Understanding employee experience will give banks a leg up

The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly changed the way that consumers approach banking. In fact, according to Bain, years’ worth of shifts in digital behaviour have been compressed into months, as consumers use new payment channels and decrease branch visits.

At a time where digital-first is top of mind for employees and consumers alike, it’s important that financial institutions continue to keep up with the demands of today’s customer – and that starts by enabling and learning from their employees. With consumers likely to act on their behaviours formed during the pandemic, financial institutions have a duty to ensure that their employees are able to help make those customer transitions as smoothly as possible. After all, employees are consumers too, so what better way to gain insights than from those on the ground.

That starts by enabling and learning from their employees.

Great employee experiences translate to better customer experiences

It makes intuitive sense that happy employees lead to happy customers, and there is a growing body of work that validates this concept. According to Jacob Morgan, author of ‘The Employee Experience Advantage’, employees who feel their voice is heard are nearly five-times more likely to feel empowered to perform their best work. Additionally, both practitioner and academic research are finding that companies that invest in employee experience perform better than those that don’t – up to 4x the profit and two times the revenue. Quantum Workplace also found that employee engagement led to 41% lower absenteeism and an average of 20% higher sales.

In today’s disrupted, remote-work environment, investing in the employee experience such as ensuring employees have the technology they need to do their jobs, checking in to understand their challenges and concerns, and maintaining the human touch, is more important than ever. When financial institutions can ensure that this experience is as friction-free as possible, they can focus on delivering extraordinary experiences to customers.

Employee feedback can help banks navigate a clear path forward

Employees have a unique viewpoint that can help banks understand how to improve experiences for customers and employees. They know when customers are frustrated or unable to get the results they need, and employees often understand the internal barriers that prevent customers from accomplishing what they set out to do.

While issues may sometimes be caused by unclear design and interfaces, at others, there are underlying policies and procedures that make it extremely difficult for customers to easily complete tasks and/or for employees to help them. Employees know where these bottlenecks are, both for customers and the employees serving them, and can quickly highlight the root cause and work to solve those problems quickly and efficiently.

Additionally, employees can also help spur innovation within financial institutions. An example of this includes involving employees in crowd-sourced problem solving. By leveraging the employee insights at the ground level, banks can quickly remove obstacles for customers and uncover new opportunities for growth and efficiency.

Financial institutions need to trust their employees to help execute on the digital revolution 

The digital revolution has arrived and left bankers with no choice but to take part. Employees are the face of the organisation and need to project confidence in digital capabilities, take the fear out of the equation for those customers who are not digitally native and educate and encourage usage of digital tools.

In order for employees to do this work, banks need to trust and empower their employees to have confidence in the tools they are using. Additionally, while many transactions have moved to digital channels, there are some interactions that customers prefer to have with a human. Helping customers navigate across channels, educating them on the benefits of digital tools, and being available to provide that human touch are essential qualities that today’s employees need to have.

Organisations must equip their teams to meet these challenges and trust them to grow and adapt with their customers.