Cementing loyalty in financial services: Integrating employee and customer experience

Creating a holistic experience is a process that requires combining formerly siloed parts of a business, and bringing diverse teams together under the shared objective of building cohesive, consistently excellent ways for internal and external employees, partners, and customers to interact with the brand or product in a variety of ways. In the financial services industry, this means putting the same people-centric focus on everything from brick-and-mortar branches to online and mobile access points like websites, apps, customer service portals (chatbot and human), and any other way that customers and staff engage with the business. The key components of this holistic experience are:

• Customer experience (CX) is the overall impression that a company has left on its customers across all parts of their journey. Developing great CX means understanding and addressing the wants, needs, expectations, beliefs, feelings, and past experiences of customers. It is more comprehensive than user experience, because it encompasses all interactions with a business. 

• User experience (UX) focuses on the end user of a product or service, combining business objectives, user needs and design best practices to optimise digital products for internal and external users. UX initiatives strive to ensure that what people see about products and services, and how they interact with any platform associated with the organisation is visually appealing, clear and easy to use. 

• Employee experience (EX) encompasses the different ways an employee interacts with people, systems, policies and their workspace (both physical and virtual.) For consistent EX throughout an organisation, the various systems that different teams use must all be considered. Including EX in a holistic strategy increases employee satisfaction and retention, helps employees build skills that can benefit the organisation, and helps to promote safer, more productive and more fulfilling work environments. This drives business growth by minimising costs associated with employee turnover, and encourages better interactions with customers and partners. 

• Multi-experience (MX) refers to a user’s whole experience with one application across a variety of digital touchpoints — websites, mobile apps, chatbots, augmented reality/virtual reality, wearables — using a combination of interaction modalities, like touch, voice, vision and motion. The purpose is to support a seamless and consistent user journey. Making sure that all touchpoints address clear and specific needs and that they’re consistent across different platforms and mediums is a key part of a holistic experience strategy. 

The process of working to improve all of these principles includes leveraging advanced analytics, AI, and intuitive design to anticipate and meet customer needs while also empowering employees with the tools and information necessary to deliver exceptional service. This holistic approach not only enhances customer loyalty and satisfaction but also drives operational efficiencies and innovation, and can set financial services firms apart in a highly competitive market.

Experience across industries shows that highly personalised services drive higher customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. A study by McKinsey found that 71% of customers expect brand personalisation and 76% get frustrated if it’s not provided. 

Historically, financial services companies have not offered highly personalised products, services, or options to their customers the way other industries have. For example, airlines have long used dynamic pricing to adjust their ticket prices according to demand, seasonality and flight time, but banks and credit card providers offer basic tiered rates that either don’t consider the individual’s circumstances, or only examine limited data. 

Recent digital innovations, such as those in GenAI, provide new opportunities for financial services providers to uncover new stakeholder insights, and then better act to meet their needs. For example, banks could use customer data and AI to analyse customer banking behaviour over time and suggest individualised, exclusive investment strategies, optimised saving plans, or even predict future spending to prevent overdraft fees. Additionally, credit organisations could offer tailored plans based on individual customer profiles and needs, rather than offering strict preset terms. This kind of dynamic pricing could also drive corporate revenues, enabling companies to be more intentional and informed when offering access to services.

The promise of AI extends further: predictive analytics will be able to help anticipate customers’ life events and suggest offers and opportunities based on the predictions. A customer’s spending patterns and browsing history could be analysed, and suggestions for financial wellness and/or credit increases for major purchases generated and shared. With more data and more robust analytics, financial advice can be more thorough and personalised, not to mention partially (or fully) automated with generative AI (GenAI). And unauthorised/unusual activity can be detected and addressed faster, limiting the impact of cyberattacks.

Customers accustomed to similar suggestions and optimisations from other types of industries are likely to have a higher opinion of their experience with a financial services provider than if this personalisation is missing. 

A key part of delivering excellent CX and UX means ensuring that all products are designed with every user in mind, including those who may have various types of disabilities. This means that differing needs should be considered and addressed so that all users get the same experience from products, services and applications, regardless of their ability. 

Basic accessibility begins with ensuring that website and app design features proper colour contrast, that video content has transcriptions, that photos have alt text, etc. However, over 95% of website homepages have WCAG 2 failures. Having truly accessible digital products will create a competitive advantage for financial services companies, and it can be achieved by using technology like the FINOS Accessibility Theme Builder. This open-source tool helps designers and developers easily comply with accessibility standards by allowing designers to input customised design files, then quickly outputting machine readable files that ensure safe styles for people with dyslexia, colour blindness, and motion sensitivity.  

