Recent research commissioned by Avaya confirms that GCC banks are pursuing an app-centric relationship with both their corporate and consumer customers. With the closure of branches brought on by the pandemic, some banking executives suggest that five years of expected mobile app growth occurred in just the last year. And now that customers have had a taste of digital banking, there’s no going back.
But despite GCC customers embracing app-based banking, our research also shows that the interactive, human element cannot be taken out of the experience. For example, there’s plenty of excitement around intelligent chatbots, which can be integrated into banking apps and mimic real human conversations. But it will be a very long time before these bots can handle the entirety of customers’ demands. There needs to be a human ready to take up more complicated requests at a moment’s notice.
Indeed, even once they mature, chatbots will still make up just one dimension of customer support – the customers of both today and tomorrow require a holistic approach that encompasses a ‘Total Experience’. This brings together the separate disciplines of multi-experience (MX), customer experience (CX), employee experience (EX), user experience (UX), and everything in between so that they all work in tandem to deliver unforgettable and effortless interactions – regardless of channel, time, touchpoint or customer profile.
Our research shows that many GCC banks are a long way from achieving this Total Experience mindset. Forget about integrating chatbots: Many executives interviewed for our recent report on GCC banking transformation said that they are still struggling to integrate contact touchpoints into their customer-facing banking apps.
“Some banks have struggled to meet user demands amid this growth, finding that most mobile banking users need customer support for queries, complicated questions, or just reassurance, which is not always at hand. Some executives say they are trying to improve the range of functionality and customer support on their apps,” the report states.
To address this, our position is that banks should use an AI-powered experience platform that enables them to ‘compose’ the experiences they want to offer quickly and seamlessly. Whether it’s as simple as adding dial-assist to a banking app, or as advanced as using AI to match customers with the best agents, it’s no longer good enough to have to wait through long, drawn-out technology projects for new functionalities. Instead, new experiences can (and should) be developed on pre-defined building blocks that enable banks to compose the solutions they need on the fly – and deploy within days, rather than months.
Developing a Total Experience strategy isn’t easy. But it’s made less difficult by being able to compose experiences for both customers and employees on the fly, as needed. Head here to find out how to get started with composable solutions.
