Banks and other financial service providers are facing unprecedented challenges. Not only are regulatory pressures increasing, but a new wave of financial start-ups is entering the market, using technology to transform everything from loans to payment processing. Whether it is new branch-based banking, different ways of raising finance through crowdfunding sites such as...
Twenty years ago, the majority of banking was carried out face-to-face through an extensive branch network and most consumers remained with the same bank for much of their lives.Three factors have dramatically changed this. Firstly, new channels such as the internet have transformed how consumers interact with their banks, while increasing the range of services that they can carry out themsel...
Every six months the Institute of Customer Service publishes its UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UKCSI). Run since 2008, the UKCSI both provides a snapshot of current performance by organizations across the country, and allows longer term trends to be measured. The latest index has just been released and is based on over 39,000 responses from more than 10,000 people, cover...
The amount of time – and range of activities – that consumers carry out online continues to grow. It is now the first port of call for everything from shopping and banking, to researching and buying insurance policies, switching telecoms supplier or booking a holiday. No wonder that in 2014 UK ecommerce sales broke the £100 billion barrier for the first time, making up ...
Across the financial services industry, providing a tailored, high quality customer experience is becoming vital for success. Whether a retail bank, insurer or provider of investment products such as pensions, organizations have to make the customer journey clear, seamless and easy to understand if they want to win and retain clients.The old model of a customer signing up to a bank for life or aut...
The reputation of banks with consumers has suffered a dramatic fall in recent years. Branch closures, misselling cases such as those around PPI and, of course, the part that banks played in the financial crisis have all contributed to low consumer trust in the sector. At the same time the UK government has made it much easier for consumers to switch providers, attracting new entrants to the m...
A generation ago, financial services products were primarily sold face to face, either in branches or door to door, with documents manually filled in and posted to their destination. Customer service was dealt with through the same, physical, channels. This has changed radically, with the introduction of first the phone, then the web, and now social media, as sales and support channels. Managing t...
Whatever part of the financial services sector you operate in, delivering an excellent customer experience is becoming a vital part of differentiating, increasing sales and retaining customers. However consumers are growing ever more demanding and less and less loyal. They want an excellent experience, whichever channel they chose – and they want it delivered quickly. Fail to deliver and the...
Showing the importance of technology to the banking customer experience, IT issues caused problems for some Lloyds Banking Group customers trying to use their debit cards on Sunday. The group, which also includes TSB, Bank of Scotland and Halifax, has 30 million customers across the UK, although only a minority were affected by the glitch, which lasted 3 hours.Lloyds has since confirmed that the p...
Last week the post in our series about effective knowledge management for customer service shared five top tips for successfully deploying and reaping the benefits of knowledge management in your organisation.Here we complete the series with a best practice example from Domestic & General, the UK’s leading warranty specialist. The company has transformed its customer service operat...