During the pandemic, social distancing became a priority for all industries and sectors, who moved a large part of their operation online, where they optimized customer service and quality of service. In its “Business of Experience” study, Accenture argues that 77% of CEOs in 21 countries and 22 industries, including finance, will forever change the way their companies interact with their consumers.
In its latest report on bank digitization, Mastercard states that at the end of 2020, around 40 million people became bankrolled in Latin America and adopted digital behaviors for the first time, from purchases in marketplaces, as well as digital payments and digital banking services.
User experience optimization guarantees higher profits for all industries, but more so for the financial sector, where customers spend 140% more when they notice personalized virtual attention, compared to those who have a bad experience, according to Harvard Business Review.
The evolution of digital banking in Latin America in the last year
Deloitte's Digital Banking Maturity report indicates that the banks that differentiated themselves from the traditional ones were the ones that focused their innovation on customer service, particularly in transfers and payments, personal finance management, investment services, and customer service.
Regarding Latin America, the study points out the following areas of opportunity for some countries.
For Chile, it argues that: "Account opening" and "End of relationship" are the aspects that banks should strengthen the most to reduce existing gaps, although they show opportunities in terms of the development of value-added services beyond banking. The level of development of the mobile channel is below the average for the region and is a key aspect to be developed.
As for Mexico, it points out that: although it is above the average for the region, there are still significant gaps against the leading countries and even against the global average, including differences in the customer and banking user experience.
Belvo's Open Finance 2021 study points out that with the pandemic the financial sector specialized in user information and argues that they imitated the Open Banking model of the United Kingdom in 2016, when the country issued a rule that required the largest banks to allow licensed startups direct access to their data through APIs, which allowed the birth of Fintech, Neobanks and Challenger Banks, who offered new solutions for each consumer segment. It also shows the services that underwent the most changes with digitization (during the pandemic) in the region:
- Payments, 47.3%
- Retail banking, 24.1%
- Credit, 15.2%
- Personal finance, 7.1%
- Business banking, 5.4%
- Other, 0.9%
The importance in the evolution of the financial customer experience
Digital Bank Latam believes that the future of the banking sector lies in the data collected, its real-time processing, and its integration into banks to become more competitive and identify problems, opportunities, and solutions. This clarifies that the new trends in customer behavior is to modify the value chains of the sector until converging in a single chain around each consumer need, eliminating barriers and ensuring that players (banks) can serve and solve different end needs to tip. In addition, it shows that during the pandemic, banking transactions increased 36%.
On the other hand, Salesforce argues that greater personalization of financial services makes customers more aware of the use of their personal data for the sake of better service, which creates a paradox because 63% of customers will stop using the services of a brand if they feel an invasion of marketing services and suggested that banks be more balanced in offering their services with personalized offers that reflect the unique needs of each customer.
Users became more demanding during the pandemic
The latest PwC Global Consumer Insight report ensures that more than half of customers are willing to abandon the brand due to a bad user experience, such as delayed telephone assistance, poorly focused treatment on social media or chatbot, as well as slow responses by human personnel in physical care centers.
The consulting firm considers that the customer experience is a "misunderstood" concept because many companies from different industries believe that if they create quality products that customers need, it is already an excellent service and it is not, and even exemplified that 84% of the companies that have worked hard to optimize the user experience increased their revenues. Therefore, 40% of consumers are willing to pay more for good brand care. The signature shows how often users made purchases during the pandemic:
- In physical branches, 42%
- Through a PC, 30%
- Online, through a Tablet, 33%
- Through a smartphone, 39%
- Through smart speakers, 37%
ACF Technologies’ Q-Flow software is one of those responsible for the advancement in digital banking, collaborating with Scotiabank, Santander, Bancolombia, Davivienda, among others, in the personalization of care, queue and appointment management, and integration of a service synchronization interface. Recently, the Chief Business Development Officer Head of Strategy & BD of ACF Technologies, José Miguel Munarriz, admitted that in the last five years, banking in Latin America has faced a massive transformation and the company continues to monitor, especially the banking sector.
“The changes in Latin American banking led us to virtual branches that can have different applications that can be used in a physical branch, app or from the web. At ACF, to share screen we incorporate connectivity, social networks, video calls, we have virtual and human executives. We can record video conferences to improve quality, and all with digital platforms. Each bank has its own way of doing things, but we have been able to adapt to each one of them and their business model”, he pointed out.
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