In the context of digital transformations, the banking sector has the second-highest success rate. Though six out of ten entities still fail to improve their banking customer journeys. Presently, AI is setting the benchmark in dominating the boardroom agenda. AI is no more a ‘nice to have’ in the customer experience segment, but it has become the connective infrastructure.
Since the line between the brand objectives and customer expectations is blurring, the line becomes a window of competitive advantage when the banks focus on orchestration. However, real success does not come from integrating more tools but from using the right tool smartly.
Recently, banking players have been implementing AI across their operations to improve banking customer journeys. However, the majority of the successful entities are not running after hype but focusing on orchestration. Let’s dig deeper into how organisations can improve banking customer journeys with the implementation of an AI tool.
What is Banking Customer Journey?
Simply, the banking customer journey is a sequence of digital and physical interactions of the banks with the customers while making decisions on account opening or applying for a credit card. Customers decide the necessary actions to be taken in each step. However, the banks have the opportunity to drive the decisions and behaviours of the customers while enhancing their experience and boosting loyalty.
McKinsey finds that a general regional bank has over 1500 customer journeys.
Some of the important banking customer journeys, starting from onboarding to problem resolution, can be found below:
- Find information about types of accounts, loans, or credit cards
- Account opening in a bank
- Apply for a credit card, mortgage, or loan
- Get and activate the cards
- Activate internet banking
- Get notifications about the unauthorised behaviour on the credit card or other account
- Receive and pay bills
- Pay late fees
- Report a missing card or other issues
- Register a complaint about fees or a transaction
Why Does It Matter?
The banking customer journey is important to retain loyal customers and improve their experience. Customers are dependent on the bank to receive information and make wise financial decisions. In doing so, they look for real-time, easy, and intuitive conversations about crucial items like loans, fraud, or other payments. However, the banks often struggle to address these expectations of the customers.
How AI Can Help?
For the majority of the customers, banking is expected to be trustworthy, simple, and confident. They expect faster answers, immediate support, and personalised assistance, whether it is about reporting a missing card, a loan matter, or managing the credentials. Very often, the banking customer journeys are fragmented. The customers juggle between bots, enquiry forms, and phone calls. This causes frustration among the customers.
No worries, AI has the potential to help in this, but you should know the right way. The real scope is not automation but intelligent orchestration. This means developing systems where AI can guide the customers from scratch to the end. It ensures the involvement of everyone, including the agent, in the context whenever needed.
Shift to Orchestration
Orchestration is about coordinating and managing AI models, systems, and implementations. It is about the right implementation and maintenance of the elements in an AI system, application, or workflow. Successful AI orchestration leads to a streamlined end-to-end AI lifecycle at each phase.
Automation is not just enough for improving banking customer journeys, but orchestration is. Integration of AI focuses on how the experience stays, relates, and responds in every interaction. AI agents gather the required details from the inquiries effectively and pass the details to the human advisors. In this process, the customers feel more supported while the advisors remain prepared. This made the entire process move faster than ever before.
More technology is not needed, but we need better design. AI is used not as a standalone solution but in the related branches across the banking customer journey.
Better Design Over Human Replacement
The focus should be on better designing of the system, guiding the banking customer journey rather than human replacement. There are people with fear losing their jobs since AI has taken over. However, in the practical realm, the right implementation makes people superior in their tasks. Human agents are now becoming super agents thanks to AI that equips them with real-time information and data. The human agents are also able to have access to overall visibility into the banking journey.
Though this is not only about contact centers. The teams, including product, compliance, and customer experience, are looking to design and refine AI-driven experiences. This shows a great shift in the way organisations used to move from experimentation to implementation.
Systems of Action
Previous systems were developed with the aim of storing data and not acting on it. However, the modern platforms are developed for systems of action that are capable of understanding signals and responding accurately in real-time. This suggests that the use of AI is more than logging interactions, and it engages proactively.
AI in banking customer journey offers provides insights, anticipates needs, and directs to the best possible action. The banking leaders are rethinking the design behind the user experience instead of placing AI at the top, whether it is about inequity or reporting a missing card.
Since customers are expecting more connectedness rather than just availability, the AI agents are capable of detecting the user’s intention more efficiently in comparison to the past natural language. The agents are also capable of guiding communications towards particular outcomes and improving the banking customer journeys. The advisors no longer need to repeat questions as AI agents already collect the detailed information. This is how orchestration supports systems of action.
Wrapping Up
The retail industry has already started to reimagine the delivery of value through AI. However, banking is in its infancy stage due to the higher stakes, more regulations, and larger complexities. Hence, creating hype and racing in terms of chatbots is not the need of the moment. Rather, it is important to redesign and reimagine how the banking customer journeys connect and whether they offer trust, empathy, and results that are expected by the customers.
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