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A Customer-Centric Approach in Financial Services

Customer behavior and interactions have evolved to a personalized approach over the last two decades. Competition and greater reliance on technology for delivery of services are keys to this change in customer behavior. The importance of a customer-centric approach in products and services is far greater than ever before. The customer-centric approach involves many direct and indirect interventions through multiple channels (see Figure 1-5).

Figure 1-5. Customer centricity in financial services

The core element of customer centricity is a focused customer leadership. If the leadership aligns the strategy to become a customer- centric organization, the whole outlook and communications become customer-centric. Amazon has proved this and is now seen as the benchmark for a customer-centric approach. Understanding the customer and designing experiments to validate the hypothesis form the next steps in a customer-centric approach. Once we set up a successful connection with customers, we need to empower the front line, track essential metrics, and keep the feedback cycle. These are some indicative steps to achieve a customer-centric approach.

In financial services, primarily referring to retail products/services, the interaction points are many, and all touchpoints are critical to being customer focused. Banks and insurance companies deal with many individuals customers daily via multiple channels.

Digital interventions are redefining the ways customer engagement happens. There are some critical trends among customers accessing banking and insurance services.

• More natural interactions: The user experience is of the utmost importance. The customers are looking for easier access to products, an appealing experience, and easy action in a few clicks.

• More touchpoints and flexibility: The customer does not want fixed 9 am to 5 pm branch visits or no access on weekends. Customers want to be able to access and buy products anytime and via multiple channels. It may be a mobile app or a web app or phone banking, but they want more flexibility in how they interact.

• Responsive service: Customers expect that the bank/ insurer knows about them and is responsive to their needs. They want individual attention and appreciate responsive customer service.

• Clear product information: With so many players and products, customers want concise and relevant information to be delivered to them. Additional details they can seek with follow-ups. The customer does not want a pile of information or to get confused.

• Great value from the products: The product features are numerous and many times the customer is unaware of how to make the best use of them. Customers expect the bank/insurer to keep reminding them to draw the best value out of a product and if possible, offer new products that might be useful.

The growing digital presence of financial institutions also requires multiple changes in the technology landscape. Traditional database systems and applications are now becoming obsolete. Powerful endpoint computing (i.e., smartphones), excellent internet connectivity (i.e., 4G/5G), and cloud platforms are the magic trinity for a digital revolution in the financial sector.

In this course, we will explore the evolution and working of chatbots in many endpoint interactions with customers. While conversational agents have existed for a long time (remember the IVRS systems?), new technology developments have made them driven by natural language, offering customer-centric delivery of information. Chatbots are designed to carry out specific and structured interactions; the complex service interactions are still better served by an experienced customer service representative. In coming modules, we will cover different aspects of building a chatbot for an insurance agent.

Textbook: Abhishek Singh, Karthik Ramasubramanian, Shrey Shivam, “Building an Enterprise Chatbot: Work with Protected Enterprise Data Using Open-Source Frameworks”, ISBN 978-1-4842-5034-1, Apress, 2019