The majority of consumers, about 81%, say they want more self-service options, but most businesses believe only 60% of customers would be interested. This 21% gap in understanding consumers’ needs means businesses are not focusing enough on increasing self-service options to meet demand. It’s no surprise that customers have come to expect digital-first customer self-service from their financial institutions. And fortunately, many financial institutions are rising to the challenge of the self-service revolution and taking steps to develop modern digital strategies that provide customers with streamlined service delivery, easily accessible products, and efficient digital banking platforms.

Depending on your institution’s offerings and goals, this could look like anything from automated customer service chatbots, digital onboarding solutions, or even complete digital banking platforms for both business and personal accounts. As with any digital strategy, success will depend on regular innovation, evolution, and customization to meet changing customer needs.

What is the self-service revolution?
The self-service revolution has been an ongoing digital transformation effort over the last decade, as customers increasingly have moved from face-to-face and telephone-based customer service interactions toward digital-first customer self-service models.

Top 3 Areas for Financial Institutions to Offer Better Self-Service Options

Better Chat Support Options

Chat is quickly becoming the preferred digital channel for customers of financial institutions across the globe. Despite this, only a shocking 31% of businesses offer chat as a primary digital-first customer self-service option. While this may provide short-term cost savings, there could be long-term implications of not meeting customers’ digital needs and preferences. Offering digital options like chat support is essential to meet the changing customer needs and digital expectations of financial institution customers.

An emerging channel for digital customer self-service is accessing self-service options or chat support through social media. Sadly, many are not yet offering service on this digital touchpoint due to the lack of internal resources or the fact that their digital presence is not optimized for customer support. Companies find themselves stumped by needing to provide excellent digital customer service while unable to ensure that the level of service they are providing is up to standard. It remains a challenge for many, but those who do make an effort to stay up-to-date on digital technology can certainly be rewarded down the road.

Improved Digital Account Opening Solutions

Banks and other financial institutions should prioritize digital-first customer self-service options to ensure quality and efficient service. One avenue to consider is offering digital account opening, such as digital identification and digital document scanning. This will assist customers with instant access to services without waiting in long lines or having their queries answered slowly over the phone.

Digital-first customer self-service offers numerous advantages for customers, from quick, efficient transaction processing to round-the-clock availability and enhanced security for online financial services. Banks and financial institutions that implement digital customer self-service can then focus on addressing other customer needs that can’t be addressed without a representative quickly and efficiently.

Full-Service Mobile Applications

It is increasingly important for financial institutions to provide digital-first customer self-service options via mobile. Apps offer financial services providers an ideal way to meet customers exactly where they are in their daily lives – on their phones. This digital convenience increases customer satisfaction, inspires trust and loyalty in the brand, and ultimately drives revenue.

With a full-service app, customers are granted access to a vast range of services, including the ability to open an account and even manage deposits, investments, and loans. Providing an interface that makes managing your finances easier for customers is beneficial not only for them but also for the financial institution. Having digital tools that promote convenience and reliability provides a more satisfying customer experience which will ultimately lead to positive outcomes in business growth.

Key Takeaways:

• A 21% gap in understanding consumer needs means businesses are not focusing enough on increasing self-service options to meet demand.
• Customers have moved from face-to-face and telephone-based customer service interactions towards digital-first customer self-service models.
• The top 3 areas for financial institutions to offer better self-service options are customer chat support, digital onboarding solutions, and full-service mobile applications.
• An emerging channel for digital customer self-service is accessing self-service options through social media.
• With a full-service app, customers are granted access to a huge range of services, including the ability to open an account and even manage deposits, investments, and loans.
• Digital-first customer self-service offers numerous advantages for customers, from quick, efficient transaction processing to round-the-clock availability and enhanced security for online financial services.

Digital Account Opening Solution

By implementing a digital account opening solution like IgniteConnex, banks, credit unions, and other financial service providers can increase their self-service options and onboard new customers much faster. We can help your digital transformation by enhancing the account opening experience and digital onboarding process for new customers. Access a cost-effective solution that can offer your financial institution enhanced security, a good return on investment, and scalable growth. Schedule a Demo to learn more!

