, their experience will be more efficient, as your contact center reps will have access in one view to staff schedules, specialties and other variables that they’re currently checking via a number of applications and systems, including printed-out paper schedules. The solution can also be integrated with your website to allow you to provide customers with a self-serve experience that offers 24/7 access to book appointments. Implementing a solution that will streamline the current channels you offer to your clients, while also introducing new self-serve channels will enhance the customer experience and position your business as an innovator. As your business transitions into the future of banking, this will help you target new customer segments while reducing current customer churn. 86% of financial institutions believe that digital will fundamentally change the economics and competitive landscape of corporate banking.  To build or to buy is the million dollar question, however, when it comes to customer-facing channels, partnering with an experienced third-party FinTech is the most strategic move for your organization as they bring efficiency, peace of mind and experience in the race to keep up with competitors as we move into the future of the banking industry. Schedule a consultation for more information about how implementing an enterprise scheduling solution can allow you to keep up

Personalized Service for Appointment-Driven Businesses

Blog Hero - Attract and Retain Millennial Customers

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. Without integrations and information sharing between channels, it’s very challenging to offer a streamlined customer experience. 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 Customer Experience Trend #3:  Evaluate your brand vision and redefine your customer service promise 78% of people say a company’s reputation for customer service is important to them when choosing a particular brand.  Creating an omnichannel experience that makes your customers feel valued will make a lasting impression, which, over time, will reduce churn.  Revamping parts of the customer experience to deliver a premium service doesn’t always require a huge time and resources investment. Making a simple change like implementing online appointment scheduling can have a remarkable impact on increasing customer satisfaction. How an Integrated Appointment Management Solutions Helps Making it as easy as possible to book an appointment with your organization will build your brand and help attract new business, as well as improve accessibility for existing customers. Coconut Software can help you streamline your organization’s scheduling applications and increase the efficiency and consistency of the appointment scheduling process through every channel. Parting Thoughts Offering an omnichannel journey to your customers is becoming less of a luxury and more of a necessity.

WEBINAR

What's next: 2026 retail banking trends

Our annual trends webinar is here. Tune in to hear from the experts, as they dive into the trends shaping the year ahead in banking. They’ll discuss where, why, and how FIs are doubling down in the age of AI, branch transformation, and younger customers.

  • February 26, 2026
  • 12PM PST | 3PM EST
Register now