In addition to applying standard website/application best practices and complying with accessibility requirements, innovations in financial services are giving those with disabilities more control over their financial lives. For example, the "Voice Card" is a credit/debit card that pairs with an app on a user’s smartphone, and vocalises transactions so that people with visual impairments can hear the steps of any transaction and be assured that they’re being charged the correct amount.

Beyond generating positive reactions from those with disabilities who are already customers, demonstrating high attention to accessibility can widen a company’s user base. The Return on Disability Report shows that the disability market includes more than 1.85 billion people, and that friends and family of the disabled are often influenced to choose brands that are more accessible. These groups are estimated to have over $13 billion in disposable income, so being inclusive can also be lucrative. 

Historically, many people with fewer assets, or those who lived in remote areas, were denied access to the kinds of financial services that could help them improve their circumstances. Technology is a powerful force that is beginning to change this, by helping consumers around the world manage the often complicated details surrounding budgeting, goal setting, investing and more. 

With the creation of online banks, consumers in previously excluded geographic locations or social groups now have the means to accomplish what others in more developed areas have been able to do for years. 

For example, Fintech Farm founder Dmytro Dubilet seeks to build “a future where banking transcends mere transactions, transforming into a comprehensive experience driven by social connectivity and technological innovation.” This kind of equal access to services not only gives users the ability to build and manage their finances, it also expands the customer base and potential profits for financial institutions.

Since there is a growing global shortage of technology professionals, organisations that want to create a positive experience for their customers must also design desirable work environments for their employees. Developer experience is a subset of EX that is important to technical staff, and enhancing it can have a positive ripple effect on CX, UX and MX.

The top two recommendations of the Developer Happiness Report for leaders to attract and retain top developer talent is to let developers focus on coding, and showcase their skills. Applications of generative AI are already serving to cut down the most repetitive and least interesting tasks, and giving developers more time to focus on the more rewarding parts of their job — creating products and features that deliver business and user value.  

A way to enhance the job satisfaction of all employees is to leverage GenAI to help create personalised learning opportunities. The American Psychological Association reports that 91% of respondents to their 2023 Work in America workforce survey said it is somewhat or very important to have a job where they consistently have opportunities to learn. But only 47% say their employer offers educational opportunities. 

Financial services companies can give their staff growth opportunities by creating digital repositories that use GenAI to turn their senior employees into educators and develop personalised training plans — like their own version of Khan Academy. 

An example of how this might play out is an analyst at a wealth management company with the goal of becoming a wealth manager. The analyst can use the company knowledge base to get guidance on the steps they should take to work toward becoming a wealth manager, and follow a bespoke plan to get there. This increases employee experience by developing the skills of current staff, which increases their satisfaction with their career trajectory within the company. The employer benefits as well, because the employee uses their new skills to create higher value contributions, which can positively impact productivity and the customer experience as well.

Adopting a holistic and inclusive experience strategy can help an organisation stand out from their peers in a crowded marketplace. Specifically for financial services companies seeking to entice customers and top talent, putting a little extra focus on the details that drive satisfaction can make a big difference. 

A Qualtrics study identified the top 25 brands with the highest customer loyalty, and interestingly, there are no financial services in the top ten, and only two on the list of 25 for 2023 (Discover and PayPal). This highlights a powerful opportunity for financial services organisations. By investing in a holistic experience, they can strengthen an area that many of their competitors haven’t yet focused on, which can increase market share and set the stage for increased customer and employee loyalty in the future. 

Some newer additions to the financial field are exploring the power of superior customer experience to compete with more established brands. For example, Forrester’s European Banking Customer Experience Index Rankings, 2023 shows that CX ratings for challenger banks are higher than those of traditional banks in Europe. Revolut, a challenger bank, has often has achieved a higher employee rating on Glassdoor than the average for employers within the financial services industry. This suggests that in at least some cases, the higher employee rating at the challenger bank may help create experiences that drive positive customer experiences. On the other side of the coin, legacy banks have more resources, so they can implement and fund initiatives to improve all of their experience categories more easily than leaner, newer challengers.

Transforming to a holistic experience mindset is a philosophical, procedural and technical process that encompasses all aspects of a business. It begins with a cohesive strategy and clearly defined goals that have buy-in from all stakeholders, and requires a broad digital approach encompassing UI/UX design, product development, data and AI expertise. 

Nearform unites all of these technical areas to develop solutions that build enduring impact for ambitious organisations. For more about delivering positive experiences, see The empowerment paradigm: Redefining success in customer experience.