the state

of customer
experience
financial services
in
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Overview
Financial services organizations today are focused on building
accessible, seamless and secure customer experiences. The rise of
digital banks, payment platforms and fintech disruptors has created
an innovative and competitive customer landscape — challengers are
Contents
coming from all sides. Maintaining customer mindshare, reducing • Tap into the power of true personalization
the cost to serve, and driving agility through accelerated digital
• Move from digital adoption to digital satisfaction
transformation and customer experience (CX) are key to sustained
growth. And many banks have made significant progress. Retail banks • Improve data privacy and compliance
that excel in developing and applying customer insights while also with secure cloud technology
driving digital transformation grow 3.2 times faster than their industry
peers, according to Forrester research.

For insurance companies that are also facing rising competition, CX is

an opportunity to provide empathy, listening and understanding to
customers with whom they might not interact frequently. Some 70%
of consumers worldwide say a company is only as good as its service,
and that being listened to and understood is the most important factor
in a service interaction. But for insurers, gaining insights to optimize
products or processes, increase retention and conversion rates, and
find opportunities for efficiency is also top of mind.

Genesys surveyed 2,629 consumers and 690 CX executives across

Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East/Africa and North
America to determine the state of CX. From the financial services
industry respondents, we learned three key insights.
tap into the power of
true personalization

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KEY INSIGHT 1

Personalization is a largely
untapped opportunity
The data show that ROI for companies devoting time,
CX leaders: To what extent does your company provide
effort and resources into creating meaningful and a personalized customer experience?
customized experiences is growing. In 2021, consumers
said they are more likely than they were in 2017 to
purchase additional items, make recommendations to 37% 31% 25% 5% 3%

friends and colleagues and devote a greater share of

Extremely Somewhat Not at all
wallet to companies that consistently personalize their personalized personalized personalized

experience. Consumers under age 35 are more highly

motivated by personalization than older age groups.
What are your company’s greatest strategic CX priorities for 2021?
Some 37% of CX leaders in financial services
said their companies offer an extremely
personalized customer experience, less than the
average of all companies (44%). At a third of surveyed
financial services companies, the customer experience
is still “somewhat” or “not at all” personalized. To
close this gap, the top strategic focus area for CX
leaders in banking and insurance in 2021 is using data
and artificial intelligence (AI) for greater customer
understanding and personalization. For banks,
personalization represents a shift toward providing
advisory services; for insurers it’s a trend toward
prevention — personal lines insurers are focusing on
telematics, for example.
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CASE STUDY
Capturing data’s full potential
is key to CX success
Nationwide is a Fortune 100 insurance company with property,
casualty and financial services businesses. The company has
a rich history dating back to 1926 and ranks in the top 10 on a
wide variety of insurance products across the US.
Its customer value proposition revolves around price, product
and service quality, said Sri Sankar, VP, Customer Experience
Strategy and Engagement. “Our end customers want to have
a good selection of coverage and policies at the lowest price
possible,” said Sankar. And during interactions, customers expect
quality experiences that are “effortless, personal and reassuring.”
“In addition to the end customer, Nationwide is also focused
on improving the experiences of our intermediaries: Over 90%
of our business is represented by an agent, broker or advisor,”
said Sankar.
In partnership with the business units, creating these
seamless experiences for end customers and intermediaries
is the focus of Sankar’s team, which drives the voice of the
customer program — providing and maintaining the single
consistent view of the customer to the organization. Nationwide
has a wide range of products and a variety of channels for
customers to engage with the company. One of the key priorities
for the company’s CX strategy is to fully leverage customer
data to better understand customers’ needs and improve the
experiences across its breadth of products and channels.
Sankar said Nationwide is invested in using data to meet end
customers and intermediaries where they are — and provide
extraordinary care.
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CASE STUDY, CONTINUED

Leveraging integrated data

Connected, real-time data is key for any organization’s ability to

understand its customers and provide personalized experiences.
As data from various systems is brought together and connected,
Nationwide can deliver personalized experiences to its end
customers and intermediaries. When a customer calls, associates
know who they are, their tenure with the company, what products
they have, their contact preferences and more. This provides the
first element of personalization; customers no longer need to
explain or repeat themselves, said Sankar. But this doesn’t capture Key takeaway
the data’s full potential. “As customers move across devices and
Know your customer: The best way for
channels, we are continuously working on how best to leverage
companies to provide empathetic customer
data to deliver richer omnichannel experiences,” he added.
experiences is knowing who their customer is
Data and AI are instrumental to enhancing the customer and providing contextual guidance and
experience — both end customer and intermediary — by delivering relevant financial recommendations based
efficient, personalized experiences for all. on their journeys, needs and preferences. This
requires unifying data and improving listening
“As customers move across devices and channels, whether it’s using digital engagement

channels, we are continuously working to understand intent, real-time sentiment

on how best to leverage data to deliver
richer omnichannel experiences.”
Sri Sankar, VP, Customer Experience Strategy and Engagement
Nationwide
analysis to adjust in the moment or AI across
digital channels to gather insights. Companies
can also use AI to bolster voice channels with
natural language processing, speech to text and
sentiment analysis.

