The demand for a seamless customer experience (CX) is consistently soaring through the ranks. Gartner’s 2019 Customer Experience Management Study outlined that more than 74% of the businesses are competing to facilitate high-grade CX.
Compounded with the rapid digitization of the banking system, financial services companies find themselves under a lot of pressure to re-evaluate how they operate to be able to improve customer experience.
The traditional way of doing things has become outdated as customers expect an instant response and resolution to their issues. This expectation only grows in line with the rise of mobile technology, which allows people to access information anytime, anywhere.
As such, financial services organizations must adhere to operational agility and resilience — something that ServiceNow’s cloud-based Financial Services Operations (FSO) prominently facilitates.
Let’s find out how financial services organizations can leverage FSO to improve customer service.
- Empower Agents with a Consolidated View
Convenient service remains a myth when the entire system follows a fragmented operational approach. Here, fragmentation refers to a disjointed view across departments, silos within teams, and even between agents on different shifts. The result? Inefficient workflows, poor communication, and missed opportunities.
With FSO, all the employees are provided with a 360° visibility into customer-specific data, i.e., they can see everything about each case from start to finish. They also get real-time alerts whenever there’s any change in status. With this consolidated view, it becomes easier for them to collaborate effectively and provide better service to customers.
- Employ Virtual Agents for Self-Service
Harvard Business Review reveals that the average cost for a “do-it-yourself transaction” comes out in “pennies” as compared to a whopping $13 spent per B2B customer service interaction. Now, this doesn’t imply that self-service should be viewed as a go-to option across every touch point. However, having an AI-powered conversational chatbot available is certainly a win-win, considering the fact that 81% of the customers primarily prefer self-service.
- Leverage Process Automation to Manage Case Flows
The FSO process automation, in combination with AI, could help a financial services organization cut operational costs by 30% to 40%. Thanks to an intuitive and easy-to-use interface, customer service agents are equipped with seamless cross-departmental workflows.
Not only are they empowered to automate case creation but also to proactively act on trends that directly contribute to the enhancement of customer experience.
- Optimize Payment, Loan, and Card operations
It’s essential that banking customers receive timely payments and loan approvals. More than that, they must be able to generate payment queries and receive a suitable response for them. Favorably, FSO enables all these through optimized workflows for addressing credit card requests and payment queries. The single platform for loan servicing further enables teams (including loan officers and other associated agents) to collaborate for prompt service.
- Improve Support by Improving Agent Experience
One of the best things about FSO is its tremendous capability to complement agents’ efforts. First off, the agents don’t need to switch back and forth between multiple applications while working on a case, thanks to a consolidated view and integrated solutions. Second, the layout has been designed keeping agent productivity in mind. This means that they’ll find fewer distractions and less clutter.
- Use Predictive Intelligence for Effective Routing and Resolution
With machine learning capabilities embedded into the solution, FSO provides predictive intelligence to route cases based on historical data. For instance, if a certain type of query is trending up, then the system will automatically assign it to the right person. Moreover, a machine learning model would help the agent in working through an effective resolution by offering real-time suggestions.
- Facilitate Proactive Omni-channel Support
Modern-day banks must be ready to serve customers 24/7. To achieve this goal, omnichannel support becomes imperative. With FSO, you get access to a unified channel where agents can provide multi-modal assistance to customers. They can engage via phone calls, emails, chats, social media platforms, or even mobile apps.
- Use Advanced Analytics for Better Knowledge Management Across Support Staff and Customers
FSO comes packed with advanced analytics tools such as reporting, trend analysis, and forecasting. These features enable the customer service agents to gain deeper insight into customer behavior patterns and trends. As a result, they are empowered to make informed decisions regarding future actions. Not to mention that customers, too, directly benefit from analytics as they are kept informed about the relevant resolution plans.
- Ensure Operational Resilience
ServiceNow explicitly defines the process to ensure operational resiliency in the financial domain — reflecting upon a four-step process — anticipate, prevent, respond/recover, and adapt.
And perhaps the biggest advantage of adopting FSO is sustaining just that. In addition to providing better visibility and control over processes, the solution ensures high availability and uptime. Organizations can rest assured knowing that there won’t be any downtime due to technical glitches.
- Maintain Interdepartmental Connectivity
The most important aspect of modern-day businesses is collaboration across departments. And when it comes to financing, connectivity among different functions like accounts payable, collections, etc., is critical. That’s why FSO makes sure that every department remains connected to each other for business continuity. The idea is to bring the “front, middle, and back offices” together under one roof.
FSO is revolutionary for financial services organizations and redefines how these institutions operate. More importantly, it bridges the gap between quality service delivery and support. For an enhanced customer experience, that’s precisely what matters.
Need help implementing ServiceNow FSO? Let’s connect.
