A Guide to Mapping the Customer Journey in Banking

Understanding your customers' interactions with your bank is crucial in today's competitive financial services industry. Identifying the customer journey in banking provides a powerful tool to visualize these interactions, identify areas for improvement, and ultimately enhance your banking CX. This guide explores customer journey mapping in the banking sector, providing practical examples and outlining the steps to create an effective map for a financial institution.

What Is A Customer Journey Map? 

Customer journey mapping involves plotting the customer's path through various touchpoints – physical branches, online platforms, mobile apps, and customer service interactions. Banks gain valuable insights into customer behavior, expectations, and pain points when they visualize this data, hence the “map”, almost like a roadbook to discovering customer insights. This information provides a multitude of benefits: 

• Improving Service Delivery: By identifying areas of friction during account opening, loan applications, or everyday transactions, banks can streamline processes and create a more user-friendly experience.
  
  
• Understand Customer Needs: Mapping reveals customer expectations at each touchpoint. The banks can then tailor products, communication, and support to better serve these needs.
  
  
• Drive Digital Adoption: Mapping the customer journey in banking can also identify barriers to using digital channels like mobile banking, which not everyone may have access to. Banks can then implement targeted initiatives to encourage customer adoption, through incentives or other methods. 

Creating Effective Customer Journey Mapping In Banking

Identifying the customer journey in banking requires a systematic approach. Here are the key steps:

Define Customer Segments

Segmenting your customer base involves dividing it into distinct groups with shared characteristics. These characteristics consist of demographics like age, income, and location; financial goals such as saving for retirement, or buying a home, their credit information if you have a borrowing component, and banking habits like frequency of branch visits, preferred channels (mobile app, online banking), and types of transactions conducted. This allows you to deliver a more relevant and personalized banking experience, ultimately leading to higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Identify Key Touchpoints

Figuring out the touchpoints for your organization involves meticulously plotting all the points of interaction a customer has with your business. These touchpoints comprise of both physical and digital channels, forming the complete picture of the customer journey. Here's a breakdown of the possible touchpoints for a financial institution. 

Digital Channels 

• Website: This includes the bank's main website, login portals for online banking, and any informational microsites such as microsites for loan offers. Analyze customer behavior on these platforms, such as page visits, time spent on specific sections, and conversion rates for online applications or account openings.
  
  
• Mobile App: The mobile app is a crucial touchpoint for many customers. Track app downloads, login frequency, and usage patterns within the app (e.g., bill pay, money transfers, mobile deposit), and identify any areas where users encounter difficulties.
  
  
• Online Banking Platform: This is the digital hub where customers manage their accounts. Monitor login frequency, usage of specific features (e.g., account transfers, bill payments, investment tools), and any challenges users face while navigating the platform.

Physical Channels

• Branches: While branch visits might be declining, they remain a vital touchpoint for some customers. Track branch traffic patterns, reasons for visits (account opening, loan applications, consultations), and customer satisfaction with in-branch service.
  
  
• ATMs: ATMs provide convenient access to cash and basic account functions. Analyze ATM usage patterns, identify locations with high traffic, and monitor any issues customers encounter while using ATMs.

Communication Channels

• Call Center: This is where customers seek assistance with account inquiries, troubleshooting issues, or resolving problems. Analyze call volume, reasons for contact, and customer satisfaction with call center interactions, and identify areas where wait times can be reduced or self-service options can be improved.
  
  
• Email Marketing: Emails are used for sending account statements, promotional offers, and important updates. Track email open rates, click-through rates, and customer engagement with email content.

Gather Customer Data and Feedback

Gather Customer Data and Feedback: This stage involves collecting a wealth of information from various sources to paint a complete picture of customer behavior and sentiment across all touchpoints. Here are some key data sources to consider:

• Website and App Analytics: Analyze website traffic data to understand which pages customers visit most frequently, how long they spend on specific sections, and where they might encounter drop-off points in the online journey. Similarly, app usage statistics reveal user behavior within the mobile app, highlighting features customers utilize the most and identifying areas for improvement.
  
  
• Customer Service Interactions: Call recordings from the contact center offer valuable insights into customer concerns and pain points. By analyzing these recordings, banks can identify recurring issues and areas where service representatives can be better equipped to address customer needs.
  
  
• Customer Surveys: Targeted surveys distributed through various channels like email or within the mobile app allow banks to directly gather customer feedback on specific aspects of the banking experience. This provides valuable insights into customer satisfaction levels and areas for improvement 

Analyze Pain Points and Opportunities

Analyzing the data and feedback from the customer journey in banking becomes an exercise in customer empathy. You're looking for those moments of friction, confusion, or wasted time that create frustration for customers. This might involve analyzing website traffic patterns to identify pages with high bounce rates, indicating customers struggling to find the information they need. Call center recordings could reveal recurring questions or complaints about a specific process, highlighting areas of inefficiency. 

Scrutinizing app usage statistics might expose features that go unused or a cumbersome account management interface. On the flip side, the data can also reveal opportunities. Customer surveys might highlight a desire for self-service options for frequent transactions, while website analytics could indicate a need for clearer instructions during the online account opening process.

Implement Actions for Improvement

Based on the identified pain points and opportunities, prioritize actions that will have the most significant impact on customer experience. Here are some of the potential action items you can implement. 

Streamlining Processes: Can online forms be simplified by reducing unnecessary steps or pre-populating fields with existing customer information? Could loan application processes be made paperless to reduce manual processing times?

Enhancing Self-Service Options: Would implementing a chatbot to answer frequently asked questions alleviate pressure on the call center and allow customers to find solutions independently? Could mobile deposits or bill pay functionalities be added to the mobile app to improve convenience?

Improving Communication: Would providing clearer instructions or FAQs on the website address customer confusion? Could personalized communication through email or SMS keep customers informed and engaged throughout the journey?

Introducing New Features: Does customer feedback suggest a need for mobile budgeting tools or integration with popular money management apps? Could features like real-time fraud alerts or card controls enhance customer security and peace of mind?

Continuously Monitor and Adjust: Customer behavior and expectations evolve rapidly. Regularly revisit your customer journey map, incorporating new data and feedback to ensure it remains relevant and reflects current customer needs.

Addressing Common Customer Pain Points

Identifying the customer journey in banking often reveals recurring pain points that hinder customer experience. Here are some common issues and how banks can address them:

• Disjointed Experiences: Customers often find it frustrating to encounter inconsistencies across different banking channels. Banks can ensure seamless integration by ensuring consistent branding, user interface, and information across all touchpoints.
  
  
• Outdated Authentication Methods: Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is essential for security, but complex login procedures can be cumbersome. Banks can offer user-friendly MFA options like biometric authentication or one-time passcodes delivered through secure channels.
  
  
• Reactive Customer Service: Customers expect prompt and proactive support. Banks can address this by offering 24/7 customer service availability through various channels, including chatbots for basic inquiries and human support for complex issues.

Enhancing the Banking Experience

Effective customer journey mapping delivers a range of benefits for banks:

• Improved Operational Efficiency: By identifying and eliminating inefficiencies in customer interactions, banks can reduce costs and streamline processes.
  
  
• Enhanced Compliance and Risk Management: A well-defined customer journey helps ensure consistent application of regulations and risk management procedures across all touchpoints.
  
  
• Optimized Channel Integration: Seamless integration of physical and digital channels creates a more convenient and satisfying customer experience.
  
  
• Targeted Marketing and Personalized Service: Customer journey insights allow banks to develop targeted marketing campaigns and personalized service offerings that resonate with specific customer segments.

A Case Study With Omind 

Omind was approached by a financial institution to help reduce the time it took for one customer to interact with the bank in order to improve their overall CX. Action items such as manual entry of documents proved to be cumbersome, reducing customer satisfaction. Omind, through journey mapping, helped establish a digital-first process and improved the operations of the business by over 93%. 

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For the full study, please click here.  

Nurturing Culture of Customer Centricity

• Embed Customer Journey Mapping: Integrate customer journey mapping into the bank's overall business strategy. This ensures customer needs are considered at every level of decision-making.
  
  
• Empower Employees: Train employees across all departments on the importance of customer journey mapping and its role in enhancing customer experience. Enable them to identify and address customer pain points within their roles.
  
  
• Gather Ongoing Feedback: Establish mechanisms to collect continuous customer feedback through surveys, social media monitoring, and direct interactions. This allows for real-time adjustments to the customer journey map and ensures it reflects evolving customer needs.

The Future of Customer Journey Mapping in Banking

As technology continues to evolve, so too will customer expectations and banking experiences. Here's what the future holds for customer journey mapping in banking. 

• Omnichannel Integration: The lines between physical and digital banking will continue to blur. Seamless integration across all channels – branches, mobile apps, wearables, and voice assistants – will be crucial for delivering a consistent and convenient customer experience.
  
  
• Real-time Interactions: Customers expect real-time communication and support. Banks will utilize chatbots, AI-powered virtual assistants, and personalized notifications to provide real-time assistance and proactive guidance throughout the customer journey.

By continuously mapping, analyzing, and adapting based on customer feedback, banks can build strong customer relationships, encourage loyalty, and achieve sustainable growth. 

If you’d like a helping hand when it comes to marketing, CX, and marketing automation, Omind is your answer. Omind leverages AI to bring you a conversational platform that helps visitors engage with your business and turns visitors into paying customers. To see how our platform works, schedule a demo at this link today.