The Future of Customer Experience in the Era of Digital

The Future of Customer Experience in the Era of Digital

Back Row (Left to Right): Aaron Everingham, GMC Software; Mike Dovey, IAG; Jonah Paul Cretser- Hartenstein, ING Direct; Antoine Hemon-Laurens, GMC Software; Niall Burke, TAL Life; Scott Anderson, GMC Software; Winston Su, QBE Insurance; Chris Taylor, Navy Health; Bryan Meredith, Rabobank. Front Row (Left to Right): Kristie Walia, Macquarie; Julie Simon, GMC Software; Linda Broady, Allianz Australia; Nick Dempsey, GMC Software; Claire Rogers, ANZ; Angela Greenwood, Mortgage Choice; Chris Kirby, TAL Life; Emily Bates, Colonial First State; Stuart Walker, Commonwealth Bank. The Future of Customer Experience in the Era of Digital Earlier this year, 18 CMOs, CDOs, and digital marketing leaders from a cross-section of Sydney s major financial services organisations met to take part in the latest installment of OmniChannel Media s Executive Dialogue Luncheon. Titled The Future of Customer Experience in the Era of Digital, the event was hosted by OmniChannel Media in partnership with GMC Software. The luncheon presented an opportunity for thought leaders to share insights on the challenges that the financial services sector faces with digital engagement, adoption, and omni-channel mobility. Moving forward, the goal to enhance the customer experience (CX) across digital channels will become central to innovation in the sector as organisations are forced to respond to increasing competition in the banking space. The keynote presentation was delivered by Claire Rogers, Head of Digital Banking at ANZ. Rogers opened the discussion through sharing some insights into how ANZ is creating opportunities by eliminating friction for the customer and putting digital at the centre of every business strategy. General Manager of GMC Software Nick Dempsey moderated the discussion, with input also provided from GMC s Product Marketing Director Antoine Hemon-Laurens.

Strategies in Creating a Better Customer Experience Rogers commenced by looking at how ANZ and the industry have built a customer experience strategy over the last decade. The history of digital in banks is a service story, Rogers began. Digital has been around 15 years and its agenda and strategy was to take the costs out of all the other channels. For Rogers, innovation is now core to banking culture with an ample appetite to experiment with digital. But service is not a customer experience, and it s not what drives people back, she said. So the first angle in reapproaching digital at ANZ, Rogers explained, was turning it into a core strategy. Our history has been to invest in building up front-of-house at the digital virtual branch and creating opportunities for customers to explore what ANZ is about and take pathways to allow them to become customers, she said. The second part of the story was how the bank went about executing the strategy. Rather than launching great big programs that cost a lot of money, she said that ANZ has had success in creating smaller parcels of work with agile teams. We are now pushing hard into continuous delivery, Rogers said.

Friction Points and the Threat of FinTech Hemon-Laurens suggested that based on current estimates, up to 60% of the revenue generated by banks trading in the traditional manner will be eaten up by FinTech. How are those conventional brands competing with this kind of compelling challenge, Dempsey of GMC Software questioned the group around their investments in digital products that will alter customer expectations. One way explored by the group was to focus on eliminating friction points like onerous interface and identity procedures while smoothing out the buying process; suggestions met with general agreement from the group. It was also noted that in looking to respond to the threat of FinTech startups, many organisations were entering into partnerships with this market segment. This way, organisations can attempt to tap into the best of breed with regards to customer experience innovation. Further, there was a consensus in the discussion that the speed with which customer expectations are reset has become a major point in devising digital strategy. It is affecting how digital teams work and the skills they need to deliver. In this market you can t set up a strategy and believe it will last five years, Rogers noted.

Driving Digital Within a Large Organisation On top of challenges around speed, efficiency, and customer experience goals, the group explored the challenges around managing innovation. Traditionally, financial services organisations have been culturally risk-averse. Thus, if senior management are conservative, it was an uphill battle for disruptors inside the organisation to get any momentum going on a project. It was suggested that a focus derived from management priorities on short-term sales was an impediment in sourcing realistic budgets for digital deliverables. For Dempsey, the way in which buy-in in innovation can be derived comes from ensuring that all projects look to create a transparent customer experience: Keeping a focus on developing an understanding of customer priorities in order to define a seamless end-to-end experience is how you can achieve buy-in. Rogers added that at times digital projects are born from sitting outside of the organisations larger IT fabric, which can be an issue in terms of innovation. We tend to shape and create things where it won t trigger the immune system. The younger digital natives are asking why are we going so slow? Bringing in key stakeholders right at the beginning security amongst them to work on their input on a certain project was crucial, Rogers suggested. Keeping a focus on developing an understanding of customer priorities in order to define an end-to-end seamless experience is how you can achieve buy-in. Nick Dempsey, GMC Software

The Metrics of a Good Customer Experience Organisations routinely put a number on operational expenditures and operational efficiencies. As such, if customer experience innovation is to occur, it is important to understand the metrics in which it will be measured. This was a challenge that provoked a lot of discussion around the group, as benchmarking success is important in driving great engagement. One view offered up as an example of the problem was that the metrics of marketing do not always convert to the same dollars as customer experience. Rogers offered a different view saying the power of digital gives you incredible insight to what is going on with the customer. Provided you have a baseline measure before you make a change, you should be able to see what changes occur in the customer behaviour. Dempsey added the qualification that it would be necessary to have the right analytics set up from the experience to make this model work. I think we (the financial services sector) often say customer experience is a bit hard to measure but there s so much data available now there is no excuse for saying we can t measure it. The power of digital gives you incredible insight to what is going on with the customer, Claire Rogers, ANZ

Conclusion The group concluded that there is rich opportunity to transform the customer experience in the financial services space. The sector has the resources to create greater intimacy between business and customer through driving innovative projects that change the customer s perception of what a good customer experience really means. Still, moving forward is not only a matter of technology as in hollowing out legacy systems, rolling out new digital platforms or removing friction points to gain competitive advantage. The dialogue found that the financial services sector might need to re-think its core business in order to create a deeper, more satisfying user experience. The complexity of certain products and the traditional values of managing a customer s finance can no longer be taken for granted in a world where FinTech innovation has reached its crescendo. This creates an urgent need for internal disruptors and CXOs to adapt to a mutual language of digital innovation.

About OmniChannel Media About GMC Software OmniChannel Media is a digital publication and events company that showcases the world s best in technology, innovation and disruption for the Australian C-Suite (CXO) executive via Tech Exec. OmniChannel Media also produces the Disrupt Series, a series of free-to-attend conferences for C-Suite executives. GMC Software helps companies communicate with their customers and employees. We empower organisations to create stronger engagements with timely and relevant communications. A Neopost Digital Company, GMC Software provides the means for business users to develop contextual, highly individualized communications across all channels that span the entire customer journey. A leader in customer communications, we support over 1,600 clients and partners in banking, insurance, healthcare and service providers around the world.