The Finance Digital Executive s Playbook for Adopting a Conversational Approach to Mobile Banking

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1 The Finance Digital Executive s Playbook for Adopting a Conversational Approach to Mobile Banking

2 Content DETERMINING YOUR MOBILE STRATEGY... 4 THE STATE OF ONLINE FINANCE... 4 THE BENEFITS OF A CONVERSATIONAL MODEL...5 DESIGNING THE RIGHT MOBILE EXPERIENCE FOR FINANCE... 6 THE IMPORTANCE OF A GOOD UI/UX... 6 PERSONALIZING INTERACTIONS WITH DATA... 6 HOW TO THINK ABOUT NOTIFICATION...7 THE PROS AND CONS OF BOTS AND AI...7 EARNING CUSTOMER TRUST WITH A 1:1 MODEL... 8 MITIGATING AGAINST PRIVACY AND SECURITY CONCERNS... 8 GETTING STARTED...9 EVALUATING YOUR CURRENT PROCESSES... 9 EVALUATING YOUR EXISTING APP... 9 CHOOSING THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGY... 10

3 Introduction We re Layer and we re pleased to bring you the Finance Digital Exec s Playbook for Adopting a Conversational Approach to Mobile Banking. The finance industry has changed dramatically over the last decade with the rise of mobile and the increasing convenience and popularity of mobile banking. We have a unique vantage point as a San Francisco technology company building both deep tech and all of the resources required to enable finance companies like yours to make a true shift to a mobile-first experience with 1:1 conversations at the core. Conversational Mobile Banking As a Differentiator Banks seeking to compete with upstarts and win millennial and boomer customers, alike, must offer either a differentiated product or differentiated experience. Providing a 1:1, well-designed customer experience on mobile serves as a strong competitive differentiator. Thanks for reading and please get in touch to learn how we might do the same for your brand. The Layer Team

4 Part 1 Determining Your Mobile Strategy The state of online finance The rise of mobile coupled with the convenience of online banking presents a rare opportunity for financial institutions to rethink not only the customer experience they offer but the breadth and depth of services they provide. But one cannot discuss the state of finance without addressing the mounting privacy and security concerns among customers, sparked by repeated breaches affecting even the longest-standing financial institutions. The good news is customers aren t shying away from mobile banking as a result, and banking apps are increasing in popularity. According to a 2017 Forrester report, 70% of UK online adults surveyed favor bank apps over websites for conducting financial activities on a mobile device. 1 Mobile as a platform enables better user experiences and the financial institutions delivering them are keeping existing customers and winning new ones. At the core of the mobile banking experiences where the best customer experience is provided is a 1:1 experience where the customer is paired with a finance professional in a conversation. 4 [1] 2017 UK Mobile Banking Benchmark, Forrester Research, Inc., May 30,

5 The benefits of a conversational model Finance has an opportunity to rethink its customer experience and meet its customers where they are. Today smartphones are ubiquitous and personal in the way a desktop computer or non-internet connected device could never be. Our smartphones are with us all the time, and always connected with notifications. This means finance organizations can be thoughtful and creative in how they design customer interactions on mobile. The most significant change mobile enables for finance is the ability to provide a 1:1 customer experience over messaging. It s through the messaging model that the banking representative or financial planner is transformed into more of a concierge, always at the customer s avail. The customer is made to feel seen and valued by being on the receiving end of a highly personalized experience. Let s imagine a millennial banking customer has a question about a scheduled transfer, for which he can t find an answer in his bank s app. If he can quickly launch a conversation with a banker in the app and immediately get a clear and reliable answer, he is given a far better user experience than the frustrating experience of support or phone trees. In both cases, the customers are connecting with the finance professional in a way that increases familiarity and, by consequence, trust and loyalty in the finance organization. Further, a conversational model in finance bridges the product research many customers do on the mobile web, and the action they take to purchase or engage on desktop or via a call center. The obvious friction is alleviated by being paired with a trusted finance professional who can assist in both educating and securing new finance products and services. And last, adopting a conversational model can help scale your staff to service many customers at once where they were once able to service only one at a time. At the same time, each customer is made to feel important and attended to, unlike the often cold and frustrating experience of calling into a phone tree. support or phone trees. Now let s imagine a baby boomer financial advising customer wants to understand if she can afford a vacation to Hawaii. Rather than sending an to her advisor or making a phone call and possibly reaching her, she can simply launch a conversation and get an immediate answer. 186% annual increase in customer satisfaction using messaging over customers not using messaging to communicate Aberdeen Research, 2017

6 Part 2 Designing the Right Mobile Customer Experience for Finance The importance of a good UI According to a 2017 Forrester report 2, good user experience drives business growth and profits. This is true across industries and banking is one of the sectors where the correlation is strongest. A good baseline rule of thumb is to construct a UI that makes it easy for your customer to accomplish their desired task, without getting in their way. According to the Forrester report, some common pitfalls of UI design include presenting customers with large, intrusive or irrelevant advertisements and upsells for new services and introducing unnecessary steps before a user can view account information. The most common missteps about mobile banking UIs though, according to Forrester, are a [failure] to guide customers through banking tasks, a lack of guidance and assistance when account holders are unsure and the fact that there s no way to get human help once logged in. By structuring your UI with a conversation at the core, making it easy for customers to simply ask a finance professional for an answer in a real-time conversation, those common concerns are eliminated. Personalizing the interactions with data A conversational mobile banking experience enables finance professionals to appear more knowledgeable about the customer in a messaging interaction by referencing account information and history in a way that recommendations delivered through and websites cannot. In a 1:1 model where a customer is paired with a finance professional, the financial institution can also infer need based on data. When these recommendations are delivered over messaging by a professional, they feel more trustworthy and informed than when a website offers the same. Adopting a messaging model results in 111% less effort required for customer service. Aberdeen Research, % 6 [2] European Mobile Banking Benchmark: User Experience, 2017, Forrester Research, Inc., July 24, 2017

