Credit to www.cinnox.com
By Krutant Iyer
We live in an era where people find it more convenient to connect with their friends and families over phone call or a video call, get their groceries delivered at their doorstep, consume content on their mobile screens, and even transact and invest online. Digitisation is not just a fad. It is here to stay and evolve.
Transformational technology, up-and-coming competitors, and the constantly shifting digital landscape are adding on to the increasing pressure on banking and financial services institutions to adapt and grow. Now, more than ever, it has become vital for BFSI industries to not just identify the areas for improvement, but also keep up increasing demand for innovative solutions to satiate consumers’ need for instant fulfilment.
What is Digital Commerce?
Digital commerce enables people to purchase goods and services through digital channels. But it is not limited to online transactions, digital commerce encompasses everything that happens before and after the transaction has been recorded as well. This includes content development to fuel the funnel, analytics, promotional activities, pricing strategy, customer acquisition and retention strategy, and most importantly, customer experience at all touchpoints throughout the customer buying journey.
How is Digital Commerce different from E-commerce
While it may seem similar, digital commerce is not the same as e-commerce.
Simply put, e-commerce is the practice of selling goods and services online, usually through a dedicated website or an app. Whereas, digital commerce is the strategy that elevates the customer’s experience. Digital commerce mostly revolves around the end-to-end customer experience that customers are seeking from your business. E-commerce is just one part of the digital commerce multiverse.
Instead of understanding the difference between the two, let us take a look at how digital commerce drives e-commerce.
If e-commerce is a ship that is ferrying customers from point A to point B, then digital commerce is the engine powering the ship. In fact, it is not just the engine, it is also the compass that is helping the captain steer clear of the icebergs and sail safely past the thunderstorms.
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The key difference between e-commerce and digital commerce lies within the transactional and experiential aspects of the business.
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| Transactional | Experiential |
| Let us look at a scenario where a customer wishes to apply for a life insurance policy from a financial institution | |
| Customer determines the best insurance plan basis his/her requirement, and reaches out to the company’s customer support agent via live chat widget on the company’s website | Customers prefer interacting with human agents over chatbots when they are seeking answers beyond basic questions. |
| Agent shares the application form for the customer to fill, along with list of documents required from the customer | It should be easy for the customer and the agent to exchange files and documents on the chat widget. |
| Customer fills the form and shares the documents with the agent | It is important for the chat widget to meet the highest standards of compliance and security when sensitive data is exchanged between agents and customers. |
| Agent shares the application form and customer’s documents with the Underwriting department | The chat widget should supplement the e-KYC process with the capability to turn live chat into a web call for a 1-to-1 interaction between the agent and the customer, or to turn start a video call to verify customer identity and present more information about the loan via screen sharing. |
| The assigned underwriter reaches out to the customer for completing the insurance underwriting process by asking basic questions on health and lifestyle. | Having a combination of panoramic video of the customer journey along with using the Conversational AI capabilities to turn the live chat with the customer into a video meeting to seamlessly guide them through the application process can help the insurer expedite the process and even serve as a one-stop window to conduct quick health surveys. Thus, saving time and improving workflow process. |
| After the underwriting process, the underwriter would schedule a medical examination to determine the customer’s current health status. | Prolonged processing time only adds to service delays and increases customer wait times. By automating the process businesses can ensure a smoother process. |
| After the underwriters receive the customer’s medical reports and other required documents, they will review the application to determine the customer’s health class and premium based on underwriting guidelines. | Eliminating unnecessary steps can enhance customer’s experience with the business. |
| An assigned case agent will notify the customer about the offered coverage amount under the chosen policy. If the policy is reviewed and accepted by the customer, the company will send the policy details to the customer along with the details of the premium to be paid. | The chain of communication should not be broken with the customers. Businesses should send timely reminders for policy premium payments, share latest developments or revisions in the policy features, and offer personalised support to enhance the customer’s experience with the business. |
Future of Digital Commerce in BFSI Industry
From insurance firms, NBFCs (Non-banking financial companies), and retail banks to neobanks and fintech start-ups, digital commerce has its hand in every aspect of the financial services industry; and it is important to note that the future of the businesses in the financial industry will be determined by how customer experience is crafted and delivered.
Now let us understand why businesses operating in financial sector should take these numbers seriously:
- 94% financial services institutions are still unable to deliver on the personalisation promise
- 79% leaders from financial services institutions believe that reengaging customers is more difficult than engaging new ones.
- 77% of CX leaders said they lack a technology framework to drive CX initiatives across their businesses
- 69% customers try to resolve their issue on their own, but less than one third of businesses offer the right knowledge base to support self-service options
- 80% customer enquiries received by financial services institutions are routine queries and FAQs that can easily be automated using conversational AI
- 59% customers feel businesses have lost touch with the human element of customer experience
Digital Commerce is about Creating Better Experiences for your Customers
Much like everything else today, digital commerce is constantly evolving and centred around offering better customer experience.
The financial service landscape is becoming increasingly complex and competitive with every passing day. Businesses are under constant pressure to meet customers’ high expectations.
CX has evolved from being a support service strategy to being a product itself. Total experience solutions like CINNOX helps businesses to proactively engage with their customers and create new business opportunities.
- Connect, onboard, and service your customers across all channels
CINNOX enables financial services institutions to do away with the old-school, multichannel communication approach and embrace omnichannel communication strategy to build the digital experiences that your customers will come back for. Multichannel communication results in fragmented customer journey through disjointed contact points that can lead to information loss and wasted efforts.
- Humanise Customer Relationship in Digital World
It is very important for financial services institutions to transform their customer experience to emulate real-world, personalised services. This can be easily achieved on CINNOX using the sticky routing capability. Sticky routing empowers businesses to direct returning customers to the same customer support agents who attended their previous enquiries.
- Offer Robust Self-service
Influx of customer enquiries in financial services industry can be compared to torrential rainfall, with frequent thunderstorms. We get it. CINNOX enables businesses to deliver exceptional customer service without burdening the customer support team. Businesses can easily add and deploy an intelligent virtual assistant using our platform, bringing a new level of automation, that is quick, proactive and 24/7 available.
- Transform Your Existing Tech Stack
We live in times where the customers are seeking instant gratification. If your team is working with inconsistent knowledge of your customers, it can impact their experience with your business. CINNOX enables businesses to easily overcome the challenge presented by siloed databases and offers a unified view of a customer, otherwise not possible with legacy systems.
- Secure Customer Engagement
It is important to have a complete view of the customer journey across all communication channels. Your team needs to have context to manage customer service requests. Ensuring the security of your interaction records with customers is of utmost importance for CINNOX. Our solution meets today’s stringent data privacy regulations and security standards with advanced encryption.
Adaptation of digital commerce in financial services industry begins with creation of tailor-made CX solution that fits well into a business’s unique needs.
CINNOX offers a complete communication suite for businesses operating in BFSI sector to deliver hyper-personalised customer experiences and centralised visibility like never before.
The businesses in financial sector can still get the first-mover advantage and accelerate their CX transformation from traditional to digital by taking prompt action.
