ONBOARDING YOUR CUSTOMER IN AN ADVANCED DIGITAL ERA
Digital onboarding process has emerged as a critical step in both client acquisition and client retention. It enables seamless interactions allowing new customers to join the client roster while increasing the product share for existing customers. However, digital onboarding is often a challenge for financial institutions. Many a times it creates a fractured customer experience and a poor first impression. Very often it is because the process is not one hundred percent digital with several manual processes involved. In other cases, the digital interface itself can be complicated and difficult to navigate.
In t oday’ s c hal l e ngi ng market, majority of the consumers expect digital onboarding from their financial service providers. Banks are aware of this. And this is the reason why digital onboarding featured as the most popular technology for the third year in a row in 2020, with a third of banks and credit unions making plans to add new or upgrade their current digital onboarding mechanisms.
“Today’s banking customer is experiencing what digital transformation can achieve-whether it is Work from Home or telemedicine or numerous such other examples. They will accept nothing less than a perfect onboarding experience from their banks. To thrive in this new digital ecosystem powered by seamless customer journeys, banks will need to perfect their current digital onboarding processes,” said Padmanabhan R, VPProduct Management, Clayfin.
ESSENTIALS OF ADVANCED DIGITAL ONBOARDING
Here are some questions that you need to ask yourself while implementing a digital onboarding solution:
Is your solution giving your customer what they want?
It is imperative for banks to get a deeper understanding of their customer’s needs and pain points to ensure that the solution they are offering meets real user demands. Once you discover the obstacles that your customers face, it becomes easier to curate appropriate solutions. Whether it is ensuring a system which provides easy product discovery, data integration to make the digital onboarding swift and hasslefree or deploying a real-time monitoring mechanism to measure critical metricsyour solution should, apart from making a great first impression, also make the digital onboarding process seamless and smooth.
Are your customers finding digital onboarding easy to use?
Customers are already aware that the onboarding process is a bit tedious and r e qui r e s l e ngt hy f o r m- fi l l i ng. Therefore, it is the bank’s prerogative to make this process easily accessible and less complicated. This requires a userfriendly interface and interactive sign-up. One way to go about this is to switch to a guided snippet based-flow instead of long forms. These digital snippets should allow autofill and autocorrect options to ease out the data entry process. Another avenue of creating customer convenience is the option for autosave. This allows customers to drop out in the middle of form-filling and restart from where they left as per their convenience. These changes that might seem insignificant can go a long way to shape your overall customer experience.
Can your solution be securely and seamlessly accessed across channels?
It is important for banks to have a fullproof system in place enabling end-toend process management. This includes creating a fully integrated experience delivered through omnichannel solutions. This will allow customers to access all onboarding procedures through any device or browser or operating system. Another critical aspect is to adhere to all regulatory and security compliances. This can be achieved by integrating a national ID database, a check for blacklisted customers, and an anti-money laundering (AML) verification system to evaluate credit scores for potential customers. Besides this, banks should embrace emerging technologies to ensure a secure experience. However, more than mere technical sophistication, the integration of the latest tech into their onboarding process should be with the aim to create unparalleled customer satisfaction.
REAP MULTIPLE BENEFITS WITH AN ADVANCED DIGITAL ONBOARDING SOLUTION
Deploying a holistic and end-to-end customer digital onboarding solution will help banks gain more than digitization of banking processes. The most obvious benefit is acceleration of the customer acquisition process. Additionally, the entire process of enabling customers to get onboarded quickly and easily can remarkably improve your customer lifetime value and create a loyal customer base. And finally, as more consumers are moving to open their bank accounts online, the first impression a bank creates through a hassle-free digital onboarding process will result in lasting value.