7 How to think about notifications Notifications are messages that bubble up to the home screen of your customers device even when the phone is locked and not in use, and they re a wonderful tool for inviting customers back into your mobile experience or notifying them of important information. However it s important they are not mis- or overused. When designing your notification strategy, be mindful that too many notifications may cause the customer to silence them, thus eliminating your ability to use them as a tool. A great time to use a notification is when a deposit or transfer has been made in their account. This is a familiar experience for your customers that mirrors the same interaction they have in all of their favorite messaging apps. According to a 2016 Salesforce report, millennials expect immediate alerts when a transfer clears, an overdraft fee has been charged, a bill is paid or any other activity posts to their account. In fact, nearly three quarters of millennials surveyed prefer to be notified on mobile in such instances. 71% Chatbots can supplement a banking experience and help create a sense of presence in a conversation when the human financial professional isn t available. Some data points to the fact that millennials actually prefer to talk with chatbots because of the predictability of the interaction. But beware the pitfalls Examples of experiences that are consistent across all customers and for which AI should be considered are credit card and loan applications. But beware the pitfalls of using bots and artificial intelligence in all customer interactions, which can be apparent to the customer and create frustration if needs are not met. The right combination of these technologies is entirely brand and product dependent and it s the task of the finance digital executive to determine what their involvement, if any, in their customer experience. According to Forbes, Wells Fargo, Capital One, Bank of America and Swedbank have all posted positive results with chatbots, which use artificial intelligence to answer simple questions about account balance or recent transactions. Swedbank says of the 40,000 conversations a month its chatbot handles it resolves 81% of the issues 3. 71% of millennials want to be notified on mobile when account activity is recorded. The pros and cons of bots and AI Bots and artificial intelligence can be an excellent supplement to your customer experience and when used correctly can help brands master the art of providing easily accessed answers on the spot. In many support cases a bot can be every bit as helpful as a live human interaction. Chatbots can supplement a banking experience and help create a sense of presence in a conversation when the human financial professional isn t available. [3]

8 Part 3 Earning Customer Trust with a 1:1 Model Mitigating Privacy and Security Concerns In an era where data breaches are increasing in frequency, financial institutions can take steps to build trust with their customers simply by communicating with them regularly in a conversational format. According to Forrester, one of the most common questions account holders have for their banks is "Is the company operating in my best interest, and is digital is a safe place to engage with the brand?" 4 When left without access to a human at a bank, customers focus on criticisms such as: But when customers are paired with a human, they re far more likely to report being satisfied and trusting. 8 [4] European Mobile Banking Benchmark: User Experience, 2017, Forrester Research, Inc., July 24, 2017

9 Part 4 Getting Started Evaluating Your Current Processes For some segments of the financial services industry, creating a conversational mobile experience will be a natural progression. This is particularly true in the wealth management and private banking space where communication and engagement are already primary focuses. Business bankers and wealth managers already have the responsibility of maintaining 1:1 relationships with 500 to 1,000 (or even more) clients at any given time. Building fidelity with these clients is a year-round job that helps businesses identify the right time to introduce new products and services to an account. These trustworthy relationships can t be built during a first meet or even after five meetings it s a constant focus on maintaining the relationship via , phone calls, and faceto-face meetings. However, traditional means of connecting with clients don t fit into a smartphone-driven market. Now, financial services providers must evaluate processes and adapt to mobile-first clients. Mobile messaging offers a great way to scale the capacity of a bank s human resources, helping you provide more touch points, more contextuallyrelevant information, and more strategic meetings that drive results for both sides of the relationship. Evaluating Your Existing App Whether you re a small bank/credit union that hasn t had the bandwidth to build a mobile app or you re more established as a mobile brand, most banks are still spending a lot of money on support channel the call center. In reality, very few interactions handled by a call center agent are strategic enough to require one human s undivided attention. Layer customers that have moved to a hybrid messaging/call center experience have seen support agents become 5 or 10 times more productive, handling up to 12 lower-level inquiries simultaneously. Increasing agent productivity frees call center lines for reps to focus on the most strategic conversations. You reduce costs in the call center while providing a better experience with faster times to resolution for customers.

10 If you already have a mobile app, the first thing to understand before adopting a conversational commerce model is where your company s existing app stands. How would you rate its current functionality? Is it on-brand and something you would like to invest in? Does it have existing messaging functionality and if so, what are its limitations? When you have answers to these questions, you can implement the hybrid messaging model more effectively. For those without an app to build up, it s important to start with the existing website experience. The evaluation process should help pinpoint where solutions can be implemented within the website that will scale alongside your business. Later on, you can evaluate chatbots, robo-advisors, and rich messaging experiences that simplify customer support. Choosing the Right Technology Layer is the only Communications Platform as a Service company that not only powers its own complete messaging infrastructure, but also offers a full design kit along with best practices. Unlike companies that sell messaging by the pound, these components collectively empower your company s designers to create the best possible customer experience. With Layer, your financial services brand can create an infinite stream of communication with individual consumers that remains cohesive throughout the customer journey. The complete messaging infrastructure, coupled with a design kit built with industry best practices in mind, is the reason why large financial brands choose Layer and entrust us to power their secure messaging-based mobile experiences. 10

11 About Layer Layer is the customer conversation platform. We let you talk to your customers how and where they want to be spoken to, and as a result, do more business. With mobile messaging at the core, Layer enables you to aggregate other communication channels like and your website, chatbots, applications and analytics to bring together a complete view of each customer and create a unified, branded customer experience one that helps you close sales faster, support customers more effectively and delight people at all stages of the customer journey Get in touch: