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In recent years, financial services organisations have been measured on more than just their product offerings. Now, it’s about the overall customer experience, delivered on a consistent basis across all customer touchpoints, from digital to in-person. This is affecting customer acquisition and retention, as well as revenue and overall success. 

One of the most overlooked success factors for these organisations is how much they practice and display empathy with their customers. Technology is now becoming the primary way organisations connect with customers, especially over the past couple of years. To research this in-depth, UserTesting, a leader in human-based insight, conducted first-hand research into where financial services companies rank in terms of empathy and success.

Banking and finance

Customer empathy is understanding your customers on a deeper level – who they are, what they’re going through, and what their motivations are for using your product or service. It helps to deliver a more meaningful experience and to fully understand customer needs. Ad hoc empathy rarely leads to consistent success; instead, the strategy needs to be embedded throughout the entire organisation. 

Banking is just one of many industries that has potential to improve the empathy-driven experiences on offer. The UK Banking Empathy Experience Index (EXi) found that 34% of customers of traditional banks had ‘very poor’ or ‘poor’ empathy-driven experiences. One of the key issues is that traditional banks have a huge amount of data, but fintech firms have the technology and the entrepreneurial mindset; customers, of course, want a combination of all three. Fintechs elicit 12% more positive emotions for their customers than traditional banks, but despite this, 30% of fintech customers’ experiences were still classified as ‘very poor’ or ‘poor’.

Given these statistics, how can financial organisations assess whether they’re doing a good job of implementing empathy-driven experiences? Empathy is an indeterminate metric, so it can be difficult. That’s why UserTesting created The UK Banking Empathy Experience Index (EXi), enabling financial organisations to assess their empathy-driven experiences with a solid benchmark. This report compiles a plethora of insights and research, and draws upon three key recommendations for how businesses can improve their empathy-driven experiences and maximise customer loyalty.

1. Incorporate human experiences in the digital space

The future of banking is digital, but customers still want a connection. A lot of trust is required in banking, so those in-person touch points are important. Many customers, especially those who are older, miss the traditional way of banking – smiles, coffees and walking into a store to discuss your accounts with somebody familiar. This sense of belonging creates an irreplaceable trust that banks must incorporate in digital experiences.

NatWest focuses on customers’ needs at specific moments. It recognises that its customers go through different scenarios, financial peaks and hardships, and has consequently built experiences to help them through difficulties. Empathy-driven experiences include training employees to understand the signs of financial hardship, so that they can speak to customers and recommend services that can help them. The positive user responses to these initiatives shows that prioritising customers’ wellbeing and interests will help create loyalty organically.

2. Be the exceptional experience

Expectations are high and customers want ease and convenience. With every experience, brands need to know that they’re competing not only with direct competitors, but also customers’ last exceptional experience. Brands should look broadly at all industries, identify the best experiences on offer, then implement them. It can help to co-create them with customers, ensuring they align with the brand and their needs. In order to stay competitive and retain customer loyalty, great customer experiences are essential.

3. Employee experience matters

Companies must recognise the inherent connection between employee experience and customer experience. Employees frequently interact with customers, providing them with the empathy-driven experiences created by the brand. What’s often overlooked is that happy employees lead to happy customers. As fintechs and traditional banks create their customer journey roadmaps, employee experience must be mapped too.

If a customer’s negative emotions are recognisable during their interaction with a brand, then it is likely the employee will have negative emotions as a result. Training employees to feel empowered to handle customer inquiries without management approvals or extra assistance, will limit the tension during these situations.

In addition, employees need to care about their customers, as the customer will soon notice if they don’t. It’s vital for all brands that teams know they are a valuable part of the process and that their work counts for something. In turn, they will feel appreciated and happy, and will deliver the best service possible.

UserTesting enables every organisation to deliver the best customer experience powered by human insight. Discover more about how the UK’s banks and fintechs scored in the full EXi report here.