As a millennial, I’ve spent a big portion of adult life with technology that allows me to do, surprisingly, a lot from the comfort of my couch, with my iPhone in hand. It’s fascinating to see how many staple processes in our culture have been completely flipped upside down as a result of technological advances.
For example, wedding dress shopping has been a momentous event that involves a gang of friends and family and hours in a store for decades. My experience was very different, although my mother did cry. I found my dream dress on Instagram, messaged the bridal shop, and within days I had tried it on and purchased it. The process was quick and easy and unlike that of my family members who had tied the knot 5 or 10 years before me.
Consumer habits are vastly changing and although they are not changing at the same rate in every industry, customers are starting to expect the same online experience from their local credit union or bank as they do from Amazon or Uber. Did you know, that 44% of companies have already moved to a digital-first approach for customer experience (Forbes)?
Expectations have been raised especially when it comes to the digital consumer experience. If you haven’t reviewed your strategy lately, there is no time like the present. If the digital consumer experience is not a priority, I would suggest making a few amendments to the plan. Let’s examine two things you can do to jump start your digital customer experience.
The Information on Your Website
The first step is simple yet surprisingly a lot of financial institutions skip right past it. It is vital that your website conveys accurate and helpful information. Is your contact information and branch hours of operation accurate and easy to find?
Once the basic information is up to date and polished, let’s jump into your services. Outline every service that you provide, all the requirements for this service, and any items that you need in hand to get this process started. What ID is required to apply for a credit card? Always include details on your website that help consumers save on time and stop them from abandoning the process. Additionally, survey the team at your branch and see what are the common issues and question that they receive from consumers and outline those under the corresponding services.
Digital Consumer Applications
Regardless of your size, you can easily expand new and existing lending and deposit account origination online, for consumers to access 24/7. Keep in mind, it’s not an all or nothing deal. You can offer consumers the ability to apply for certain accounts and loans through your online portal, while requiring them to be physically in the branch for others. When putting this process into place it is important that the service you are using is secure and consumer data is being gathered safely. Additionally, you want this product to seamlessly feed into your loan origination system that way your digital consumer experience isn’t a headache for your team.
Application Portal
With Application Portal from MeridianLink, your financial institution can easily expand existing lending and deposit account origination platforms to online consumers while ensuring control of the entire online application experience. From the ability to determine which loan and deposit account applications you want to make available online, to customizing the look and feel to match your existing web presence. Application Portal has hundreds more of configurations available to help tailor your online application process to meet your business objectives. To learn more about our product download our data sheet.
