Investing in a seamless customer onboarding process is not just a good idea; it’s a strategic imperative for banks in today’s competitive environment.
First impressions count. Onboarding is the first interaction most customers have with the bank. By simplifying the customer onboarding process, a bank demonstrates confidence and builds trust. A smooth and efficient process makes them feel valued and sets the stage for a positive long-term relationship.
Streamlining the onboarding process can improve operational efficiency by reducing processing time, saving costs, and allocating resources more effectively. At the same time, it ensures adherence to regulations like KYC and AML, reducing the risk of fines and compliance issues.
Traditional onboarding methods rely on documented procedures. One of the concerns with documented procedures is their ‘inside-out’ perspective, where they focus on directives for the bank instead of an ‘outside-in’ perspective focused on customers. The other pitfall is that these documented procedures are often outdated and inaccurate. Manual methods might miss crucial compliance checks during the onboarding process.
Identifying bottlenecks that cause delays, drop-offs and frustrations is like searching for a needle in a haystack. Dissatisfied customers often slip through the cracks without a trace.
Decisions about improving onboarding are often based on intuition or guesswork, leading to wasted resources and potentially ineffective changes.
Onboarding new customers remains to be a critical but complex process for banks. Business Process Mining (BPM) offers a game-changer, unlocking unprecedented possibilities for a seamless customer onboarding experience. It is a methodology that helps organizations strategize, implement, and analyze how they execute business processes and paves the pathway for improvement.
New techniques and technological advancements have empowered Business Process Mining to execute fact-based implementations. It uses data to discover processes that enable banks to improve their taxonomy strategy. It acts like an X-ray of a bank’s onboarding process, revealing its internal structure and weaknesses. With this knowledge, the bank is better equipped to target improvement areas precisely.
How do banks leverage the potential of BPM to their advantage?
Unveiling the Onboarding Maze:
- Gather diverse data: Collect event logs from all systems involved in onboarding, including CRM, account opening platforms, communication channels, and even customer feedback surveys. This holistic view paints a complete picture of the journey.
- Process Discovery: Utilize a BPM tool to analyze the data and automatically generate an accurate model of the actual onboarding process, highlighting deviations, hidden activities, and bottlenecks.
Navigating the Path to Improvement:
- Identify friction points: Analyze cycle times, drop-off points, and error rates to pinpoint areas causing delays, frustration, and customer churn. Look for lengthy wait times for document verification, confusing forms with high abandonment rates, lack of communication, unclear instructions or excessive manual tasks slowing down progress.
- Prioritize impactful changes: Focus on removing unnecessary loops, addressing the bottlenecks and improving the ratio of value-adding functions and non-value adding functions. Identify and alleviate the pain points with the most significant impact on customer experience and ROI.
- Optimize workflows: Use simulation techniques to find the best alternative process with the maximum utilization of available resources. Alternative processes should also focus on features like automated document verification and data extraction, adaptive forms personalized to customer needs, clear and timely communication through various channels and self-service options for faster resolution of queries.
Tailoring the Onboarding Journey:
- Leverage customer data: Analyze customer demographics, preferences, and behavior patterns to personalize the onboarding experience. Tailor communication, product recommendations, and even the sequence of steps based on individual profiles.
- Continuous monitoring and feedback: Capture customer emotions and touchpoints to track the effectiveness of implemented changes. It is also advisable to use real-time data from BPM tools to monitor process performance and gather customer feedback. This provides valuable insights into ongoing optimizations and ensures that the onboarding journey remains relevant and customer centric. Near-real-time dashboards will help identify the pain points of customers or any bottlenecks/hurdles highlighted during the process.
BPM is not a plug-and-play system, nor is it a one-time tool. It is a continuous journey of discovery and improvement. It brings in effective cultural changes in the organization. By effectively leveraging the insights, banks can simplify the customer onboarding maze, create a personalized and efficient experience, and ultimately build long-term loyalty and business success.
The ideal onboarding journey will not be static. It is important to embrace the iterative process, utilize real-time data, and actively engage with customers to keep the onboarding experience delightful, efficient, and truly personalized.
Ready to demystify your customer’s onboarding journey? Contact us to know how.
Author’s Profile
