The 3 Pillars of Mobile-First Communications for Improved CX
Mobile statement best practices come with an abundance of strategies. So how do you decide which ones have the right impact when it comes to mobile-first communications?
When you use the right format, invest in seamless on-demand access, and harness the power of frequent and timely digital notifications, you leverage the 3 pillars of mobile-first communications for improved CX, positioning yourself for success beyond today’s rapidly changing digital world.
What’s Inside:
The Customer Journey & Mobile-First Communications
Today’s customer expects their financial provider to offer the same quality of integrated, mobile-first service they get from leading technology and retail companies. And as more users adopt the convenience of pocket-sized, digital devices, it’s going to further change the way consumers make purchases, access information, and even interact with brands.
By 2025, it’s anticipated that mobile phone users worldwide will reach 7.49 billion and by the end of 2024, people will use this device on average for 4 hours and 39 minutes per day. This means that billions of customers are already empowered, and require businesses in all industries, including banking, to adapt and innovate. Businesses have two options: they can either fall in line with this expectation or risk being left behind.
As crucial as it is to make this shift, it isn’t a one-way benefit. While it’s what your customers want, it’s also fantastic for your bottom line:
“Companies that embrace mobile engagement not only satisfy and retain customers but see earning growth that is 1.7 times higher than mobile laggards. This is because mobile engagement provides a tremendous opportunity to engage in ways that are immediate, personalized, and drive revenue with the inclusion of targeted marketing and upsell messages.”
To take full advantage of this financial communication evolution you need to start thinking about the customer journey a bit differently and ensure all transactional and servicing documents are tightly linked to each step because of the way they inherently boost customer engagement and improve the customer experience.
And this is particularly true for mobile statements.
Want best practices for mobile-first statements & engagement? Check out our playbook “Harness the Power of a Mobile-First Approach”.
The 3 Pillars
While there are several best practices for banking statements, the best approach to improving engagement across your CX is to modernize the experience around your statements and servicing communications. These communications go hand in hand with how your customers interact with your services and ultimately engage with your brand.
To help guide you in going digital with mobile-first communications, it’s key to focus on the 3 pillars of mobile bank statements, which include using the right document format, providing seamless, on-demand access to those documents through an online portal, and supporting engagement with timely and frequent alerts and reminders.
1. Use the Right Format
HTML is a mobile responsive format that renders beautifully on all devices, delivering an optimal experience for customer statements. With HTML, document information automatically adjusts to the screen size of the device, unlike PDFs.
While PDF is a ‘print replica’ document and a familiar format for many customers, it isn’t mobile-friendly. Documents don’t adjust and users often can only view part of their statement and need to scroll or swipe to see all their details.
Print remains critical to how many customers want to receive some of their servicing communications. But to keep up with modern demand and reduce operational costs, turning to mobile-first solutions now is going to help you fill the CX gap between PDF and print to offer a better CX.
HTML statements support rich, interactive content with hyperlinks to videos, promotional messaging, and more, not to mention detailed tables, charts, and other graphics. Making changes is also a breeze. HTML gives customers the most recent statement updates, so they always receive up-to-the-minute campaigns or promotional messaging, which reduces operational demands and makes mobile-first a seamless delivery option.
Because HTML is mobile-ready, it can deliver more attractive, dynamic information, anytime, anywhere on the customer’s preferred devices and channels.
2. Invest in Seamless, On-demand Access
Going digital requires a different approach to customer behavior, and while using the right format is great, it isn’t enough.
If you’ve ever been asked to come up with multiple passwords or to log in multiple times just to view a statement, you understand how cumbersome some experiences can be! Today’s customers want a seamless banking experience, one they can access quickly and easily using their preferred mobile devices.
Investing in a seamless experience means implementing a way for customers to move from your online banking portal to the statement portal, with hassle-free single sign-on, or allowing for direct access to statements with an online portal.
SSO is a must-have for statement providers who want to go digital. It’s the best way to offer customers a seamless experience because it prevents them from having to sign into multiple systems to access information.
By decreasing the number of passwords, you also decrease phishing risks and the number of service center requests, only to increase productivity and user experience, which benefit your bottom line.
Direct Access with an Online Portal
An online statement portal makes it simple for your customer to find and access documents, maintain account information, manage preferences, and securely message your customer service team for a quick response. It also makes it easy for you to deliver all your personalized marketing messages and display static images or videos on the splash screen or other pages within the statement portal.
With the right solution, this investment can even generate tangible analytics and reports that you can leverage with targeted marketing campaigns.
3. Harness the Power of Frequent and Timely Notifications
You can build a seamless mobile-first experience for your customers to access on-demand HTML statements on their mobile devices through an intuitive portal. And you can further enhance that experience with the use of digital notifications to update them on the status of their account.
Digital notifications provide timely alerts to customers about their documents (e.g. your statement is ready), transactions (e.g. your payment was processed), reminders (e.g. your statement is overdue), and more. Engaging customers on their mobile devices using SMS or email digital notifications provide convenient and timely engagement that customers value and can quickly respond to.
Mobile-first statements and communications are a critical touchpoint in your customer journey and provide a plethora of opportunities for better engagement—presenting information that is clear and renders beautifully, connecting them consistently with your brand, and enhancing engagement with timely and convenient notifications and access to on-demand information. When provided as a seamless experience, you can harness that power to improve CX.
How the Right CCM Helps
Leveraging the 3 pillars for modernizing the experience around your bank statements isn’t easy—at least not without a little help. Many financial institutions like yours engage a CCM partner with the experience and expertise you need—a partner that will take you confidently into the future of mobile-first communications.
The right CCM partner will help you to seamlessly integrate secure and personalized communications into your mobile strategies for a smooth, engaging omnichannel customer experience. A good partnership will also provide you with mobile-friendly formats and experts who can quickly integrate these technologies within your environments.