As we already seen on our previous articles, a great customer experience, showing a holistic view of the brand with great empathy towards clients, is a key driving factor of a successful company.
This holistic view is clearly the key if we consider that 79% of U.S. customers only consider those brands that understand and care about them.
Reviewing the various research it’s easy to conclude that customers who have an emotional connection with a brand have a 300% higher lifetime value and recommend brands more than their satisfied but not emotionally connected peers.
During last year, the pandemic and a widespread generational change in the managed wealth public boosted the digitalisation of financial services in an unpredictable way at incredible speed.
The implications are clear: the quality of the digital services offered to the customers is crucial. Whilst remote access to services has become available, digital touchpoints became a significant landmark in the overall customer journey.
What does this mean for financial institutions? The majority of customers consider the leading social media platforms or other entertainment apps as their benchmark for what a good digital experience should be.
Given that Cloud migration promotes working flexibility, we assume employee collaboration will be facilitated. Cloud technology supports businesses in operating in distributed work environments, this way employees can work remotely, also thanks to cloud-based communication and collaboration tools.
Companies adopting cloud computing strategy significantly reduce costs of hardware and software purchase. In fact, they do not need to buy local servers and data centres, that requires specialised people for their management and maintenance, occupies physical space and consumes electricity 24/7.
Besides, cost reduction goes hand in hand with on-demand computing; cloud technologies enable businesses to take advantage of computing resources on demand without having to invest in specific hardware and software, this way allowing cloud-computing providers to optimise the hardware needs of its data centres, based on a given business’ requirements.
Cloud transition will bring advantages in terms of increased security and perceived reliability. With cloud storage, the massive risk of data loss ceases to exist, and it is exchanged with security and protection against system failure. All data are available anywhere, even in case of damaged corporate devices. Also, reliable cloud providers offer data recovery procedures designed for all sorts of emergency scenarios.
Keeping up with those expectations can be difficult: finance companies need to find out what users love about their products in order to integrate that into a more emotionally engaging experience.
This is why the design of digital products and services is one of the foundations for a successful CX. And this is also the reason that design practices need to include Emotional Design into their process.
But what is Emotional Design? It’s a design approach to create products and services that evoke emotions which result in positive experiences.
Emotional Design must address three levels of cognitive responses:
- Visceral: customers’ gut reactions to first impressions of the product: “I want it!”
- Behavioural: customers subconsciously evaluate product performance and usability: “It makes me feel smart, it’s a pleasure to use!”
- Reflective: customers consciously judge performance and benefits, including value for money and a general personal satisfaction: “It completes me!”
Obviously, a product has to be functional, reliable and usable before such a layer can be applied.
An effective Emotional Design Strategy has two aspects:
- The creation of something unique to reflect the brand style and to evoke a positive response in the customers
- The usage of that style until it becomes a real personality layer
Happy customers will keep using the product, form emotional bonds and tell others about.
To apply Emotional Design to its products, a brand needs to reach a deep understanding of its own customers through user research and great data analytics. The rise of A.I. will be essential in order to work more efficiently on user data and to allow digital products to efficiently anticipate and accommodate users’ needs and responses.
It’s also often useful to honestly ask: “does the overall CX put the customers first and care about them, providing the needed solutions and helping them in any possible way?”
Make this answer “yes” and become an aspirational financial brand.
About Objectway
Founded in 1990, Objectway Group is a leading provider of investment management and digital software solutions to the worldwide financial services industry. Our omni-channel, omni-device software platform supports the rapidly advancing digital revolution within the wealth and investment management segment.
Under the direction of CEO and founder Luigi Marciano, Objectway has seen steady growth since its inception, both organically and through strategic acquisitions, with revenues topping 60 million euros in fiscal year 2015. Our awarding-winning platform is the trusted choice of leading wealth and investment firms across the globe from EMEA to Canada to Central America.
From offices in Italy, Belgium, the UK, Ireland and South Africa, Objectway's roughly 500 employees support more than 100,000 investment professionals in 15 countries, who manage more than one trillion euros in wealth. For more than 25 years, we've kept our focus on a single vision: combining advanced technology with a deep understanding of business needs to help our clients reshape their wealth management services.
