This is a guest post by Michelle Huff, Chief Marketing Officer at UserTesting.

With many physical bank branches closing, customers are forced to migrate to digital banking. As a result, less tech-savvy users, often found within the older generation, will choose a bank based on how it accommodates them and great CX can be a vital retention point. Digital banking can seem daunting if you’ve banked in-branch your whole life, so it’s important that the UX is intuitive and new users are able to navigate the process with little stress.

Through working with clients and customers at UserTesting, I believe that empathy is vital in retaining older customers and making their experience smooth. Customers are of course interested in the best banking products, interest rates and more, but it’s empathy that can be the real differentiator. Banking with empathy ensures that banks respond appropriately to the feelings of customers and understand their situations. As the industry becomes more digital, it’s important to prioritise strengthening the customer-bank relationship despite the reduced in-person interactions.

DIRECT FEEDBACK

The most important point banks need to realise is that empathising with your customers means you need to get direct feedback. You need to ask what “good customer experience” means to them and work towards their requirements.

For the older generation, the three main points that hinder them from taking up online banking are a lack of technology, no wifi in the home and a lack of knowledge and confidence in using the online world, especially for something as sensitive as their finances. As a result and in order to retain and grow customers in this demographic, the focus needs to shift from new products and services to customer experiences as a priority.

PERSONALISATION

Personalising banking experiences for customers can be a game changer. This means making products and services accessible to all users, regardless of factors such as age and digital proficiency. If you leverage machine learning, AI and predictive analytics, this tech allows us to learn from the behaviour of the older generation online. This can help to ensure that an older person using your services gets an experience they can manage, by designing processes suited to them.

BE OPEN, HONEST AND THOROUGH

Transparency is crucial. As digital banking grows, customers may feel disconnected from their banks. Research from KPMG shows that 86% of consumers are concerned about data privacy. This is especially true for the older generation who aren’t so digitally savvy and may not understand the GDPR practices in place. So, to tackle this distrust in financial customer experiences, banks need to be as transparent as they can be about how they keep, use and process customers’ sensitive information.

In addition, the population is ageing – in the UK alone, 19% are over 65 years old – that’s 11 million people! This is why it’s important to design banking experiences that are specifically easy for this group to navigate. Initiatives such as using digital ambassadors at branches, to help customers navigate the world of digital banking can be really reassuring. To sustain digital adoption, banks must focus on the retention of senior customers. The best way to do this is to identify how they interact with branches and the services they seek, so that this can be translated into an app or website. This information will help UX teams ensure that processes are suitable and appeal to senior people. As we all get older, financial institutions and the government need to work together to keep those 65+ capable of navigating banking apps.

To aid this, banks need to identify customer pain points by mapping out the customer banking journey. It’s important to spot the drop off points, visibility gaps and to assess the different stages. Then, banks should provide customers with a feedback tool, so they can share the CX pain points they’re facing. Empathising with your customers ahead of putting a solution in place is key, this will ensure product updates are efficient and relevant to those that use it.

FCA CONSUMER DUTY

As the population grows older, it’s crucial that banks make the digital experience accessible. Vision loss is one of the most common disabilities for older adults, therefore creating technology that helps the visually impaired navigate your websites and apps is key. As part of this, banks should ensure they are using an easy to view colour contrast on both text and non-text areas of the site. Sites should also have screen magnification and text enlargement options, so that users can adjust it to suit their own vision. Another big help is choosing simple fonts so that letters can be seen clearly.

Hearing loss can be a challenge for older people too. Therefore, banks should integrate videos and audio assets with subtitles, so that those who can’t hear so well can follow along. To level up further, full text transcripts should be made available. Banks should avoid using background music or audio in content too, as this can distract from the crucial dialogue. This can be very tricky to listen to if you have hearing difficulties.

Ultimately, moving forward with the new FCA regulations launching in July, banks will need to ensure they cover these needs or risk being fined by the FCA. If any consumers with accessibility requirements can’t easily access information about a banks’ products, terms and conditions and services, this could very likely be an issue banks face. This is why testing prior to apps and web pages going live is crucial, so that these issues can be identified ahead of real-life customers struggling to navigate the space.

HUMANISATION

For the older generation, they’ve lived their life having human interaction for all their banking services. Despite the changes in modern society, this still holds value. If banks want to thrive in the digital space, they must focus on “humanising” the digital banking experience.

Offering a mixture of AI and live support will help to retain the human aspect and will assist in reducing long call centre wait times. With advancements in chatbot technology, businesses can now give chatbot assistants personalities, using customised conversation openers and tools to detect emotion. This will ensure the responses sent to customers are accurate. Older customers will still crave the personal touch so these factors are really appreciated, as they ideally won’t want to rely on a robot to solve their financial issues.

Ultimately, older customers have likely banked with a specific company for a long time. Empathy is key in breaking down barriers and dealing with the impact of the digital divide so that these people can continue to utilise the services that they’ve relied on throughout their life. Identifying issues, predicting questions in advance and ensuring there’s help on hand to guide this age group through the process is vital in ensuring they trust and continue to use your banking services.

This is a guest post by Michelle Huff, Chief Marketing Officer at UserTesting.

About Michelle

Michelle Huff is the Chief Marketing Officer at UserTesting. She’s responsible for driving the go-to-market strategy, building the UserTesting brand, generating demand, and strengthening customer engagement and advocacy.

Say Hi on Twitter and Instagram @UserTesting and @usertestingofficial respectively and feel free to to connect with Michelle on LinkedIn here.

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