Rethinking Multichannel Strategy
Wie die Customer Experience durch Kanaldifferenzierung und proaktive Unterstützung der Kunden verbessert werden kann.
Improve the Customer Experience Through Channel Differentiation and Proactive Guidance.
In 2012, nearly two-thirds of retail bank executives agreed that delivering a functionally consistent customer experience across all channels was a priority, according to a report from CEB TowerGroup. To maintain customer satisfaction in an increasingly complex multichannel environment, retail banks began encouraging customers to self-select channels according to personal preference, hoping this would provide consistent, integrated service.
https://://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUN_dNI9PT4
With over 60 percent of multichannel experience customers reporting that both web and branch service offerings were consistent, it seemed early efforts were paying off. However, this accomplishment has come at a price: cross-channel consistency is causing customer preferences to converge, further increasing the complexity of channel maintenance, resulting in higher costs and amplified risks.
In order to grow revenue, reduce costs and improve customer loyalty, retail bank executives need to consider a more strategic approach to improve multichannel strategy, starting with these three steps:
1. Differentiate Channel Functionality
Contrary to what retail banks may think, customers don’t demand choice of channel; rather, customers prefer whichever channel requires the least amount of effort. Capabilities and development costs of different channels are invisible to the customer, so retail banks should determine best-fit channel functionality for each customer need. By simplifying service offerings and tailoring each channel to serve specific customer needs, retail banks can limit and specialize channel functionality.
2. Proactively Guide Channel Selection
As stated above, customers don’t demand choice of channel. Rather than encouraging customers to select the channel of their choice, retail banks should proactively guide customers to the channel that will enable them to accomplish each task with minimum effort.
However, there are two main obstacles to effective guidance – the first is a lack of experience with non-branch channels. This prevents many customers from choosing the best-fit channel for their needs. Secondly, when customers have chosen a channel, they are reluctant to switch even if another channel promises easier resolution. In order to overcome these obstacles, banks should identify common service triggers and step in at these points to preemptively guide customers to the best-fit channel.
3. Evaluate Channel Performance
Following steps 1 and 2 of channel differentiation and customer guidance, retail banks should create a formalized process to evaluate the results. To motivate channel migration, retail banks could employ branch interactions to drive selection of online channels, proactively guiding the customer to the best fit channel. An exit survey would then be a good assessment of customer satisfaction with new channel experiences.
Quelle: Pitney Bowes
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