J.D. Power's Jim Miller Describes the Critical Role of Digital Customer Experience Transformation in Retail Banking Environments

"When compared to customers who still transact heavily through physical channels, the digital banking customers have higher expectations for the communication and the product information they receive from their banks." -- Jim Miller, J.D. Power

Jim Miller, Vice President, Banking and Credit Card at J.D. Power

As digital channels increasingly displace traditional brick-and-mortar access to financial transactions, customer experience (CX) management and transformation is becoming a critical capability for large financial institutions, says Jim Miller, Vice President of the Banking and Credit Card Practice at J.D. Power, in an interview for journalists.

According to Miller, emerging CX dynamics in the new digital banking age are raising the need to effectively capture Voice of the Customer (VoC) insights among financial institutions that want to better engage with their digital customers.

This is important, he explains because J.D. Power research shows that that digital banking customers have very different expectations for their experience compared to customers who transact primarily through branch channels.

"Today's digital banking customers have ever-increasing expectations of their banks. When compared to customers who still transact heavily through physical channels, the digital banking customers have higher expectations for the communication and the product information they receive from their banks. They want it to be relevant, consistent and tailored to their needs, that's very important," says Miller.

Too many institutions, says Miller, fall short of meeting these expectations.

High Cost of Missed Opportunity

Failing to meet expectations from the start of the relationship may constitute a missed opportunity for banks, particularly since there's seldom a second chance to make a great first impression.

"We see, more often than not, that the digital banking relationship begin on less than sound footing.  Customer engagement levels from that point often have difficulty catching up. Digital banking customers feel like their bank often doesn't completely understand their needs," says Miller.

Providing digital customers with an engaging experience starts with compiling good data about the customer and targeting customers with the right offers.

"Banks sit on a tremendous amount of information about their customers and their customers know it.  It is often a point of frustration for retail banking customers when bank communications and product information is lacking," Miller explains.

Using VoC to Better Engage Digital Customers

J.D. Power is helping large financial institutions better leverage VoC insights to support more effective customer engagement. J.D. Power's retail banking satisfaction study gathers information from 90,000 U.S. consumers about their experiences with their retail banks.

"The information that's available through our study helps management teams take the guesswork out of what it takes to manage the customer experience; they can make decisions based on real metrics," Miller says.

Insights from the VoC can provide critically important insights on two areas: problem prevention and problem resolution.

"Our metrics tell a clear story: if customers have problems and if those problems are not resolved, dissatisfaction rates go up and customer attrition increases," Miller says.

Problem resolution and understanding the drivers of attrition are two fundamental aspects of managing the customer experience within a bank, and going forward retail banks must address these requirements as digital banking continues in prevalence.