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move from digital adoption
to digital satisfaction

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KEY INSIGHT 2

The need to move from digital

adoption to satisfaction
Consumer behavior has evolved significantly since 2017.
How effective is your company in meeting customer expectations through
Voice remains the most popular CX channel worldwide, each of the following channels? (% selecting “highly effective”)
but digital is growing rapidly. Genesys Cloud CX™ platform
data shows overall transaction volume in financial Video-calling
services companies grew 169% when comparing Q2 2020
Voice
and Q2 2021.
Live webchat
In retail banking, the pandemic highlighted the importance of Voicebot
effective digital channels. More than half of US consumers Email
consider a well-designed banking app to be a primary factor
Self-service
in choosing a bank, according to a 2020 Deloitte survey. Yet,
Mobile app
pain points still exist — from clunky self-service functionality
Messaging app
to disjointed transfers across channels.
Social media
CX leaders in financial services are most confident
Text/SMS
about the effectiveness of their company’s human
channels — video-calling, voice and live webchat — in Chatbot

meeting customer expectations. They are least confident 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
in their chatbots. Data shows that improvements can be
made to self-service, a major priority for banks and insurers
to reduce call volume. Just 40% of financial services leaders
consider their company highly effective in providing a
first-contact resolution (FCR) — one of the leading
satisfaction indicators for consumers. Some 25% say their
company significantly minimizes customer effort. It’s time
to focus on digital satisfaction, as well as digital adoption.
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CASE STUDY

A clearly defined channel

strategy is a win-win
The Rabobank channel strategy framework
The Rabobank channel strategy is designed to drive
value for customers, as well as value for the bank. The
bank has three main customer interaction channels:
messaging either with a virtual assistant or live
agent; voice, which has become a bigger channel
for the bank since the pandemic began; and video,
which plays an important role in delivering empathy
for customers making big financial decisions.
The bank now makes 15,000 video calls with
customers each month.

Customer journeys are plotted on a two-by-two matrix,

with value to the customer on one axis and value to
the bank on the other. “For everyday banking matters,
the focus is on ‘time well saved,’” said Thom Kokhuis,
Head of Conversational Banking and CRM, where
digital interactions and self-service come first. Human
interactions are key to delivering great experiences
for journeys in the “time well spent” category, which is
high impact to the customer and the bank, he said.

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CASE STUDY, CONTINUED

The Rabobank channel strategy framework

For important life events, such as buying a new house or dealing

with bereavement, the customer journey progresses from voice
to video. With video “you can show your emotion and empathy,”
said Kokhuis, which really “makes a difference and boosts
customer satisfaction in these life-changing event journeys.”

Personalization and reducing customer effort are major focus

areas for Rabobank. To facilitate more seamless repeat
interactions — such as those between a customer and a
mortgage advisor — the bank’s CRM system identifies the Key takeaway
caller and routes him directly to the relevant person. They can Leverage the power of CX analytics:
identify 80% of callers and, by predicting intent, either steer them Companies can mine the rich data that
to the relevant self-service content or — if they recognize the digital channels generate to inform strategy
customer has already tried that — put them through to an agent across sales, marketing and service.
immediately. Powerful analytics enable organizations to
understand which customers are driving
Next in the strategy is adding new features like callbacks, which
interaction volume, what their intents are and
allow customers to hold their place in the queue without waiting
how to better engage them in the future. These
on the line, as well as forecasting and scheduling technology. In
analytics also allow companies to listen more
addition to increasing customer satisfaction, callbacks can also
carefully, align around consumer preferences
make agents’ lives easier. When customers get through, “they are
and eliminate pain points in the journey.
not annoyed or irritated by their waiting time,” said Kokhuis, “and
Empathy begins with listening.
that makes happy employees.”

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IMPROVE DATA PRIVACY AND
COMPLIANCE WITH SECURE
CLOUD TECHNOLOGy

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KEY INSIGHT 3

Data security is a key

benefit to cloud
Managing data privacy and maintaining
compliance and service quality while operating aging
technology are leading CX challenges for financial What are the top three challenges facing your CX function in 2021?
services companies today. These hinder financial
services organizations in providing seamless customer
experiences, through a lack of consolidated data and
analytics as well as a lack of a unified view of the
customer. As customers migrated from branches to
digital channels — and financial services employees
moved to remote working environments during
the pandemic — they became more vulnerable
to increased cyberattacks. The pandemic also
highlighted many of the limitations of aging technology,
particularly its rigidity and inability to scale.

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KEY INSIGHT 3, CONTINUED

Cloud and AI-based technology can empower teams with rich

data and dashboards, support them in the moment, offload
administrative tasks, and drive quality and consistency. CX leaders in
financial services cite better data security and risk management, and
better access to data across channels as the greatest benefits of
moving to the cloud.

What are the greatest benefits you have achieved by

migrating CX technologies to the cloud?
Key takeaway
Plot your path to cloud: Survey data shows the
53%
majority (70%) of CX leaders using on-premises
53% technology are considering the cloud. Cloud
platforms allow companies to benefit from
51%
industry-leading security, innovation and scale.
49%
They’re also much more energy efficient than
48% on-premises technologies. Genesys analysis
estimates that where every on-premises
39%
hardware deployment generates 38.99 metrics
26% tons of carbon dioxide, a cloud customer will
generate just 4.3 metric tons — almost 90%
less. The key question becomes which cloud
model is the best fit for your organization and
business strategy.

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the state
of customer
ABOUT GENESYS

experience
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experiences for organizations in over 100
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and AI, our technology connects every
customer moment across marketing,
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Download the global report Genesys pioneered Experience as a
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can provide true personalization at

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