Bank contact centres must be ready to respond to complex enquiries
but can cut costs by improving awareness of mobile banking

LONDON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/Banking?src=hash” target=”_blank”gt;#Bankinglt;/agt;–The results of an extensive study into customer interactions with banks
have just been revealed by Clarabridge,
Inc., the leading provider of Customer
Experience Management (CEM) solutions. Amongst the main findings:
More than half (58.3%) of customers said that they are comfortable
carrying out their transactions without speaking to a human being at
all, unless they have complex issues such as loans, mortgages and
financial planning (60.2%) to discuss or they want to double-check
something (33.7%). In addition, whilst 92.5% of customers said they used
online or mobile banking, 11.9% said they were not aware of their bank’s
mobile offerings and just under 10% (9.7%) think bank mobile apps are
confusing. In fact, rather than using a mobile app 13% still prefer to
call and speak to someone.

The research was commissioned by Clarabridge amongst 1000 UK-based bank
customers with equal weighting between men and women and respondents
aged between 18 and 100. The objective was to build a picture of the
changing attitudes to banking, so that banks can identify where they can
improve customer experiences but also make important strategic decisions
about the services they offer.

Amongst customers who already use mobile or online banking, there is
wide acknowledgement that it is quicker (45.2%), easier (14.7%), and
gives a more convenient experience (15.2%), however, 8.4% didn’t think
they could carry out all their banking transactions on their mobile.

Despite more than half stating that they are happy to carry out
transactions without speaking to anyone, when all respondents were asked
how they resolve quick queries with the minimum effort, the majority,
37%, prefer to do this over the phone and surprisingly, 34.9% still like
to go into a branch. However, banks are not always able to respond to
customer needs immediately as over a third (38.1%) report that when they
have had to resolve an issue with their bank it has taken two or more
interactions.

“These findings show that there are some conflicts in how customers like
to interact with their banks, largely dependent on the query they have,
and to meet their expectations, banks must be ready,” said Fabrice
Martin, Chief Product Officer at Clarabridge. “Better communication
about all the functions that mobile banking apps can provide would help
banks to lower their cost to serve and reduce the effort that customers
are making to interact with them around simple queries. At the same
time, when customers call the contact centre, agents need to be prepared
with quick responses to quick questions, but also to be able to
efficiently deal with more complex enquiries within one call, which will
improve the customer’s experience.”

The research also revealed that customers are keen for banks to use the
mine of data they get from recording their calls as long as this is used
to improve the quality of services. In fact, 67.1% of respondents said
that they don’t mind if it improves services. This will allow banks to
extract information that can shed light on the most common queries, and
how these differ to second or third interactions with customers. They
can then improve their ‘First Call Resolution’ metrics by solving issues
on the first call without any need for follow-up.

“This is important,” continued Fabrice Martin. “Not only do banks need
to record calls to ensure they are compliant, they can also use voice
analysis for vital insight into customer sentiment and to improve
training for call centre staff. We can see that most customers only call
the contact centre when they have an important query, so the onus is on
banks to meet very high standards when these occasions arise and that
means call agents must be prepared.”

Additional findings:

Incentives and experience –
Amongst those customers who were
considering changing their bank, 22% are looking for better incentives
and 15.8% said it was for a better customer experience.

Being mobile –
Amongst those using a bank mobile app, 40%
use it to track their balance and 31% to transfer funds.

Clarabridge offers banks an AI-powered solution which helps them to
improve the effectiveness of the customer experiences they deliver and
enables more efficient collection of customer feedback across all
touchpoints. The Clarabridge Banking Solution also meets the banking
industry’s need for fast-turnaround implementations. Its modules are
customised to the unique workflow of the industry, which include
Complaints & Compliance Analysis, Digital Experience (Mobile App &
Website), Branch & ATM Experience and Contact Centre Experience.

To learn more about this solution for retail banking and other
industries, please visit: https://www.clarabridge.com/customers/industries/.

About Clarabridge:

Clarabridge’s SaaS customer experience management solution helps
hundreds of the world’s leading brands put customer feedback to work.
Offering the most comprehensive solution for omni-source listening,
accurate customer and text analytics, and real-time, guided action is
why leading brands trust Clarabridge to power their CX programs and
drive a customer focused strategy. The result: better customer
experiences. For more information, visit www.clarabridge.com.

Contacts

Zaboura
Maggie Zaboura/Julie Kirby
[email protected]
T:
+44 20 3588 0804