Best customer experience in banking blends digital with human touch

Even when they have the latest mobile banking app and a fresh website at their fingertips, sometimes consumers want their banks and credit unions to be a human face. Providing opportunities to talk to real people is a beginning. But it's even better when real people reach out to consumers.

People frequently beef that you can order almost anything in the world on Amazon, but you can’t have a conversation with a real human being at the ecommerce giant. The inability to easily talk to a person is a flaw shared by many financial institutions’ websites, according to Alyson Clarke, Principal Analyst at Forrester.

“You can’t find a phone number anywhere,” says Clarke of the typical financial institution site. “The avenue of help is hidden. It’s kind of gone away.” Too often, the push is towards self-service.

This is important because for both full-service and online-only banking institutions the ability to make an emotional connection with an employee is critical for maintaining an ongoing relationship, according to a research report by Clarke and August du Pont, Researcher at Forrester.

But Amazon does something many financial institutions haven’t mastered, or do at all: solid chat.

 

continue reading »