What new challenges are involved in customer relations with young generations as regards financial services?
There are several watchwords to take into account here, “digital”, “transparency” and “rapidity” in particular.
Faced with the wide range of products and solutions on the market, Gen Z expects greater clarity on the products on offer and their advantages. Transparency is a key expectation that can tip the scales between two banks.
These new generations expect to be given more autonomy and be able to carry out their daily operations via their smartphones, whatever the time of day and wherever they are. They only contact their banks when they have to, and most of them do so through digital channels. Then, of course, they expect to be able to solve whatever problems they come up against via their smartphones. This distance aspect has come has become even more prevalent since the pandemic.
As technology enables digitised clients to change banks more and more easily, all financial sector actors will have to adapt to these new expectations if they are going to remain competitive.
What recommendations would you make to so-called “traditional” banks to help them better meet these challenges?
The key challenge for so-called “traditional” actors is retaining their clients’ loyalty as new actors emerge that do their utmost to appear more attractive through commercial offers that are innovative, flexible and often extremely creative (high visual impact communication).
So traditional banks must start by making their classical products attractive, as well as those less used on a daily basis. Optimisation of design and user experience of online interfaces and applications is a crucial point here, as most clients use them for their daily operations.
Personalisation of the client experience must then become “hyper-personalisation”: everything must be set up to optimise the banking experience and demonstrate product and client service accessibility, whatever the channel.
Neo-banks, fintechs and insurtechs are proliferating: what role do client relations play in their organisation?
Personalisation is already in fintechs’ and insurtechs’ DNA. These financial neo-operators are highly efficient when it comes to client contact, immediately understanding the need to adapt their discourse and products to a multitude of targets. Some of them are now part of our everyday language: who among us has never said “I’ll make you a Lydia”?
Such penetration of the market and behaviours alike is a sign of evident success. These actors’ main challenge is client retention: in the face of extremely fierce competition, their client relationship optimisation strategies mustn’t leave anyone behind. Just like more “traditional” actors, they can’t afford to ignore the influence of their clients’ immediate circle on buying behaviours: the more their communication is clear and inspires trust, the more chance they have of retaining their clients and influencing their circles.
How is digitisation and “everything online” achieved in client relations in the financial sector, and what are their limitations?
It goes without saying that digitisation of the financial sector is continuing at breakneck speed. So-called “traditional” banks are catching up with neo-operators’ flexibility and agility with increasing efficiency – essential when it comes to attracting and retaining clients ever more inclined to use their connected devices for most of their daily administrative activities.
However, this “hyper-digitalisation” doesn’t mean that advisors are doomed to disappear. Direct human contact and assistance is of special importance in the present context: the closer and more personalised assistance is, the more it will enable development of real knowledge and anticipation of risks. Hyperconnected young generations need to be much more aware of the risks that many online opportunities pose, and a close, fluid client relationship helps make them so. Finally, we must stress the importance of adapting client advisors’ training to these new challenges and risks, so as to help them better respond to them and ultimately retain their clients.
