Listen: Citizens finds customers want digital banking with a hint of human interaction

Digital banking usage is up, with 90% of consumers and 86% of businesses reporting that they use digital channels for their banking needs — a significant increase over usage during COVID-19 lockdowns, says Beth Johnson, chief experience officer at Citizens Financial Group , in this episode of "The Buzz" podcast. Last year, 85% of consumers and 71% of businesses reported using digital channels. "Digital is here to stay, and that's not really surprising to me when you think about our daily lives," Johnson tells Bank Automation News . The $187.5 billion Citizens recently released its Banking Experience Survey 2021 , which this year polled approximately 1,000 consumers and 260 business leaders using various banking services. For financial advice and more complex transactions, nearly two-thirds of consumers and businesses want human interaction, the survey found. That's about the same for consumers in 2020, but down from 73% for businesses in 2020. Those findings could be instructive for banks and financial institutions to focus branch personnel on more complex interactions, Johnson notes, but they also point to the opportunity for virtual consults — such as video chats via digital channels — which are becoming a preference for customers. Sixty-five percent of consumers and 82% of businesses said they feel at least "somewhat comfortable" sharing additional information and data with banks for a more tailored customer experience, according to the survey. "In a digital transformation, think about that also as a data and analytics transformation," Johnson tells BAN . "Our clients really want us to be able to provide them keen insight." Banks and financial institutions need to make that insight personal for each customer — and automation can play a critical role in that, Johnson explains. Bank Automation Summit, taking place March 1-2 in Charlotte, N.C., is the first and only event to focus solely on automation in banking. The event will feature the brightest minds from across financial services on intelligent automation strategies and deployment. Learn more and register for Bank Automation Summit 2022 . Subscribe to The Buzz Podcast on iTunes , Spotify , Google podcast , or download the episode .

