4 Banking Customer Experience Trends for 2023

These trends are changing the banking landscape this year.

Want to create a banking customer experience that’s second to none? If so, you’ll want to keep an eye on the top customer experience trends in the industry.

“Customer experience (CX) is the defining competitive differentiator in the banking industry today, and for good reason,” states Hitachi Solutions, a company that offers technology solutions to banks. “Financial institutions that invest in the customer experience in banking have higher rates of recommendation, greater wallet share, and are more likely to up-sell or cross-sell products and services to existing customers.”

Here are four customer experience trends that will shake up banking this year and in the future:

1. Artificial intelligence. One of the most annoying customer service problems bank customers face: calling the bank only to wait on hold for what seems like forever while periodically being told: “Your call is very important to us.” That recently happened to me when I had to call a major bank about a credit card that was opened fraudulently in my name. This added to the stress of the experience. Fortunately, artificial intelligence (AI) is allowing smart chatbots to handle some customer problems and inquiries almost instantly. These chatbots can grab information from many sources, such as the bank knowledge base and CRM profiles, according to Hitachi Solutions. And this trend shouldn’t mean customers end up in chatbot purgatory with no way to reach a human being. “Should a particular request exceed the chatbot’s capabilities, it’s automatically escalated to a live service representative who can help the customer work toward a resolution,” Hitachi Solutions states.
2. Hyperpersonalization. This customer experience trend is essentially using data, data science and behavioral science to “deliver services, products and pricing that are context-specific and relevant to customers’ manifest and latent needs,” Deloitte states in its report, “The Future of Retail Banking: the Hyper-personalization Imperative.” Personalization trends in other industries, such as hospitality and ride sharing, mean that over half (51 percent) of customers now “expect that banks will anticipate their needs and make relevant suggestions before they even make contact,” Deloitte states.
3. Making digital more human. Banks are moving toward using digital tools to try to replicate that experience a customer used to have walking into a local bank branch and seeing their favorite neighborhood teller smiling. Examples may include using location and time zone data to give appropriate greetings (for example, “Good morning!” or “Good afternoon!”) and celebrating personal or financial milestones with congratulatory messages, according to Darryl Knopp, a senior director for FICO. “The digital banking journey needs to be intuitive, friendly, and transparent. Banking doesn’t have to be boring! Be enthusiastic and make customers feel like they made a great choice opening your app or website,” Knopp states.
4. Seamless onboarding. Increasingly, customer onboarding is being handled digitally to make it faster and easier. That means no more having to go down to a bank branch and fill out reams of forms in triplicate. Instead, customers may be able to accomplish the same thing while sitting on the couch in their bunny slippers. “By making onboarding an electronic process rather than a manual, paper-based one, banks make it easy for their customers to provide essential onboarding information from the comfort of their own home,” Hitachi Solutions states. “From there, banks can use automation to expedite key parts of the process, so customers can open their accounts much faster, further enhancing the overall CX.”

Want to stand out from the competition? Keep an eye on these trends and think about how they could be integrated into your bank’s customer experience.