Bank mobile apps frustrating, confusing

Mobile banking should be effortless, but Forrester Research says far too many banks offer frustrating apps and give little thought to how consumers should interact with their financial institutions.

Mobile banking should be effortless, with financial institutions sharing data, offering helpful suggestions and automating frequent tasks. But according to a new report from Forrester Research on mobile banking apps, far too many banks offer frustrating apps that show little thought given to how consumers interact with their financial institutions - or at least how they should.

"Banks too often send customers to separate apps or web pages to view content. These experiences, which are often inconsistent with the main app, can feel disjointed and confusing for the customer," said the report. "Menus disappear or compete with each other, names and icons have multiple meanings, or links take the customer out of the app without warning."

One key example, noted lead author and Forrester senior analyst Peter Wannemacher, is alerts/messaging. Chase, for instance, marks its app icon on users' devices with a red number indicating how many messages are unread, but it is unclear where the messages are. Are they in "View Alerts"? The "Secure Message Center"? Even worse, users tend to expect the "alerts" to be on critical matters - a potential fraud action or an especially large withdrawal - but they are often actually about mundane matters, such as flagging that the regular monthly statement has been mailed. Alert fatigue quickly sets in.

Not so serendipitously, as I was writing this column, I received an alert from Chase. It showed one message in "View Alerts." I clicked on "View Alerts." It displayed a list of various accounts and payment cards, but it gave no indication of where the message was. I clicked on several and didn't find anything new. The alert notification then disappeared. Oh well. I hope it wasn't anything important.

"I literally use Chase as an example of how not to do that alert experience," Wannemacher said in a Computerworld interview. "It's very bad for the customer to have alerts that are all over the place." Wannemacher added, "Alerts are powerful drivers of engagement that every bank wants." I would quibble and say that that sentence needs to be modified to, "When done properly, alerts are powerful drivers of engagement that every bank wants." Done improperly, they can anger and confuse customers and ultimately cause them to cut back on engagement. In short, waste your customers' time at your own peril.

"Today, millions of US banking customers use apps to manage their money, yet these experiences rarely evoke positive emotions - some are frustrating and negative, while others are simply neutral and utilitarian," the report said. Forrester did find "a few glimpses of how banks can evoke positive emotions: For example, Wells Fargo provides in-line guidance on how to avoid service fees directly within the transaction list."

Typically, these mobile content issues are dictated by various product business units or marketing. But Wannemacher makes an argument that IT - and sometimes security and compliance people - must get more involved in the process. Referencing missing elements in some of these apps, Wannemacher said that "the IT folks, they have a role to make sure it's there. We talk about grabbing the steering wheel if no one else will."

In fintech discussions today, most argue that mobile apps need to go far beyond making existing banking tasks easier. The apps must take the next step and make consumer financial lives better. Bots, for example, can propose a budget based on a history of a consumer's activities.