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The Most Crucial Omnichannel Trends in the Banking Sector in 2024
So, what are the most important omnichannel banking trends that you need to pay attention to? We’ve prepared a brief overview.
1. Artificial Intelligence
The impact of artificial intelligence can be observed in most industries, and so is for banking. And, considering that AI can be utilized to create a truly omnichannel experience, financial institutions are slowly turning towards it.
How exactly is AI used to provide a truly omnichannel experience? It all goes down to its ability to process and integrate data while learning from it. Due to the use of AI in banking customer support, customers do not have to explain everything once again while switching from channel to channel – the data is integrated into one dataset and either aids the human advisor or is utilized by a virtual chatbot or teller machine.
And since we’re on the topic of virtual assistants in banking, these themself may improve the overall experience by helping you collect data on the interactions with the customers and aggregating them into a unified history, letting you adapt not only your responses but also aspects like the tone of voice, providing true personalization of communication.
2. Reducing Physical Footprint
Along with the omnichannel approach, banks strive to move their procedures to the digital realm, making their services more approachable for the customer. This requires combining several technologies, such as:
- AI,
- biometric authentication,
- intelligent data integration.
Utilizing these technologies enables financial institutions to develop in new ways, resulting in three smaller omnichannel banking trends:
- Digital contact centers – Building offices for skilled tellers and advisors where highly skilled specialists are focused on supporting customers via digital channels. These contact centers are not equal to traditional contact centers.
- Embracing omnichannel support – Introducing employees at physical branches to tools that enable them to provide support via digital channels when no customers are present at the branch.
- Eliminating unnecessary branches – Reducing the number of branches dedicated purely to small-product sales, like those on isles in shopping malls.
3. Leveraging the Optichannel Approach
While omnichannel banking focuses on delivering consistent experiences across all channels, the optichannel approach in banking embraces focusing on the channel that is most convenient for the customer. Yet, the most suitable channel might differ depending on what the customer is looking to achieve; therefore, these two are interconnected.
The omnichannel banking approach benefits from the metrics gathered through the optichannel one – the latter acts as the guide for the former and determines the key areas in which the particular channels need to be improved. Take, for instance, eKYC – the fact that customers prefer mobile banking when setting up their accounts drives those institutions that embrace the omnichannel approach to develop an authentication procedure that is simple and easy to conduct in the digital realm and requires minimal switching between channels.
Optichannel and omnichannel need to work together and banks are starting to realize that, searching for solutions that will help them embrace both these approaches.
Omnichannel Banking Is Becoming a Standard
Before, banks that utilized digital technologies and provided consistent messages across different channels were perceived as innovative. But now, the situation is different – the omnichannel approach has become a standard.
According to the survey conducted by Buddendick, Gnaurer, and Müller[1], in 2020 49% of the surveyed banks claimed that they do have a specific omnichannel management strategy. Add to that the fact that 80% of the responders in the 2024 in Banking survey claimed that disjointed experiences were the main cause of customer frustration, and you get a clear picture of why the current trend to adopt the omnichannel approach in banking is on the rise.
Combine it with the data from the same report, where 39,5% of respondents claimed that their institutions have achieved full channel integration or are near doing so. You can see that there is no time to spare – it’s the last call to introduce omnichannel strategies and solutions before integrated channels become a standard, and your financial institution will be a laggard, falling behind its competitors.
Omnichannel Trends in Banking: Conclusions
The omnichannel trends in the banking sector indicate that there is no time to waste – customers expect integrated channels and consistent experiences here and now. On the other hand, the tendency to reduce the physical footprint and leverage the optichannel approaches shows that many financial institutions do not only need to join their channels into one system but also reconsider how their resources are allocated – and adjust this to meet the current customer needs.
You may also like: How banks manage to sell complex financial products remotely
Sources:
[1]https://www.bankinghub.eu/innovation-digital/omnichannel-banking
