By Francisca Stewart, Appway
Today, many companies still think that improving the customer experience would mean transforming their entire business from the ground up. That’s why they’re hesitant to tackle the issue, fearing that by doing so they’ll open Pandora’s box. But some have realized that although it’s important to view customer experience as a whole, it’s unrealistic to believe they can enhance the end-to-end journey in one go. Progressive organizations have found they have more success if they zero in on where the greatest benefits for the customers can be achieved—the so-called “moments of truth”—instead of attempting to make huge changes to entire processes.
One area of the customer journey that firms can improve is financial advisor experience, including the tools and solutions that contribute to this. Advisors are vital in many interactions with customers, so it’s essential for organizations to connect the customer journey with their journey. In other words, if the organization wants to provide a connected customer experience, advisors need to be given the proper preparation to deliver on that. Human interactions are relevant and meaningful in the course of the customer experience—this will never change. Organizations need to figure out what their client-facing advisors need in order to work to their best ability and offer the most value.
Imagine, for instance, a relationship manager working for a private bank. She’s meeting her client in his office and learns that he’s moving to another country to head up one of his company’s subsidiaries for the next year. The relationship manager notes these changes on a tablet app. This address change automatically triggers a new risk calculation based on the new country’s regulatory requirements and also notifies the compliance department to conduct a review of the changes. By co-browsing, the compliance expert instantly opens the very same screen with the updated risk calculation and can make an informed decision based on this real-time information. Via integrated chat functionality, the expert immediately lets the relationship manager about the decision. After this very short pause, the relationship manager and client can continue discussing investment options. The relationship manager is satisfied because she no longer has to go back to the office for compliance checks, spending time on administrative work and disrupting the customer experience. The client is happy to have a smooth, real-time, and responsive experience that includes advice which is nearly delivered right away.
Businesses can easily make such a scenario a reality by:
- Connecting siloed channels with a central orchestration system to achieve cross-channel consistency in a multi-channel system, so that customers don’t sense any interruption to their experience, even when they hop between channels.
- Automating to get rid of routine and unnecessary administrative tasks, freeing up advisors’ time for value-adding activities.
- Collaborating with and empowering advisors to better engage with colleagues, partners, and customers by offering transparency and enabling empathy for customers’ specific situations.
- Analyzing customers’ data to identify patterns and make informed decisions based on contextual information.
By addressing these four pillars, companies can enable their advisors to work smarter, focusing on activities that effectively provide value and improve engagement.
Francisca Stewart is the Digital Content Editor at Appway. Headquartered in Zürich with offices around the world, it guides the leading financial institutions, both big and small, as they build sustainable and scalable solutions that quickly adapt to changing conditions.