Banking services mostly still "sham digitized
Namics, a full-service digital agency from Switzerland, publishes in its analysis "Becoming a bank customer: Hurdles in digital times" new findings on digitalization. The result: many banks are "pseudo-digitized and promise their customers an online experience, but primarily deliver offline." With its analysis, Namics aims to further optimize the discourse on digital transformation.
Namics, a full-service digital agency from Switzerland, publishes in its analysis "Becoming a bank customer: Hurdles in digital times" new findings on digitalization. The result: many banks are "pseudo-digitized and promise their customers an online experience, but primarily deliver offline." With its analysis, Namics aims to further optimize the discourse on digital transformation.
As part of a mystery shopping exercise, Namics opened an account and ordered a credit card between February and May 2016. The resulting experience reports were the basis for the collected key figures, for example the number of documents received. Independently, usability experts examined the closing process for problems. The goal was to examine the important process of "becoming a customer".
Today's customer relationships
Because this is not just any marketing moment, but the foundation of a successful relationship. Here, the customer has expectations of both the products and services ordered and the way the process from ordering to use should be designed.
For the study, the digital experts at Namics evaluated the "becoming a customer" process, also known as the onboarding process, at 14 leading banks in Germany and Switzerland.
Matthias Bitzer, Senior Consultant at Namics: "Online is mandatory. However, our analysis shows that something is usually promised online, but the customer quickly ends up in the offline area. Therefore, it must be stated that many of the banks studied are sham-digitized. Some are also steering clear of today's digital trends." When it comes to guaranteeing consistent customer experiences, leading providers sometimes ignore efficient processes and lose sight of the customer.
For example, there are still long waiting times (e.g. on the phone), complex documents cannot be compressed or simplified, and customers cannot avoid having to make multiple entries. In addition, banks often forget to address prospective customers personally.
Inefficient pseudo-digitisation
Almost two-thirds of those who open an account online go through the process at a bank offline. In individual cases, up to 74 percent of the contact points were outside the digital world. In addition, prospective customers received an average of nine mailings until the online account was activated and the credit card delivered. In addition, they received an average of three phone calls and at least one visit to the branch. Only fintechs such as Number 26 offer a genuine online experience: up to 90 percent of the contact points here were digital.
Customers need a lot of time to open an account. For example, it takes an average of 7.5 days until a transfer was possible with the opened account. The worst bank took 33 days, the best one day. The waiting time until the first purchase by credit card is also long: the median was 11 days, at the best bank it took 4 days, at the worst 50 days. Furthermore, there are various "channel changes", such as sending the printed online form by post.
The worst bank charges its customers 26, the best five, and the average is ten.
Various usability problems
A panel of experts examined the banks examined in terms of their user-friendliness (usability) and rated them using the Nielsen Norman "severity rating". The analysis showed that there are fundamental problems in the product ordering process at many banks. The customer starts online but goes through an offline process designed in an analogous way. This promise can lead to irritation and frustration.
Banks do not have the effort of their customers in mind. Anyone who wants to become a customer of a bank usually has to go through 20 steps.
Of these, he carries out at least ten steps independently. In addition, prospective customers receive an average of 22 documents by e-mail, by post and in the branch! The relevant information must be understood and filtered by the customer, which increases the susceptibility to errors. In addition, customers have to repeatedly enter their data with different contact persons, and in some cases this data is also lost when changing channels. Even personal salutations often vary in the documents.
