Seamless Digital Customer Onboarding – Why are banks still dreaming of it, in 2022?

Jagriti Shreya

Business Strategy Lead | Oct 12, 2022

Customer Acquisition is unquestionably the main objective of all banking players and the most difficult to be successful at. A customer’s initial enthusiasm must create enough momentum to enable successful onboarding.

So, how do you capture and maintain this momentum and encourage your customers to sign up for and use your products without making them mad with endless repetitions of paperwork and KYC?

Let us first understand the challenges that are stopping banks from fully embracing the digital onboarding of their customers

1. Complex and Drawn-Out Onboarding Process

Approximately 40% of the millennial customer base regard traditional banking as obsolete. That’s a huge number by the way! Poor customer experience was identified to be the main reason for this.

A sloppy transition between branch-led and mobile-first channels also hinders a seamless CX at various touchpoints.

However, despite having digital onboarding, banks still encounter delays or feel the need to gather physical documents in order to onboard new customers. Can you imagine sharing your KYC again and again with your bank simply because you chose to diversify your portfolio with them. What would stop you from running away from your bank? A better customer experience, we’d guess.

Banks need to step up their onboarding game and maintain a single unified customer portfolio across all channels. One customer profile, one customer journey.

2. High Customer Abandonment Rate

When registering new clients through the digital onboarding process, customer abandonment remains the largest challenge for banks.

How so? You managed to capitalize on their enthusiasm for signing up, but how are you going to get them to complete the KYC digitally? Now there’s no charming bank representative to pass them the form over the counter.

Sticky situation. Once the customer signs up, banks must constantly engage with them. Offer an exciting reward for them to complete those actions perhaps. Afterall, what’s in it for them? There are several other irrelevant bank promotions sitting in their inbox too. What will keep them here with you? Consumers today demand a give and take relationship.

A gamified experience perhaps? A stamp, an accolade they can cash out in some form. A personalized voucher or reward?

You are not only nudging them to complete actions but simultaneously selling them an experience. Telling them you value their time and business. Not letting them put you in their forgotten to do list.

3. Lack of Full Suite of Digital Services

Customers expect a full range of banking services on their laptops and smartphones. This is no longer a metric of customer delight. This is now the bare minimum. In fact, a recent McKinsey survey shows that 55-80% customers would prefer a digital only bank. Hard facts.

So, there is no gatekeeping of services in the branches. Everything needs to be digital and smartphone friendly, after all we are living & breathing in the mobile first economy. Digital experience is expected to be personalized and not pushy. Engaging and not just static log in and out.

So, what’s the plan? How are banks going to achieve this? Perhaps harvesting and earning from the vast data they are sitting on today, something which also is a competitive advantage they have over FinTechs. More use customer analytics, hyper-personalized journeys, gamified experiences, marketplace integrations, one stop solutioning.

So, how can banks streamline their Digital Onboarding Process and deliver a positive experience?

Design customer experience for the mobile first economy
Customer data centralizing, that is singular and all-inclusive customer profiling to scrape off KYC and process duplication
Build customer experience and journeys based on ideal customer personas. The experience needs to fit like a glove
More automation when it comes to follow-ups, product tours and guides. Your customer is as new to this as you are.
Hyper-personalization is your answer to humanizing your relationship with your customer. Deep learning of customer data and tailoring data driven positive experiences

When it comes to meaningful & personalized customer experiences, Perx uses its extensive experience working successfully with the BFSI sector at large. Whether it is omnichannel customer engagement, gamified campaigns or access to rewards marketplace, Perx has built a powerhouse solution that caters to building positive customer experiences.

Not only have banks deployed Perx to fast-track their customer onboarding through innovative gamified campaigns but have witnessed ongoing meaningful interactions with their customers, thus helping them truly transition into digital onboarding. Read our case study to learn more.