Modern banking is expected to integrate seamlessly into customers' daily routines, providing personalized and user-friendly digital products and services that meet their needs. As the primary point of contact, customer service is a key factor in maintaining loyalty and attracting new customers—especially with today’s low barriers to switching banks. At the same time, cost pressure is forcing banks to invest heavily in digitalization and automation in service centers and banking operations to become more efficient and reduce the cost per customer contact. To deliver outstanding service and manage costs effectively, banks need to implement future-proof channel strategies that meet their customers’ needs while using state-of-the-art technology.
As digital business models continue to disrupt the financial services industry, banks face increasing pressure to digitalize their organizations. To meet these changing demands while controlling costs, banks are automating backend processes and enhancing frontend products and services for a more seamless and efficient experience. While challengers opted for simple, highly digitalized customer journeys within a focused channel setup, many traditional banks expanded their channel portfolios and prioritized the personal human experience over digitalization and automation. However, this approach often resulted in unmanaged channel complexity, limiting the desired omnichannel experience and service availability that customers expect.
Two divisions are crucial for customer satisfaction
In banks, customer requests are typically managed by two distinct divisions: the service center and banking operations. The service center acts as the primary point of contact for customers with inquiries ranging from general product information to administrative change requests. The banking operations division is responsible for the actual processing of those requests as well as others like establishing a new bank account. Both divisions handle high volumes of requests and play a crucial role in ensuring customer satisfaction.
An effective channel strategy is essential for overcoming these and other obstacles and achieving a competitive customer experience while reducing costs per interaction. Direct banks have already seen promising results by implementing such strategies. We believe that the growing digital lifestyle and recent technological advancements present an ideal opportunity for banks to evaluate their customer service and operations maturity and chart a course towards the next level of servicing customers.
Four core objectives to guide banks through the transformation
Porsche Consulting defined four core objectives to guide banks through this transformation. These objectives have proved effective across multiple projects, leading to higher efficiency and improved customer satisfaction while supporting ambitious growth strategies.