What Do Customers Want From a Digital Bank?

We all talk about new normal nowadays since pandemic is reshaping the world again. One question hasn’t answered yet that is what would be the new normal and how it is going to shape finance especially the banking industry? As tmob, we took this question in the centre of our project development methodology to fulfil the emerging needs of our partners, customers and employees. You may want to read previous blog posts regarding the COVID and finance discussion. In Next Generation Financial Services amid Coronavirus article we have focused on what services will be on high demand. Digital Customer Experience in Banking article is about digital transformation and how customer experience is going to the differentiator factor ever than before.

New Customer Demands

As the new normal has emerged changing customer demands may prompt a shift in banking priorities. Banks have to make sure that they are already get prepared for this change. So what are the new demands? Let’s first analyze new customers types, then we could deep dive into their demands specifically. 

New Customer Types

According to consultancy firm Accenture,  three types of new customers has emerged as follows,

• Nomads,
• Hunters,
• Quality Seekers.

Nomads

“This digitally active group is ready for new delivery models. They are willing to share their data in exchange for personalized services. Nomads are comfortable with computer-generated support and with receiving services from non-traditional providers. They make up 39% of banking respondents.” This is the definition by the Accenture. If you want to read more about the research here is the original article. 

If you read this, probably, you are one of the members of this subset. Even though pandemic was the reason for the job losses of millions, people who work in the digital industry mostly work at home and this lead to adopting in even new digital financial services never used before. This is where mobile financial services get popular. Keep in mind that, Nomads and Quality Seekers may have some common behaviours which will discuss more later on in the article.

Hunters

Is it obvious to guess these types by the name? Yes, you are right. This is the “opportunity seeker” cluster of the big picture. You may familiar with the people always checking promotions, coupons to get maximum profit out of any service. According to the study Hunters, behave like Semi-Nomads. They look for best alternatives, however, at the same time, they tend to one-to-one communication with real people not AI bots, or auto-generated text responders. Since the banking industry not fully transformed into digital would be better to label them as new normal’s most valuable segment.

Quality Seekers

Brand integrity, service excellence… if you set these attributes prior to other values you get from a bank, then you are a quality seeker. In this segment, profitability is not the first thing to consider when making a decision on bank selection. Moreover, innovation and new services may not be welcomed by them as well. To memorize the segment imagine what the old-school banking looks like. Trust comes first, but digital innovation may not be accepted quickly since there is no real human touch.

Above, we make a quick review of new customer types thanks Accenture research. Let us compare three segments and communalise “What do customers want from a digital bank?”

1. Trust

Either conventional or challenger, banks need to build a new type of trust to their customer base. This could be profitability, availability, personalization or innovation. We have trust as common in all three types. To achieve this,

• Deliver high-quality services either in digital or in-branch,
• Serve personalized products,
• And availability would be essential.

2. Innovation

Finance industry strictly shaped with regulations which makes it harder to deliver customer-centric solutions among other industries. However, the ones could achieve this will be in upfront in the competition. Think about Mobile Financial Services and e-banking in one basket. This is just an example where almost all possible new customer demands could be covered. Assume that you want to subscribe for a new video-on-demand service or purchase an application from Google Play or AppStore but you don’t want to share your card details or let’s say you don’t have sufficient balance at your account, the combination of Mobile Financial Services and e-banking make it easy. To have more information on how it’s possible, we kindly invite you to read Case Studies on our website. How Vive achieve innovative e-banking experience in UK market? Or How Vodafone generated new revenue streams by tmob’s MFS?

3. Availability

Last but most important one in every aspect. Since COVID has forced us to think about how we do our business and live our lives, availability and sustainability are what we looking most in every manner. For example, we wanted to do shopping just for a living however for the availability reasons, it was not possible in some cities in Europe. Imagine how it would be frustrating if you can’t reach your bank or needed financial services when it was necessary? Thanks to cloud technologies this is not a concern for many banks if they are working with the right partner. You may also want to read Digital Product Development for the Digital Economy article on our blog.

Stay tuned, stay safe!