Customer behavior is constantly evolving. There are many factors that drive behavior change – technology advances, changing needs, societal influences – but they all drive updated expectations and new demands that consumers place on the businesses that serve them. Leading businesses, regardless of industry, are in tune with their customers’ demands, constantly updating and adding to their business models and offerings in response to changing customer needs. This has been especially true in the financial services space, where over the past few years, banks and credit unions have created diverse, multi-channel offerings to meet the varied needs of their evolving customer bases.
The importance of implementing digital-first experiences to enable all manner of customer transactions had already begun to rise prior to COVID-19 upending our lives earlier this year. The operational efficiencies are compelling, and the increased flexibility it provides to the deployment of a financial institution’s workforce and assets enables the significant extension of customer service capabilities. The addition of a global pandemic that limits in-person interactions has accelerated the need for robust alternate channels to supply banking services to customers. As we begin to emerge from shelter-in-place designations across the country, financial institutions can use this opportunity to look at their entire ecosystem and chart a course that delivers the capabilities customers need in an effective, resilient, and sustainable way.
Fortunately, banks today have many choices in delivering self-service and digital-first experiences to their customers. Sophisticated self-service kiosks can accomplish many of the physical fulfillment requirements of transactional banking without the need for teller intervention. Core integration enables ATMs and kiosks to be full-service devices, accessing a customer’s entire banking relationship and enabling sophisticated banking transactions. ATM recycling efficiently fulfills customer cash needs across a bank’s entire network. Managed services enable remote issue resolution and immediate service dispatching, maximizing machine uptime. Augmenting self-service capabilities with remote video connectivity provides personal assistance when necessary and avoids transaction abandonment and customer frustration. Combining these capabilities allows a bank to deliver the experiences customers want, when and where they want them, in a resilient and cost-effective manner, bringing the bank of tomorrow to life today.
Read more about these capabilities in our new branch transformation paper, Self-service tools help banks thrive in a pandemic environment.
