There’s a common misconception that customer service is simply an expense for financial institutions. It’s considered necessary to provide the level of expected service, financially speaking it’s nothing but a drain on resources.
It’s true that any financial service provider must have a robust customer service experience to solve issues or provide advice. It’s also true that providing these services will require a certain level of investment. However, when the customer service exceeds expectations, it can go beyond simply being an expense to representing a viable source of revenue for the organization.
This is exactly what Forrester found after conducting research into the value potential of customer service. When looking at the hospitality industry, they discovered a direct correlation between first contact resolution and revenue, with hotels standing to gain an $716 million. And this wasn’t just limited to the leisure industry as credit card issuers were also able to gain an extra $165 million by improving FCR.
What’s more, our first-hand experience at Unblu corroborates and expands on this reality. When Unblu’s Conversational Engagement Platform was implemented at a Prague-based retail bank, the initial goal was to reduce the strain on customer contact center phone lines. However, the bank also found that stronger customer support led to more upsell opportunities – resulting in an 8% increase in customer conversions.
There’s no doubt that a strong customer service offering can have a substantial impact on conversion rates. But how do you achieve this? What do banks need to do to maximize website prospect conversions?
The tools to enhance your agents’ potential
At a basic level, there are two key ingredients in delivering a customer service experience that not only delivers satisfactory results but inspires conversions. These are the strength of your agents and the tools they have at their disposal.
Of course, this is easier said than done. Having a robust technological ecosystem and updated knowledge base requires strategic oversight and ongoing work. After all, to provide efficient and accurate resolutions, the agents need to have quick access to the answers.
The purpose of a Conversational Engagement Platform
Assuming the infrastructure groundwork is in place, having a Conversational Engagement Platform that allows for omnichannel support that matches the prospect’s needs is essential.
Conversational engagement is a shift in mindset as much as it is a collection of communication tools. The idea is to provide a superior customer experience during every interaction and across all touchpoints, no matter the query level or situation. The result of this approach is a more efficient, personalized, and secure service that fosters trust and drives ongoing revenue.
For this to work, financial organizations require robust and diverse channel options. This can involve self-service AI chatbots or similar platforms, Live Chat access to human assistance when necessary, and video & voice capabilities for one-on-one support. Most importantly of all, each of these features need to naturally overlap to offer a seamless experience no matter where the customer or prospect gets in touch or when moving from one channel to another.
Co-Browsing technology: The standout tool for prospect conversion
The above features are essential in addressing the visitor’s needs at different stages of the customer journey. However, there’s one tool in particular that proves invaluable for leveraging the moment of truth: Co-Browsing.
We’ve spoken in detail before about what Co-Browsing is, but essentially it’s a next-level remote collaborative experience that allows both parties to see and interact with documents, applications, or web pages.
When used in conjunction with voice & video, it adds a whole new dimension to the service experience, allowing the prospect to truly understand the ins and outs of what’s being discussed. What’s more, the Co-Browsing software has in-built digital signature functionality, meaning that conversions aren’t lost due to technical details.
By providing your agents with Co-Browsing technology, you’re setting them up for success – provided they know how to use it properly.
Preparing your agents to properly use Co-Browsing
Your customer support agents and sales team may be mutually exclusive. They are often different teams who see themselves differently. While it’s important that each has their own identity and purpose, the fact is that service teams do need to take on a sales role at times. Here’s how you do that.
Focus first and foremost on issue resolution
For the customer service team, it’s important to recognize that sales is not their primary function. Above all else, they are there to solve customer issues – and they must focus on this. If a customer service agent moves instantly to make the sale, the customer will likely feel overwhelmed or simply frustrated.
A great way to approach this is through resolution-centric coaching, where the agent is focused on active listening and responding and taking ownership as an individual. This helps promote a sense of connection and generally makes the customer interaction more positive and productive.
Think of it as the first step in customer personalization, something which is shown to be powerful in a financial services context. In fact, 81% of Gen Z customers claim that having personalized features deepens their connection with their banking provider.
Offer products they actually need
An extension of this personalized approach is to then offer products that you genuinely believe will be of value to the person on the other end. Assuming the issue-resolution stage has gone well and the prospect appears receptive, being able to build on this positive interaction is the key to maximizing conversions. If the customer is offered a product or service that doesn’t make sense to them, it can come across negatively.
