In response to customer demands, banks continue to invest in increased multichannel functionality and set a goal of delivering a consistent customer experience across all channels. The result is an environment where consumers have little incentive to choose one channel over another and where banks have are faced with increasing complexity and costs.
A better solution may be for banks and credit unions to limit the functionality of all channels and to instead simplify the process of moving a customer from their preferred channel to the 'best' channel for different needs, thereby improving the overall customer experience.
As I visit banks across the country, the majority are seeking to stem attrition and maintain customer
satisfaction by providing consistent, integrated services across all channels
and encouraging customers to self-select channels according to personal
preference. In fact, nearly two-thirds of executives interviewed by CEB TowerGroup agreed that delivering a
functionally consistent customer experience across all channels was a priority.
With over 60 percent of multichannel experience customers reporting that both web and branch service offerings were consistent, it seems early efforts are paying off. However, this accomplishment has come at a price: trying to develop an 'omnichannel' experience is causing customer preferences to converge and overall transactions to increase, further increasing the complexity of channel maintenance, resulting in higher costs and amplified risks without the customer experience benefits desired.
Growing revenue, reducing costs, and improving customer
loyalty demands that retail bank executives consider a more strategic and
nuanced approach to multichannel development according to recent research from CEB TowerGroup, entitled "Rethinking Multichannel Strategy: Improve the Customer Experience Through Channel Differentiation and Proactive Guidance'. The research recommends three steps that bank and credit union executives should take to improve their multichannel strategy:
- Differentiate channel functionality
- Proactively guide consumer's choice of channels
- Formalize the process of evaluating channel performance
