One of the most important tasks we’re faced with in business and in our personal lives is taking care of our finances, and mobile banking is already insanely popular across all demographics. According to Apptentive’s recent consumer survey, the majority of banks and credit unions offer mobile banking apps—and they are wildly popular. Specifically, 80% of respondents said their primary bank has a mobile app. Of those whose bank has a mobile app, 69% of respondents actively use their bank’s app, and 25% use their bank’s app daily.
For financial institutions without mobile apps, these numbers should demonstrate the importance of creating an app sooner rather than later. And for companies already playing in the crowded finance app category, the number of touchpoints and customer engagement opportunities is tremendous—and is likely a determining factor for retaining existing customers and gaining new ones.
So how do you make your app stand out? Use these five strategies to gather better customer feedback and get to the heart of your customers’ sentiment.
1. Let customer feedback drive your product roadmap
Apps are now a deciding factor for where people put their money, where before it was based on the physical location of branches. Our world is mobile, and so are our expectations as consumers. With mobile banking, the branch experience has become secondary to the digital experience, largely thanks to mobile apps.
In many ways, the shift towards digital makes gathering feedback from customers easier—but only if you ask for it correctly. Consider using surveys to gather feedback on a new feature, open-ended text fields to learn more about your customers’ engagement experiences, or proactively reach out with messages to encourage customers to engage. The insights you gather should inform your product roadmap and rally your development team around a single point: the customer. If you allow customers to help you prioritize, you can bet you’ll be closer to delivering a great experience than you would be doing it on your own.
2. Offer strong security
Having your financial information at your fingertips comes with a catch: security. Between GDPR and the almost daily emerging stories about the ways in which Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and other social platforms are being abused by political and criminal actors, the average person now has a much greater understanding that their data is being used constantly and not necessarily with their permission. As such, it’s imperative financial apps have a robust sign-in process to protect customer’s information.
For example, fingerprint authentication is a great start in making signing in to finance apps both secure and convenient.
Finance apps also need to go the extra step in protecting their customers’ privacy while soliciting for feedback. If you’re using a third-party vendor to assist you in gathering customer feedback, make sure you partner with one that is able to gather feedback over time that’s tied to one profile, but that can still stay anonymous when needed.
3. Unlock your “silent majority”
Because many brands struggle to gather customer feedback in proactive, non-intrusive ways, feedback typically comes from the smallest, most vocal group of customers. Many brands today may think they build products around their customers based on feedback from a majority, but they couldn’t be further from the truth. In reality, our data shows that brands only hear from less than 1% of their customer base, which we call the “vocal minority.” This group is made up of two groups of customers: those who are at risk, and those who are VIPs.
The other 99% of your customers fall into what we call the “silent majority.” These customers span across a broad spectrum of sentiment, but they tend to fall somewhere in the middle of loving your brand and being at risk for churn. Although a vast majority of your customers fall in the silent majority, typically their feedback and loyalty aren’t being fostered or prioritized.
At-risk and VIP customers in your vocal minority have a lot to say, and product professionals and marketers must listen to the group’s feedback and respond to it (and act on it!) accordingly. But remember, the vocal minority makes up ~1% of the average brand’s customer base. The most dangerous decision a brand can make is acting on feedback that doesn’t accurately represent the majority of its customers.
How do you tap into your silent majority? This leads to our next strategy…
4. Learn which customers love you, and which ones need more time
Would your customer service team treat an angry customer the same as they would treat an elated customer? Probably not. Would you communicate with customers without first knowing how they feel about you? You could, but you probably won’t get your message across very effectively.
Understanding how your customers feel is the catalyst for all other communication. To treat digital interactions as you would in-person interactions with context in mind, we’ve developed a simple, yet effective, “yes” or “no” question called the Love Dialog to give brands the context they need to interact with customers in the most relevant way. The Love Dialog gives brands an honest look at customer sentiment and how it changes over time, and our customers see a 93% response rate from their consumers.
The Love Dialog boasts an extremely high response rate due to its simplicity. Consumers are more willing to respond when questions are straightforward, and can be answered in no time. And you can be more confident in understanding how your customer sentiment changes over time.
5. Be proactive
The best way to give your customers or members a positive experience? Proactive communication. Reach out, engage them, and make them feel valued. In fact, we’ve found that simply interacting with customers, proactively and respectfully, can increase three-month retention by as much as 400%.
Providing a place to receive feedback is a great start, but most customers only reach out unprompted if they have an issue that they need help fixing. To get in front of customer frustration and to gather feedback from the bulk of your customers, you need to make a proactive effort to show how important feedback is to you.
To do so, let customers know you are listening and want their feedback by proactively engaging with them at smart times throughout their digital experience. For example, you can start with a simple survey asking a question about their recent experience, but without waiting for them to run into an issue to trigger the survey. Most customers aren’t used to being asked for feedback and need encouragement. Be there for them and include a “Give Feedback” button in the menu or a well-timed prompt asking for feedback as a way to show customers you care.
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Apps in the Finance category are uniquely positioned to turn customer feedback into their secret weapon. In a space crowded with competition, listening to and acting on customer feedback can set you apart from the competition.
What other strategies do you use in asking for customer feedback? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!
from Business 2 Community http://bit.ly/2G9Jham
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