I often meet CxO executives in financial institutions and fintechs who talk about the importance of the customer journey, but I wonder what they mean by this. After all, we all know that hold the line and the computer says no is the general experience these days.
Most of this is caused by underfunding and understaffing.
It makes me wonder if any leader in any bank, fintech or company really thinks inside the customer journey. In fact, a few banks I talk to have a specific objective that each executive must take a customer journey inside their bank at least once a year. I wonder what they find?
This hit me this week becuase I’ve booked a Disney holiday and the Disney website offers lots of experiences to add online. The thing is they are all sold-out within seconds aand, as it turns out, it is because the bookings become available at 12:01 am EST … for a European holiday when 12:01 EST is 05:01 UK / 06:01 CET.
I then rang Disney to discuss this and had a lengthy menu system to get through, followed by a message saying: “you are held in a queue and, due to high call volumes, your call will be answered in approximately thirty minutes”. This is Disney! This is the company who should be delivering the best customer experience ever. If this is the customer journey at Disney, then no wonder we have terrible experiences with every other company.
When I call most telcos, it is a terrible customer journey. If I call a bank, it is the same. When I try to contact most companies, it is the same. Even when calling the government to pay my tax bill ... it is the same.
The thing is that we have moved so far digitally, with the expectation that all things in business today is designed for the customer to serve themselves that, when the digital journey goes wrong, it is a complete mess. Underfunded and understaffed, the physical journey for customers is completely broken.
This then builds a huge opportunity.
Imagine a new company that focuses on ensuring every customer call is answered in seconds; where staff are 100% customer focused; where people are onshore and not offshore; where you feel really valued and loved.
In banking, this has always been where First Direct felt they made the difference. First Direct, owned by HSBC, is the UK’s leading and first entrant into call centre based banking back in the 1980s. Their main differentiation is that nothing is standard. No scripts. Call centre staff are not measured on the speed of closing calls. The banks focuses on the customer journey and satisfaction.
One legendary story is when a woman left her handbag on a train and lost her cards and cash. The customer service agent asked where she was and she answered Leeds station. Leeds is where First Direct is based and so the agent ran out of the office, met the woman with no bag, gave her some cash and ordered new cards with a hug.
Now, that’s the sort of customer journey we would all love but, these days, can you think of any company that would actually give you a hug?
Postscript: even First Direct is going downhill according to some.
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...