The following is a transcript generated by AI technology that has been lightly edited but still contains errors. Aaron Marsh Hello and welcome back to The Buzz, a Bank Automation News podcast. I'm Associate Editor Aaron Marsh, and I recently connected with Citizens Financial Group, which earlier this month released its second annual Banking Experience Survey. I heard some key things the survey found about how consumers and businesses are handling their banking needs and what they expect from their bank, and dug deeper into what banks and financial institutions should take from those findings going forward.All right, I'm here with Beth Johnson, chief experience officer at Citizens Financial Group, and the bank has just released their Banking Experience Survey. And I understand this is the second annual one of these. Definitely one of the biggest things that stands out to me is the enormous use of digital banking. This survey found that 90% of consumers and 86% — it was a bigger increase this this year for businesses — are now using digital banking channels. So Beth, what do you make of this?Beth Johnson I think there's really a simple way to think about it, which is that digital is here to stay. And that's not really surprising to me, when you think about our daily lives, whether that's our personal lives or our professional lives. And you mentioned that huge increase in our consumer banking population. I think we've known that's been going on for a long time — we've started to use banking, more and more digital tools for those everyday transactions that we all do, and increasingly towards more complex insights that we may get from a bank or other financial services company.But we saw a really large increase this year on the commercial side. So our corporate clients and our business clients also using digital tools and expecting to use digital tools more and more in the way they manage their business. And it's up to 86%, as you mentioned, and I think that's so critical, because we're really starting to see the way we manage our lives on a day-to-day basis and we talk about how this has really spilled over into the way we think about our professional careers and in the way we want to manage businesses, as well. And I think that's going to be critically important for banking and how we service our clients going forward.Aaron Marsh Okay, so I guess we can take this as evidence that this is now what consumers as well as businesses expect, is this digital banking capability and the ability to use that. But the next finding I kind of wanted to bring up is something of an interesting juxtaposition to that. And that is that the survey also found that two out of three, so like 66% of respondents, when dealing with more complex transactions and financial services, they want a human interaction. Okay, so we just said this, they're expecting this digital experience, and it must be there, and yet they want a human interaction. What can we take from that? Beth Johnson Well think of banking or their financial life, whether it's, as you said, a consumer and your business life as one channel versus another channel, they think about, how do I want to get done what I need to get done? And I want it very simply and easily. So for those everyday transactions, whether that's depositing a check for checking a balance, or paying, maybe with Apple Pay, or a digital tool for something simple in the store, we want that to be done in the channel of choice. And that's increasingly the mobile app, and mobile tools for corporate clients. And I think that's here to stay. As we said, we do still see that those human interactions, however, can be really important. When it's something that matters a lot to me, or something that's more complex, or something that I can't get just the insight I can get through digital channels, through more personalized interactions. That said, I do think there's an interesting little component to that, as you think about some of the technologies you're focused on, which is that personal interaction can be in person. And we see that often when we have people walk into a branch or relationship manager, visit a customer. Or it can be through digital tools, like video chat, like zoom that we're also used to now. And so we see that that is critical as we think about evolving along and omni channel offering for our customers. Aaron Marsh I wonder if we can infer from that, Beth, if we're seeing, you know, consumers with more complex kinds of transactions and interactions they're going to have with the bank, I wonder if banks should take from that sort of repurposing of your in-person staff, your personnel. Are they going to have to maybe get some additional training or be more focused on some of the more complex workings rather than, for example, just being like a teller or just kind of take the service, maybe they're looking for a little bit more now from humans. Beth Johnson When we think about our colleague base and focus on the consumer banks for a moment, we are absolutely undergoing a transformation of our staff, which requires them to be more consultative, requires them to offer that advice to our customers. It is upskilling. It's also giving them the digital tools as we think about digital trends — information to be successful. So how do I think about ensuring that I can give them insights on our customers so they can have highly relevant interactions with those customers when they come in. So there is a real shift in the way we're thinking about our colleague base to serve the needs of a changing customer base. And this is something we actually embarked on a couple years pre-COVID. So that set us up well in this transformation we're seeing now and we continue to see our loyalty scores for our customers go up, as we think about this hybrid approach. So seamless digital, self-serve interaction, when it makes sense, moving into digital insight, and tools that we can offer kind of simple insights to our customers. And then finally, the deep interaction model and well trained and supported customer feel colleagues, for our customers, when it makes sense for them, when they're thinking about, you know, saving for your child's college, or you're thinking about buying your first home, or you still do want to have that in person interaction. Aaron Marsh Certainly something else I see in the survey is a possible indication that banks have a win. As far as their performance during the pandemic, there was pretty good evidence here, of the businesses on the business side of things, four out of five businesses, said they were supported by their bank during the pandemic, and seven out of 10 consumers said they trust their bank to do the right thing with financial decision. So it seems like banks maybe can take that as a win as far as their performance during the pandemic. Beth Johnson Yeah, here at Citizens, we launched a branch platform just before the pandemic called made ready. And that was all about our willingness to help our clients and our customers through their life journey, or their life cycle journey as a corporate customer. And really, with the recognition that being a financial partner, means that you're there for the journey during the good times and the bad times. And so we found that if we stuck to that brand promise during COVID, which we did really well, that we were going to see the loyalty and the trust factor of our customers go up. So things like having a resource hub, that is with a digital tool that we had our customers to tell them about what they should be expecting from government stimulus, nothing really in it for us, but really helping our customers on that, that need they had, or the paycheck, PPP, right, the paycheck protection program for our business customers and being there throughout the pandemic or on our commercial bank side, we call every customer and had in person interactions to say hey, what are you facing? What's your cash flow needs likely to be? How do we work with you during this time to make sure you're successful coming out of the COVID period has served us really well, and many banks really well. So we saw our loyalty scores or net promoter scores, and our reputation scores go up across all businesses during the pandemic, because we stayed really true to that brand promise, and it's beyond product or beyond that, you know, a product sale to support our customer base. Aaron Marsh I like that, Beth. I mean, if we're talking about kind of providing a broader financial information and just helpful advice like, like with the stimulus check, it's like, well, we're the trusted source for banking. But it's also this broader financial sphere, that maybe we can look to reach out and connect with customers and be that trusted source. There's an opportunity in that, it seems. Beth Johnson We saw in the study, two things that build on that. One, we saw that our customers and clients are increasingly comfortable with us using data and some of our intelligence and analytics to provide them relevant insight. They trust us to make sure that we're going to use that information in a way to help them and help them in their financial future. And I also think it was interesting that 84% of business leaders say said that they expect their bank partners going forward to leverage the latest technology and the latest analytic tools to support their businesses. And they want that from their bank and from their financial provider. And I think that's critically important as we serve our clients going forward. Aaron Marsh Yeah, that's a that is a perfect lead into the last question, I had this this last point, and it's very related to what you just said is that 65% of consumers and 82% of businesses that I read the survey reported that they feel at least so more than this, in many cases, but at least somewhat comfortable sharing information and data with banks in order to get a more tailored, personal experience that tells me a few things, possibly that more consumers and businesses are looking for, you know, custom tailored kind of additional products, maybe that would reply to them from the bank, but also, maybe even in terms of, you know, connecting via API's for example to addition near to fintechs. And additional services that may, you know, may also be of benefit to me the consumer or me the business. So what do you think in that "realm" going forward? Beth Johnson Thoughts, I think it's going to be critically important. And I'm not the first to say it, but in a digital transformation, thinking about that also as a data analytics transformation, because as you said, our clients really want us to be able to provide them keen insight, and how they think about managing their lives. And that personal goal, which is finance, right, which is money, which is personal. And so we've seen that be really important and increasingly important for our customers. So we really focus on three different areas. One, how do we just build the insight, and, and infrastructure to be able to have those tools to offer to them, too, it's really the channel integration is to make that work. So as I said, Before, I need to be able to offer you the insight of the channel you use, whether that's the mobile app, or texting, or the branch or with an agent, or someone else. And so you've got to be able to link those interactions and that data and that analysis to the channel that matters to the customer. And then finally, you have to know what to tell them. I always love to talk about one-on-one personalized interactions. But what that really means practically for my team, is that if I know that, that we just offer peace of mind, which is a overdraft protection capability for our clients, right, no product sale for us, it's really just to help our clients when they make an oops, mistake, not have to have an overdraft fee. So we let them know through a text or through the mobile app, to say, hey, you have 24 hours, you know, make your overdraft, right, and we'll just let it go. It offers peace of mind. And that's what we branded it. But we need to actually have the communication strategy in all of our different channels to communicate to our customers. And that turns in to 10 or 12 different versions of that same message to make it highly relevant. So to your point, I think it's incredibly important that you have all these components, as you start to think about offering really personal and relevant advice to our customers. So to the latter part of your question, what we found is some of those things we built in house and we started investing in what we call our data intelligence platform and these channel integrations several years ago, so really, five or six years ago, so we are really proud of the capability we've built on this. But we also go outside, so we partner with fintechs and others to be able to enable us to go even faster and offering this insight for our customers. And we do that through API's and other links into that intelligence and our channels so that we can be better. You know, so how customers better as we try to move quickly on this journey towards insight and towards advice for for our customer base. Aaron Marsh Perfect way to button it up. Thanks very much. We've been speaking with Beth Johnson, Chief Experience Officer of citizens Financial Group. Beth, thanks so much for taking the time with us. Beth Johnson Thanks for having me. Aaron Marsh You've been listening to The Buzz, a Bank Automation News podcast. Thanks for your time and be sure to visit us at finainews.com for more automation news in financial services. Please don't hesitate to rate this podcast on your podcast platform of choice.

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