There’s an undeniable satisfaction while standing at the doors of your institution in the morning and enjoying the sight of all those immaculately clean, gleaming surfaces. Yet, an increasing number of your customers don’t see those surfaces — for them, the “front door” of your institution is its banking software.
Evaluating your banking app’s readiness to assist customers is a bit trickier than serving customers at a physical branch — but it’s important. A large and growing percentage of your user base reach for their phones when they have banking to do, especially since the arrival of the coronavirus. Here are a few important signs that your banking app isn’t really prepared to face the demands of the moment.
1. It’s Not Always There When It’s Needed
Trust is at the very heart of a customer’s relationship with their banking institution, and your users need to know your app will be there for them when they need it. Frequent downtime will erode that trust in a hurry, whether it’s a planned outage you’d scheduled for maintenance purposes or a software glitch that pulled your IT staff from their beds.
Unless you can deliver a reliable, always-available experience for users, your app isn’t ready to compete in their new, mobile-first world.
2. It Spends Your IT Budget on the Wrong Features
If you hope to survive and thrive in this brave new world of financial software — in the teeth of well-funded competition from the big banks and fintech startups — you’ll need to get the most return you can from your IT budget. Ideally, that would mean putting your time and effort into capturing actionable data and identifying (and providing) the features your users want most.
If the bulk of your IT budget goes to the overhead required to simply maintain your systems and integrate products from multiple vendors, your banking software is probably past its prime.
3. It Starts Things It Can’t Finish
Pick one of your institution’s core functions — applying for a loan or mortgage, opening a new account, getting a new credit card — and see how far you can get on your digital banking app before it tells you to phone the call center, switch to your institution’s website or come into the branch. If the answer is anything other than “all the way from start to finish,” it could be a problem.
Customers turn to their app first because it’s how they prefer to interact with you. Forcing them to call or visit the branch is a disadvantage your competitors can (and will) exploit to your detriment.
4. It Asks the Same Questions Over and Over
While you’re checking out the app from a customer’s point of view, here’s something else to try: switch between functions and see how much of the same information you need to re-enter. The correct answer should be “none,” or “very little.” Once you’ve entered information, it should be accessible to every function within the app.
Realistically, any information that’s in your system should be accessible to the app without the customer having to enter it manually. Anything less is a glitch of back-end integration. Your users won’t know that their information is spread across a half-dozen legacy systems, but they will know that your app makes them repeat themselves, and that can be a frustrating user experience.
5. It Confuses Your Customers
Having lots of features is a good thing, but only if they’re implemented in a way that makes sense for your users. While you live and breathe all things financial, the industry is a baffling, unknown territory for most of your customers. Giving them too many options, too many features and too little explanation can leave them overwhelmed and uncertain.
Remember, it’s their opinion that determines whether the user experience is a pleasant one. So go ahead and ask them, through surveys and focus groups, and if their responses may tell you where you have room for improvement.
6. It’s Impersonal
Do your marketing efforts include a lot of one-size-fits-all banner ads that pop up for all customers, or do your users see information and promotions that are specifically calculated to appeal to them as individuals?
Your banking software contains a record of every one of your clients’ financial transactions. You know not only where their money comes from, but also where it goes, how much they spend, where they spend it, and what they spend it on. If there’s one thing your app can’t afford to be, it’s to be impersonal in a world that expects personalization.
Deloitte’s 2019 Banking and Capital Markets Outlook found that most consumers were more emotionally connected to their favorite tech brands than to their banks. That’s likely because tech companies like Amazon and Netflix know their customers’ preferences, and show it with every interaction. Your app has the opportunity to do the same, using personalization and data to your advantage.
Leave the Past Behind
If your current banking software shows most or all of those limitations, you’re at serious risk of losing users to agile competitors with more modern, mobile-centric technology. The alternative, of course, is to provide your client base with current, state-of-the-art technology through a new app. Instead of trying to defend against member “churn,” you’ll be in a strong position to attract and retain members.
Lumin Digital’s platform provides you with exactly that kind of competitive advantage. You’ll be able to offer your customers:
- Zero downtime, with a cloud-native app that updates seamlessly in the background.
- Fully integrated back-office functionality (no legacy code).
- Full end-to-end usability, so your users won’t need to leave the app to do what they came to do.
- Data integration, so they’ll never enter the same information twice.
- A consistent, intuitive interface that presents clear, obvious choices.
- The advanced data analytics you need to fully personalize your product and service offerings to each user.
Contact us today to request a demonstration, and to learn how Lumin Digital can help you establish digital leadership in your local market.
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