Escalate with Co-Browsing software to seize the moment of truth
Once the agents reach this stage, now is a good time to launch a Co-Browsing session if one isn’t already in progress due to the issue-resolution stage. Co-Browsing allows the agent to talk through the product offering in more detail. The visual element can help the customer to understand or even better visualize how the new product or service will benefit them. Best of all, the Co-Browsing collaborative functions allow for legally binding signatures so the moment of truth doesn’t pass by.
Sample customer journey with Co-Browsing software
What might the above look like in a real-world scenario? While no two customer journeys are exactly the same, it may take place as follows.
1. The prospect/customer visits the site
The prospect or customer has an issue that they need solved and they believe that your financial institution is the best place to do it. Let’s say, for example, that they need to open a savings account.
They may already be a customer, but it’s also possible that they are shopping around for the best offer. After browsing through the website, they decide they’re ready to reach out. As the Conversational Engagement Platform is in place, they engage with the chatbot API.
The bot will ask them qualifying questions to find out if they’d like to speak to a specialist or continue with a self-service experience. As the customer is interested in opening an account, they opt to speak to a human agent.
2. The Live Chat conversation begins
Once the prospect sends a message, it will appear as a request in the queue in the agent desk. An available agent will then pick up the request and the real-time interaction will begin. This agent will already be aware of the prospect’s interest in opening a new bank account.
The queue is filterable so the agent can set different options. For example, filtering by the topics they are best equipped to handle, or the languages that they speak.
Access to their conversation history allows agents to see all conversations they’ve ever had, both active and non-active. This is also where the agent or admin can access audit trails too.
3. Enable Co-Browsing software
The agent speaks with the prospect via the chat and answers the preliminary questions that they have, using the resolution-centric approach to ascertain their specific needs. As the prospect is responding well, the agent then activates Embedded Co-Browsing to securely assist the prospect and help them with their query.
After the customer approves the Co-Browsing request, the agent is then able to take control of the page, if necessary, and mark and highlight various features. They can even help the customer to fill in a form. Certain features on the page will be locked or masked. This stops the agent from being able to do certain actions – such as clicking “next” before the customer is ready. Similarly, private information is hidden.
The agent can also do a demo – to show how online banking works, for example – providing extra information and added reassurance to the customer that they are making the right choice. If necessary, the agent can activate Universal Co-Browsing. This allows them to visit any website alongside the customer. For example, they might visit a bank account comparison index with information on insurance perks.
4. Enhance the interaction
The agent then has the option to augment the conversation with other Unblu tools. For example, initiating a video call for a face-to-face conversation, accelerating the sales process by providing a more personal service. The customer can have the video as a pop-out, running alongside the Co-Browsing window.
Unblu’s encrypted video chat solution is a secure means of communication. Geo-location restricts server-side processing to certain geographic regions. Meanwhile, full session history, call recording, and encrypted archiving, make these calls fully compliant.
5. Co-edit and sign documents
If the potential customer wants to go ahead and open a bank account, for example, they will need to fill in some forms. The agent can speed up and facilitate this process by sharing the application form through the Document Co-Browsing collaboration tool. They can then look at it together, co-editing it, ticking, marking and highlighting, before downloading it and saving it to their local computers.
In order to be compliant with financial regulations, the agent can request an e-signature and ID recognition from the client.
6. Off-boarding and feedback
Once the application form fields have been filled out, or the conversation is finished, and the potential customer has been converted, the agent is able to end the conversation. The off-boarding process is delegated to the concierge bot who will ask the customer to rate their interactive experience.
This allows constant feedback on the customer experience so banks can continue to improve their service. Delegating this part of the customer journey to a bot saves time for the agent who can get on with handling other support queries.
Co-Browsing and Unblu
Unblu’s Co-Browsing solution empowers banks to help customers at just the moment they need it most. By providing personalized guidance that is tailored to each individual, finance institutions are able to reduce drop-offs and increase conversions.
Would you like to learn more about how Co-Browsing tools can help your customer support teams to convert prospects? Book a demo today and one of the Unblu team members will reach out to help.