Customer acquisition and retention are essential to the success of any business, including banks and credit unions. Unfortunately, getting new customers to sign up for accounts poses several challenges. On the one hand, fewer and fewer customers are willing to go to a bank or credit union in person to set up their accounts. On the other hand, most financial institutions have yet to implement effective digital account onboarding solutions. Customers may start an application online, but less than half may finish them. Research shows that as many as two-thirds of online forms end up being abandoned.

Why aren’t customers completing the account opening process, and what can you do about it? Most institutions’ current technologies aren’t meeting customers’ expectations for a fully digital experience, but more efficient solutions are available.

Banking Goes Digital

For the past decade, mobile and digital-centric ways of doing business have been steadily outcompeting more analog methods such as mail, telephone, or face-to-face. The lockdown measures and social distancing mandates imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic only accelerated these trends in early 2020. Customers increasingly want to be able to perform their tasks and errands from the comfort of their own homes, including their banking.

In 2020, more than half of customer-bank transactions were conducted over mobile apps or websites. Even as lockdowns have eased and most institutions have reopened for in-person business, many customers have found they prefer remote and digital solutions. Many are willing to trade their former loyalties for new companies that offer more comprehensive, efficient digital solutions. When surveyed, almost three-quarters of millennials said they would switch to a different bank if it offered a better mobile experience than their current financial institution.

Traditionally, if a customer wanted to open a bank account, they would have to go into their local branch location, fill out paperwork, and provide the bank with documentation proving their identity. Now, customers want to be able to open their accounts digitally. Still, banks struggle to find digital account opening solutions that offer the necessary security measures while providing customers the seamless experience they are after.

Why Customers Abandon Applications

In a Lightico study, 40% of millennials who had started a bank account application abandoned it before completion. When these individuals were asked why they gave up on the process, they described the experience as too time-consuming. Either there were too many steps to verify their identity, or the form had too many questions that made it difficult to fill out on a mobile device. 

One of the big draws of digital solutions to consumers is that they are quicker and more efficient than traditional solutions. If your bank’s digital application takes just as much time and effort as a paper application, customers are more likely to leave without finishing. Hybrid solutions are not a suitable alternative to a fully digital experience, yet some banks still require customers to come into a branch to complete the application process they’ve started online. Inefficient, cumbersome digital account onboarding processes lead to higher abandonment rates and cause customer acquisition metrics to stagnate.

How does digital account onboarding increase application completion

Digital account onboarding, done right, makes applying for a bank account more convenient for your customers. Applications that can be completed in just a few minutes from the comfort of home and are mobile-friendly are less likely to be left unfinished.

The Digital Onboarding Solutions You Need

Your digital onboarding solution must meet customer expectations for speed, simplicity, and intuitive design. Ten minutes is far too long for today’s digitally focused customers to spend trying to fill out an application for your institution; at a maximum, you can expect to hold their attention for about 5 minutes.

An effective onboarding process should take three to five minutes to complete. Here are the primary things to consider when creating your online onboarding process:

1. Focus on reducing friction for your customers. 
2. Limit the number of keystrokes it takes to fill out each question field. 
3. Make it quick and easy for customers to upload any supporting documents. 
4. Incorporate biometric verification where you can. 
5. Design a user-friendly application for use on mobile devices. And, remember that mobile-responsive designs need to be more streamlined than their browser-based counterparts.

IgniteConnex is a cost-effective and time-saving digital account onboarding system for banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions. Our advanced software minimizes friction to maximize speed without compromising security. If your bank is seeing digital applications get abandoned at an undesirable rate, we can equip you with the technology you need to achieve your customer acquisition goals and grow your business.

Key Takeaways:

• Customers prefer digital solutions in all areas of life, including banking.
• Many digital account onboarding solutions banks use are not optimized for customer experience.
• A lengthy and time-consuming application process can cause almost half of customers to abandon their applications.
• IgniteConnex offers high-speed, low-friction, secure account opening solutions for digital banking.

Ready to see your application completion rates skyrocket? Schedule a discovery call with IgniteConnex today.