Omnichannel customer service is mission-critical to the success of your bank or financial services institution. However, a few common headaches can keep your bank (and customers) from reaping the benefits that an omnichannel approach provides.
So, what are these common pitfalls, and how can you avoid them? Below, we go over what omnichannel support is, common reasons it fails and how you can create an omnichannel financial services strategy that works.
What is omnichannel customer support in banking?
Omnichannel customer support, sometimes called omnichannel customer service, refers to a unified platform that acts as a single source of truth with consistent answers across all touchpoints.
This is different from multichannel support, where customers can reach out to your bank or financial services institution across various channels such as your call center, app or chatbot, but information is often siloed. This creates inconsistent experiences that can lead to customer frustration and damage trust.
Omnichannel, by contrast, uses a single knowledge base for all channels, ensuring a consistent customer experience across all customer touchpoints. It also retains context across channels, which can create a more streamlined customer experience.
Why do most omnichannel financial service strategies fail?
There’s no doubt that omnichannel support is vital to banking customer service. Yet, a few things can hold your omnichannel banking strategy back from reaching its full potential, such as:
- Using AI to replace human agents rather than to augment their work
- Lack of digital literacy among customers
- Legacy contact center systems
- Lack of live video support tools
Using AI to replace human agents rather than augment their work
While technology can do many things, tools like AI can’t fully replace human agents. Three-fourths of customers still prefer to talk to a human for customer service, meaning your human contact center agents still play a vital role in creating positive banking experiences.
This is especially true for community banks and credit unions. After all, it’s implied in the name. If you’re a local credit union and you use AI to replace your customer service agents, you lose your competitive advantage.
After all, your agents know your customers by name. They understand the local community they work in and take a tailored approach to meet member needs. Therefore, it’s no wonder that community and regional banks have higher CSAT scores than nationwide providers on the American Customer Satisfaction Index. While technology may change how customers do banking, a human touch is critical for maintaining your competitive edge.
Lack of digital literacy among customers
Digital literacy, or a lack of it, can make or break your omnichannel customer service strategy. If customers aren’t comfortable navigating your online portal or apps for simple tasks, they may abandon digital channels and call instead, potentially increasing business costs.
In fact, at one bank Ozmo spoke with, about half of customer calls consisted of routine tasks such as checking account balances. As technology changes how we do banking, some long-term customers may find navigating apps or your website confusing. This can decrease your digital adoption rates and create lengthy call center wait times, which can lead to poor customer service experiences and potentially increase business expenses.
Legacy contact center systems
Your legacy contact center system can also hinder the success of your omnichannel support strategy. Not only are legacy systems expensive to maintain, but if they don’t integrate with modern call center technology, it can negatively impact call center metrics and the customer experience.
Often, legacy systems operate more slowly, which can pose a real challenge for your customer service strategy. Two-thirds of customers expect businesses to respond to them within five minutes. If your legacy tools take nearly half that time to load customer data or critical information from your knowledge base, it can make it very difficult for agents to provide a positive customer support experience.
Additionally, if your legacy system doesn’t integrate with new tools, your agent may be missing vital information from previous customer interactions with your bank or financial services institution. Not only can this negatively impact the customer experience, but it can also hurt critical contact center metrics such as average handle time (AHT) or your customer churn rate.
Lack of live video support tools
Live video support allows your customers to interact with a real agent from the convenience of home or their place of business. A lack of live video support tools can lead to potential miscommunications or require them to come into a branch for complex support issues, which can create friction in the customer journey. This can raise the risk of customer attrition.
There’s no doubt that live video support is the future of customer service. However, the key isn’t just to do live video, but to do it well. Without a good video chat support tool, your customers have to tell, rather than show, agents the issue that they’re having using an app. In turn, agents have to try and troubleshoot or explain answers to complex topics over the phone.
All of this creates opportunities for miscommunication for both parties, increasing frustration and introducing unnecessary friction. As a result, customers might have to scramble to find time to drive to a branch to get help with troubleshooting or consult a financial advisor, and this can be a hardship for customers who are in a rural community or work full-time. This, in turn, can potentially increase customer churn.
How do you create an effective omnichannel financial services strategy?
Now that you know a couple of common reasons omnichannel customer service falls short, how can you create a strategy that actually works? Here are a few potential ways to create an omnichannel customer service strategy that benefits both your bank and your business:
- Consider updating legacy contact center systems or ensuring they effectively integrate with new call center technology.
- Leverage video chat support tools that allow customers to access human help from the convenience of home.
- Ensure there’s a way for customers to contact a real human who can help.
- Use technology such as conversational AI to help agents do their jobs better, rather than replace them.
- Consider teaching digital literacy skills so customers can navigate digital channels more confidently.
Omnichannel customer service is critical to success
Your omnichannel financial services strategy is key to the success of your bank or credit union. Often, when these strategies fall short, it’s due to legacy technology, a lack of the right technology, or using technology to replace humans rather than help them.
Banks and other financial services institutions looking to create a more effective omnichannel support ecosystem should instead consider implementing some of the tips we’ve outlined here to reduce friction and streamline the customer experience. Not only can this help improve critical contact center metrics, but it potentially helps minimize customer frustration and improve retention.
Are you looking to learn more about digital banking support? Our report incorporates original research with financial service leaders to help you understand common customer support challenges and how to overcome them. Download your free copy today.
