Reimagining Customer Experience in Financial Services
Where does AI fit into a new customer service model?
Currently, there is no way around artificial intelligence at any initiative, event, or business appointment, and that's a good thing! Although agentic AI, LLMs, copilots & bots sound like buzzwords, these technologies have an enormous amount of potential if applied correctly.
In the financial sector, AI solutions are becoming essential to deal with the specific use cases and problems in banking processes, insurance claims, and asset management. In many cases, though, the human touch of customer support specialists remains the success factor par excellence.
Future service models assume that customers will continue to use financial services apps and will contact the business in case of problems and questions. At this point, employees are expected to be able to interact with the customers as efficiently as possible, making dozens of on-the-spot decisions to provide excellent customer service. What is the appropriate answer to this question? What is the tone of the conversation and how to suggest the next best offer? How is the interaction summarized and how to initiate further processes if necessary?
Many of these interactions can be enhanced with AI-driven solutions. Automating simple and repetitive tasks can help boost traditional KPIs such as handle time, first contact resolution, and dial transfer rates. This can also increase efficiency of back-office functions while improving customer satisfaction and engagement in banking.
Designing the client service model of today
The customer profile has changed significantly in the past years, as younger generations have become paying customers along with baby boomers. It is now a great challenge for financial institutions to effectively cater to all the demographics with such different expectations, needs, and preferences.
For the older generation, the change in digitization is certainly a greater feat of strength than for the young, that can translate to change resistance. 13% of baby boomers still prefer a physical bank branch over digital service. On the other hand, Gen Z expect their financial service providers to be on the cutting edge with digital-first, sustainable offers. In a recent survey we discovered that 65% of the younger responders in Austria encourage the use of voice bots, while among the 50-65 year-olds the number is only 37%.
In order to succeed as a company, you need solutions for all target groups, to know and address these different needs. Along the customer journey, there is always potential for frustration for all the reasons mentioned and more. However, if you recognize these obstacles and address the pain points, this can lead to personalized, appealing experiences that promote customer satisfaction, loyalty, and turn customers into brand ambassadors. 73% name satisfaction with customer experience a critical factor in deciding on their favorite brand.
Financial institutions can turn this in their favor by designing an appropriate customer retention strategy. The combination of self-service and company expert support helps gain trust in the long term and continuously deepens the customer relationship. This leads to increased customer lifetime value. You grow together with your customers.
Change from cost-centered to value-centered
Let’s assume that the service model in most financial companies today consists of a large percentage of employees dedicated to answering customer questions and resolving issues. Employees provide information, deal with complaints, carry out address changes, reset passwords or carry out status updates. Many of these requests could be replaced with self-service functions and AI-driven automated solutions.
Yet, it doesn’t mean that technology is there to replace every customer-facing employee. AI is an invaluable tool that can help businesses save costs and streamline simple processes, but the human touch remains essential for excellent customer experience.
Having AI handle mundane tasks creates an opportunity to focus more on building up additional expertise to guide customers through new technology, approaches, or value-adding products. In this regard especially, the trust and empathy of people continues to be in demand. In this way, step by step, you can make the transition from a cost-centered to a value-centered service provider.
Financial services companies will continue to need to provide new features, support, and flexibility. This is not new. However, the roles within financial services are evolving. These roles need many more tools to automate processes, enable multilingual real-time AI support, build better resiliency, and support regulatory compliance.
The Future of Customer Relationships
The future we describe here does not happen overnight. The immediate action for most financial services organizations is to make sure they have a clear technology roadmap that will take them to AI-powered digital future. Step by step, through adopting secure cloud-based environments and bringing together the right ecosystem of natively integrated specialized platforms, businesses will achieve the top level of digitization.
Are you interested in shaping the future of your CX? Let’s talk and we will help you design and sustainably implement a target image.
Philip Urban has been at Tietoevry Create since 2007 and has worked his way from a solution consultant and project manager to practice lead of Design & Experience and now holds the position of the CX Principal. Throughout his career Philip has worked across multiple verticals with a primary focus on finansial services.
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CX Principal, Tietoevry Create
