Traditional retail banks are at a turning point–both customers’ needs and expectations are changing, as is the competitive landscape. Customers are looking for multichannel sales and service experiences, but they’re not consistently receiving them. At the same time, other financial institutions and non-traditional players are looking for opportunities to redefine and innovate the experience. The result is forcing banks to examine a more balanced, integrated approach to their customer experience and growth.
Customer satisfaction must be a top priority for every bank. Improving the retail customer experience will definitely lead to improved customer satisfaction which bodes well for the sales and revenue of the bank. A bank has to ensure that customers are happy with its products and services so that they’ll recommend the bank to others.
To truly focus on crafting an excellent customer experience, your bank can develop OKRs. By creating goals and objectives pertaining to the retail experience, your institution can move beyond worrying about meeting profit and growth goals and turn their attention to meeting the customers’ needs.
Common Metrics
Below is a list of common metrics for calculating the health of your retail operations
Banking Cross-Sell Revenue per 100 Customers
You can calculate this by dividing the total dollar amount of generated sales through cross-selling at retail branch locations by every 100 customers arriving at retail branch banking locations over the same period of time.
New Business Checking Accounts Opened per Platform Employee
This can be derived by using the total number of Platform employees to divide the total number of new business checking accounts opened over a particular period of time divided.
Deposit Accounts per Platform Employee
This can be calculated by dividing the total number of deposit accounts managed by the bank by the number of platform employees working for the bank at the same point in time.
Suggestions for improving retail customer experience
The following are some suggestions for improving the retail customer experience in the banking industry. These suggestions can be coupled with metrics to develop measurable and actionable key results to reach your customer experience objectives.
Increase Your Speed
It can be extremely frustrating for customers when they have to wait in long, seemingly stagnant lines. It’s important to make sure your organization emphasizes efficiency and speed to help service customers as quickly as possible. By implementing technology and providing your staff with the right training, you can help to speed up day-to-day activities and improve your customers’ overall experience with your organization.
Offer Unique Experiences
Never forget that some of your account holders may also have accounts in other banks. In such a competitive environment, your institution needs to offer clients a unique experience to both retain the customers you have and to get new ones.
For example, Barclaycard in the U.K has a “Grab and Go” feature that essentially turns customers’ smartphones into wallets. Using the bank’s app when they shop, customers can scan and pay for their items using a mobile checkout. Instead of having to wait in line and fumbling through a wallet, the “Grab and Go” feature helps customers streamline their shopping and spend more time doing the things they love. Making life a little easier for your customers will ultimately set you apart from the competition.
Reward Faithful Customers
To reward faithful customers, you should offer them special promos and deals as an incentive. By showing your customers that you care, they’re more likely to stay loyal to your institution and recommend it to others. Customers should know that they’re important to your organization and that you value their business.
Provide Opportunities For Feedback
All business enterprises need to be more concerned about what customers think about them rather than what they think about themselves. Your organization’s perception of your services might be drastically different from your customers’. Therefore, it’s crucial that you provide customers with the opportunity to give feedback about your products and service.
Whether it be through email or social media, you should have a way to reach customers and ask for their thoughts. It’s important that they know their opinion counts.
But it isn’t enough just to ask for the feedback; you need to respond and dedicate your organization to making the improvements your customers are looking for.
Engage In Community Development Projects
Becoming involved with your organization’s community can help make the right impression on its residents. Instead of constantly focusing on the money you can make in your area, you should focus on what you can give back.
Working on community projects and showing your dedication to the town will help you build relationships with its citizens.
OKRs
Coupling these suggestions with metrics or KPIs will help you create an OKR that’s focused on improving your retail experience. Your objective can be as simple as “Improve Retail Customer Experience” and then you can create key results based on how you’re going to achieve that objective.
- KR1: Launch Smiley Terminal in every branch (% track)
- KR2: Launch a training program for the employees on new tools and technology(Milestone)
- KR3: Roll out a referral customer program(milestone)
Objective: Improve Retail Customer Experience
For the above example, the Type of KPI for KR1 is % track, and that for KR@ and KR3 are both Milestones. By improving your bank’s overall retail experience, you’ll ultimately contribute to your organization’s general customer experience and in turn, increase the bank’s revenue. Your retail experience OKR could, therefore, connect to a larger corporate goal or OKR like “Improve Customer Experience”, “Improve Brand Reputation”, which will ultimately connect to a goal like “Increase Revenue.”