Creating great customer experiences with Financial Services Operations

Financial services are no stranger to disruption. From fintech to blockchain and beyond, the industry has bobbed and weaved through a decade of constant change.

The good news is that this experience makes the industry uniquely positioned to lead through the challenges of COVID-19. The bad news is that those financial organizations that can’t rise to the task can lose the trust of customers counting on them in their time of need.

“The global pandemic has had unimagined ripple effects on consumers and businesses, presenting an opportunity for financial institutions to earn customer trust in this dire time of need,” said Laurén Robbins, general manager of Financial Services at ServiceNow.

This is an important moment for the financial service industry, and those that can deliver consistently stellar customer experiences are more likely to rise to the top.

• The key to great customer experiences

It’s been said that trust is the ultimate human currency. It can’t be bought and, once attained, can be lost in an instant. For financial institutions, this is especially true, which is why the ability to deliver great customer experiences even while responding to the massive spike in customer requests is critical.

In a 2018 North America Banking Operations Survey, Accenture found 74% of bank operations leaders say customer experience is their top strategic priority.

Creating customer experiences that lead to enduring trust and loyalty begins with building a truly connected financial institution.

This goes far beyond creating a slick customer interface. Many financial institutions have focused their digital efforts on the engagement layer, but the key to delivering truly exceptional customer experiences is the ability to connect the front office to the rest of the organization.

In 2018, JPMorgan Chase spent about 40% of its time in global operations on servicing client accounts, including answering queries.

“As we develop systems to better direct those requests, we will spend less time searching for answers and more time responding to client needs.”

Fragmentation across systems and departments is the prime culprit for this damaging lack of agility and operational resilience. Because when the front, middle, and back offices can’t connect, customers can’t get the services and answers they need.

• Reaping the rewards of connection

With today’s growing cost pressures and low-interest-rate environment, margins are thinner than ever. Inefficiency is expensive—unwieldy processes and disconnected systems lead to lower productivity and soaring compliance and audit costs. The financial institutions that have already backed their engagement layer with connected operations are reaping the rewards.

According to a recent McKinsey analysis, scaling up to the entire global banking industry might generate a new value of $30 billion or more, assuming core business processes representing 15-20% of spending could be digitally streamlined to improve productivity by 8-10%.

• Introducing new Financial Services Operations

Today, employees in operations at financial institutions spend too much time searching for data and answers scattered across multiple systems and departments. Employees often manage these workflows with spreadsheets and emails, which leave customers with slow turnaround times and limited visibility when they interact with their financial institution. The new Financial Services Operations product will transform operational processes and empower employees from the front through the back office to deliver differentiated customer experiences.

ServiceNow’s vision is to connect the entire financial institution with one platform, delivering industry-specific digital workflows that allow these firms to automate operations and deliver reliable experiences that build trust.

“Open Banking has become increasingly recognized across the globe as the way forward to modernize banking practices over the last few years,” said Hans Tesselaar, Executive Director at Banking Industry Architecture Network (BIAN).

“Now, amid the seismic shifts happening in the way banks work, digitizing, streamlining, and connecting their operations, a single platform, based on industry standards, like ServiceNow is more important than ever. Banks will be able to ensure business continuity while also providing amazing experiences to their employees across the globe.”

The next frontier for financial services will be to transform the customer experience with modernized operations from front to back. This is why ServiceNow has worked with more than 900 financial institutions that run their business on the Now Platform® to develop Financial Services Operations, our first industry product purpose-built for financial services, which will be generally available later this year.

Financial Services Operations will enable financial institutions to increase employee productivity, significantly reduce operating and compliance costs, and strengthen customer loyalty. Employees in operations will finally have access to one single system of action to aggregate insights across systems of record, manage processes end-to-end, and collaborate in real-time across departments. Product highlights include:

• Banking services framework, compliant with Banking Industry Architecture Network (BIAN) standards, and an industry data model that will enable rapid plug-and-play deployments with fast time to value.
• Card Operations application that will streamline common customer inquiries such as credit limit increases, card access management, and new credit card issuance.
• Payment Operations application that will digitize payments inquiries and exceptions such as payments in error and beneficiary claiming non-receipt originating from customer and third-party institutions.

Purpose-built for financial services, the new product will streamline common customer requests such as credit limit increases and payment inquiries, extending ServiceNow’s customer service capabilities with an initial focus on banking operations. With workflows connected end-to-end, financial institutions can maximize operational efficiency, significantly reduce operating and compliance costs, and increase customer loyalty.

Financial Services Operations can be the key to building lifelong trust and loyalty that helps lead to enduring success—and it can’t come a moment too soon.