While established banks have spent considerable time and resources to embrace digital transformations, challenges in understanding what ultimately drives customer satisfaction and brand advocacy remain. 

In order to better understand the bank-customer relationship and create a framework for how banks deliver a humanized customer experience (HCE) that fuels financial institution (FI) satisfaction and advocacy, American Banker partnered with Monigle — a creative experience agency which explores how to humanize brands that move people — to conduct two large-scale surveys among a nationally representative sample of financial consumers. These surveys collected responses from a combined total of roughly 8,500 U.S. adults aged 18 years and older. The first survey, with 3,480 respondents, focused on the trends and attitudes shaping consumer expectations and behaviors in financial services today. The second survey, with more than 5,000 consumers, evaluated 50 leading FIs, such as large retail banks, small community banks, credit unions, online-only banks and challenger banks, on the factors proven to drive customer satisfaction and brand advocacy.

The ability of an FI to deliver an HCE was measured by using a model that was developed by Monigle. The HCE model’s framework examines four unique dimensions that feed into an overall HCE score. Each of these dimensions examines how an FI performs to better diagnose a prescriptive course of action to boost where an organization may be lagging in humanizing their customer experience.

How do financial institutions humanize customer-centric experiences with next-gen digital banking?

FIs that lead in elevating customer experiences are able to deliver on what motivates and engages consumers through all of the human senses — behavioral (physical and digital interactions), intellectual (the functional benefits of what people think), emotional (the implicit motivators on how people feel) and sensorial (the visual, auditory and olfactory cues on how people sense a brand). 

The key to a meaningful banking experience that deepens relationships and drives customers into action is delivering on the whole experience in a unified and integrated manner when a customer needs it — not just in individual channels or how the bank wants to engage. The good news is that, given the notable advancements with cloud-native next-gen digital banking platforms, delivering tailored financial products in real time is easier than ever. 

“Consumers want to access and manage their finances in a way that fits their personal needs and life goals.”

— Mike Santos, CEO, Technisys

Successful FIs have learned how to humanize the bank-customer experience in a way that has created satisfied customers who advocate for their brand.

What the statistics say when it comes to the importance of delivering customer-centric experiences.

Did you know that…?

• 93% of customer service teams say customers have higher expectations than ever before. (Hubspot)

• 75% of consumers say the pandemic will drive long-term changes in their behavior. (Forrester)

• 90% of consumers are happy to share their data to receive exclusive discounts on products they’re interested in. (Smart Insights)

• 55% of customer service teams report an increased customer preference for interacting over digital channels. (Forrester)

Additional findings from the American Banker and Monigle survey, are captured in this infographic, “Want to keep your customers?” — capturing some of the most salient points related to how banks can embrace digital innovation to deliver tailored financial products and services, while humanizing the banking experience.