Three Strategies to Foster a Customer-centric Culture

Invest Bank’s The Customer Experience Forum (CEF) began as a platform for addressing top complaints and has since evolved into a driving force for CX transformation. By securing a commitment from cross-functional leadership to prioritise customer-centric strategies, the forum facilitates swift resolution of issues leading to poor experiences.

Speaking to Martechvibe, she provides insights into the CEF initiative of translating customer feedback into actionable improvements. More importantly, Momani discusses shaping positive client experiences in the banking industry. 

“Banking brands should focus on shifting the thought of sales-driven and process-driven culture into building customer-centric culture within the organisation,” she adds. Her top three strategies to foster a customer-centric culture can help brands get closer to offering the expected brilliance. 

Full interview:

Can you tell us about one CX initiative you are proud of and what went into executing it?

Customer Experience Forum (CEF) started as a forum to raise top complaints and evolved into a powerful catalyst for CX transformation. The forum ensures commitment from cross–functional leadership to put the customer at the heart of the business, leading to effective and quick redressal of issues that resulted in a poor experience. It paved the way for prioritising the implementation of numerous customer-impacting and process-improvement initiatives. It is now the voice of the customer and the voice of change.

What key factors contribute to a positive client experience in the banking industry, and how has this changed over the years?

A positive client experience can be achieved through personalised services, efficient processes, and strong security measures. Over the years, there has been a shift towards digital banking; customers increasingly expect value-adding services and are willing to exchange more personal data for better offerings and experiences; consumers want their banks to do more than just the basics brilliantly.  

Do we need to evolve how we measure customer satisfaction, what would you add?

It’s crucial to evolve how we measure satisfaction levels to enhance the experience; we can add to that factors like deeper data analysis to understand customers’ preferences better and offer tailored services based on their needs.

How can banking brands benchmark themselves to global CX leaders?

Banking brands should focus on shifting the thoughts of sales-driven and process-driven culture into building a customer-centric culture within the organisation. They must also be updated on industry trends and constantly strive to improve customer satisfaction. They might also think of creating an integrated ecosystem to adopt customers’ needs; some ideas would be:

• Integrating partner solutions and curating bundles that serve customers’ holistic buying needs.
• Partnering with technology, FinTech, and other third-party providers to streamline procedures (and reduce costs).
• Combining customer data from multiple sources to focus on signals and life events to create tailored products and real-time personalised offers. 

Also Read: Measuring Customer Satisfaction Needs to Evolve in the Digital Context

Your advice on how to make CX an organisation-wide priority?

Banks can adopt several measures to make CX an organisation-wide priority and increase customers’ engagement:

• Setting clear goals and metrics for staff and training them on the importance of the CX
• Emphasising a customer-centric culture is more than just providing everything a customer wants; it is about creating trust and inspiring confidence.
• Emphasising fostering a customer-centric culture as it brings many benefits to an organisation: My top three are as follows:
  • Increase customer lifetime value: Customers like to engage with brands that listen to them, understand them, and provide helpful solutions. Building a culture with a customer-centric focus helps you create more value for customers.
  • Increase loyalty: Delivering a positive customer experience consistently is one of the most critical pieces of business strategy to create customer loyalty. It establishes a strong customer base that continues to buy from your business. 
  • Create brand ambassadors: When culture is built on a customer-driven strategy, the larger your customer base, the more prominent will be the army of your brand ambassadors. Loyal customers will likely share your company’s values with their social circle.