Reimagining Technology in Financial Services: The Only Constant is the Customer
Blog: Appian Insight
In short order, COVID-19 has challenged financial institutions to satisfy a growing appetite for customization and personalization, emphasizing the need for organizational commitment to leveraging digital technologies that enable business transformation. The current global crisis, dizzying rise of FinTech startups, onslaught of new and disruptive technologies, and constantly shifting regulatory environment make true transformation a complicated process. The only path to a sustainable competitive advantage is to become customer-obsessed.
Prioritizing customer relationships
With customer expectations higher than ever and constantly evolving, customer experience has become a key driver for acquiring and retaining customers in financial services. Yet, poor customer service continues to cost financial institutions billions each year in lost revenue, in part because associates often have to work across multiple systems to service customers. Streamlining technology systems enables employees to focus on complex and thought provoking work that will make a greater impact to the customers they serve.
Only the most nimble financial institutions will succeed. Being customer-obsessed requires every facet of the business — from strategy to operations to budget — to be hyper-focused on enhancing its knowledge of and engagement with its customers. Every decision must start with the customer and work backwards, with vigorous efforts to earn and keep trust. The solution: Simple, frictionless digital experiences that blend human touch with intelligent automation to boost engagement, encourage loyalty, and attract the next generation of customers.
Building trust
Successful financial institutions recognize data privacy as not only a regulatory requirement but a competitive differentiator and make it an integral part of day-to-day operations. To them, investing in innovative solutions that build trust is key to improving customer relationships and an imperative amid high-profile data breaches and related apprehensions.
Yet many financial institutions struggle to keep up because they are encumbered by legacy technology systems. These brittle systems hinder innovation in data privacy and beyond, and thereby block meaningful business growth. Unfortunately, many financial institutions feel that the only solution is to “rip-and-replace” their technology infrastructure, using time and resources they don’t have to start again from scratch.
There is a better way. With the right technology partner, financial institutions can find a path forward to both customer trust and convenience, leveraging the technology they already have to organize data, keep it secure, and optimize the customer experience with people-centric interactions.
Low-code automation facilitates and accelerates the journey. Low-code automation replaces specialized coding with a visual drag-and-drop method of application development. Business users are able to create intuitive applications by drawing the picture like a flow chart, instead of writing lines of code. This visual modeling makes it easy to bring ideas to life.
With low-code automation, every object — from an interface to an integration — is reusable, streamlining the process even more. Furthermore, users can implement declarative tools through visual models and business rules, eliminating the need for custom coding and difficult changes in the future. Finally, applications created via low-code automation are instantly mobile. Cross-platform functionality is a standard part of design. With no extra effort, coding or resources, financial institutions can deploy applications that enable customers to access the information they need on any device — mobile, tablet, or desktop.
Low-code automation empowers financial institutions to have a data environment that’s integrated, secure, and supports external and management reporting across all areas of the organization. Reconciling interactions across complex structures and achieving an internal view that meets the array of applicable regulations allows institutions to maintain regulatory compliance without sacrificing customer experience.
Connecting systems, strategy, and execution
Complicated processes, disjointed accounts, and legacy technology impede financial institutions from developing the meaningful, lasting customer relationships they need to compete and thrive. By focusing on data and process orchestration, these institutions can deliver the experiences necessary to go beyond customer loyalty to customer advocacy.
Only Appian unifies all systems, channels, and customer information with the combined power of business process management, next-generation artificial intelligence, and robotic process automation in a trusted cloud platform. With Appian’s low-code automation platform financial institutions can rapidly develop powerful and unique applications to drive digital transformation and enable competitive differentiation. Visit the Appian financial services resource center to learn more.
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