Customer Journey in Banking: 5 Digital Engagement Strategies That Deliver Big Payoffs

The notion of warm, delightful, and intimate connections might seem alien to many when it comes to banking. After all, when was the last time you felt a surge of emotion while checking your account balance or transferring funds? However, for banks striving for growth, creating a personalized and engaging experience for customers is paramount. This is where the concept of the customer journey comes into play.

In today’s digital age, the customer journey extends far beyond the confines of physical branches. It encompasses every interaction a customer has with a bank, from browsing products online to resolving an issue via chat support. To truly understand and cater to these diverse journeys, banks must embrace digital innovation.

Unfortunately, many large banks find themselves overwhelmed by the plethora of digital offerings available. This can lead to confusion among stakeholders and a lack of clarity regarding priorities. To truly stand out in the digital realm, banks need a platform that not only offers comprehensive digital capabilities but also empowers them to pursue bold customer engagement strategies.

So, what are the keys to unlocking digital engagement in banking? Let’s explore five strategies that are proving to be game-changers:

1. Targeted digital campaigns

Customers crave personalization, and targeted digital campaigns deliver just that. By segmenting customers accurately and tailoring campaigns to their specific needs and preferences, banks can drive engagement and ultimately increase conversions. Whether it’s promoting a new product or offering personalized financial advice, targeted campaigns are a powerful tool for fostering meaningful connections with customers.

A large bank notices a trend among its millennial customers, who are increasingly interested in environmentally friendly banking options. Leveraging targeted digital campaigns, the bank creates a series of ads promoting its eco-friendly credit card, highlighting features such as paperless statements and donations to environmental causes with every purchase. By segmenting its audience based on demographic data and interests, the bank achieves higher engagement rates and a significant increase in applications for the eco-friendly credit card.

2. Self-service solutions

As there is a push towards digital banking, transactions are increasingly migrating from branches to self-service channels. Deeper digital engagement with customizable journeys not only increases online purchase activities but also helps in creating value for banks through behavioral pattern analysis.

Banks are also employing cognitive agents to meet customers in their self-service journeys. Self-served channels help digitally active customers with quicker processes by straight through processes thus proving to be more cost effective compared to traditional touchpoints.

Picture this, a busy professional is traveling for work and realizes they forgot to pay their credit card bill. Instead of panicking, they simply open the bank’s mobile app, where they find a personalized dashboard showing their outstanding balance and upcoming payments. With just a few taps, they schedule a payment for the missed bill, avoiding late fees and maintaining their financial health on the go. The seamless self-service experience not only saves the customer time and stress but also reinforces their trust and loyalty to the bank.

3. AI-driven customer intelligence

Maintaining a track of customer’s regular transactions & purchase pattern through digital servicing helps in assisting them with tailor made solutions & promoting new banking products along with digital customer journeys. AI-powered customer data analytics can give bankers useful insights much faster than a human analyst. AI can also empower bankers to be nimble in customer acquisition and delivering proactive fulfillment.

4. Contextual engagement

Banks can achieve digital engagement only if they can pitch the right content to the right bunch of audiences through seamless digital customer journeys. Contextual engagement uses the power of a unified digital servicing platform to craft engagement strategies that are more anticipated, personal or relevant for the customers. A great digital banking platform will include all the elements of LEAP – Listening, Empathizing, Analyzing and Propelling.

5. Ensuring scalability with agility

While providing digital servicing, banks often struggle to define customer journeys at various stages. For instance, marketing executives will view macro life events, while product owners will view the customer experience through the lens of purchasing products. Collaboratively coming together to scale customer experience transformation will result in optimum use of resources for jointly identifying and resolving customer experience pain points. Defining a simple and pragmatic approach will boost customer experience delivery.

Banks should prioritize secured online transactions to build customer trust on all platforms of digital banking. To survive in the fast-moving and dynamic world of digital servicing, bankers need to stay at the forefront of new digital strategies and their implementation through customizable journeys.  Consistent efforts need to be taken by all the financial institutions towards providing satisfactory digital journeys to top the customer’s satisfaction charts.