Appointments are the new normal - and your financial institution has embraced this by providing customers the options they want and need to bank with you on their terms. Your staff is trained and conducting appointments regularly, and your customers are getting the expert advice they want and need from your team. You know exactly how to meet and exceed your customers’ expectations by using the appointment information and booking questions to facilitate a great appointment experience. While there is a lot of emphasis on the appointment itself, how you handle the follow up is just as critical.
But how can you continue to exceed your customers’ expectations after an appointment? How can you continue to build deeper customer relationships? As an integral part of your business, your appointments strategy needs to consider post-appointment engagement.
Why is a customer engagement strategy important in banking?
While providing an excellent customer experience is important, engagement is just as crucial when it comes to building better relationships to drive loyalty. Customer engagement is a true measure of customer experience success, and leads to happy customers who will do more with your financial institution. Plus, it all comes back to providing memorable - and personalized - experiences. Personalization in banking matters:
40% of customers say they would be more likely to stay with their financial services provider if it offered more personalized service
64% will invest more in a service after a personalized experience
For every $100 billion in assets that a bank has, it can achieve as much as $300 million in revenue growth by personalizing its customer interactions
So as you can tell by the stats, customers care about personalization. That’s why it’s vital to ensure you personalize the entire banking appointment experience from booking to follow-up communication.
How to engage your customers after a banking appointment
Establishing solid customer relationships includes nurturing them before, during, and after their appointment. They reserved time with one of your expert staff members for a reason, and your team needs to capitalize on this. Appointments should not be a one and done, but an ongoing strategy to nurture your customers and improve customer lifetime value (CLV). Because after all, the cost to acquire a customer in the banking industry is high. In fact, banks spend approximately $200 to acquire a new customer, yet their average customer generates $150 in revenue annually.
So whether a new customer or an existing customer, having a solid customer engagement strategy post-appointment matters. Here are some ways banks and credit unions can engage their customers and members after an appointment:
Set an appointment schedule. When it comes to banking, your customers and members want to work with trusted experts. From the moment your staff meets with a customer for an appointment, they should ask when they want to book their next appointment. As a go-to appointment offer, your staff could mention that many other customers have enjoyed a one-to-one appointment to review all available products and services. Of course, if they want to book an appointment for a specific service, they might need to meet with another staff member who is an expert in the area, but making the ask during a remote video appointment or in-person appointment is the perfect time to do so. This will help build trust and show that your bank or credit union cares to help them make their next financial move.
Thank them for their time. Immediately following the appointment, your staff should follow up with a quick message - either via email or text - to thank them for their time. A thank you goes a long way! An automated thank you message is a great way to ensure your customers receive this right away.
- Follow-up communication to check in.
Check in on your customers and members to see how they are doing with the new product or service and recap your appointment conversation.
Ask if they need any help. Do they have any additional questions on their new checking account? Were they able to set up an online account to access their loan information easily - and at any time? Do they want to schedule a follow-up appointment to discuss more?
Make the ask to schedule another appointment for a related service if this wasn’t done during the actual appointment. Maybe as you discussed opening a savings account, the customer mentioned wanting to purchase a home in the next year. This is a great opportunity to reach out and put a mortgage appointment on their calendar to discuss loans and how the process works.
Between personalizing the outreach, and making the ask for the next appointment, you’ll be well on your way to improving customer satisfaction and building stronger relationships!
Offer an exclusive banking event for return appointment customers. Appointments drive significant value for banks, so reward your loyal appointment customers by offering an exclusive banking event for them! An educational workshop - whether on investing, retirement, or what types of services you offer - would be a great way to continue building rapport with your customers, and become a trusted advisor to them.
Use data to proactively reach out. By harnessing the power of customer data, your staff can truly begin to understand your customers and help them reach their financial goals. If a customer downloaded the mobile app but hasn’t logged in - reach out to see if they’d like to set up an appointment to go through app benefits and how to use it. If there is a new feature or service available that can assist customers with their goals, reach out to see if they want to review the new services and how it could suit their needs. There are many ways your team can use customer data to further engage them after the initial appointment.
Ask for feedback and reviews. Ask your customers and members to give you feedback on the entire appointment experience so you can continuously improve. Additionally, if they had a great experience, ask them to leave a review - whether on social media or Google - and specifically mention your appointments. This is a great way to promote your financial appointments while also improving your ratings.
These are just a few of the ways your staff can engage with customers after an appointment to make the most of it! The best thing you can do is personalize the outreach and address the ongoing financial needs of your customers.
How bank appointment scheduling software helps nurture stronger engagement with customers
And if you aren’t already, then you need a comprehensive, scalable appointment scheduling solution to empower your team to provide a cohesive experience, from the moment they book an appointment, to the moment they schedule a follow-up appointment. Leading banks are embracing enterprise appointment scheduling solutions. There are many key considerations for banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions when it comes to online appointment scheduling. From security to must-have integrations, you need to find an appointment solution that scales with your business:
Accessibility: Between the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) legislation, internationally-recognized WCAG 2.1 guidelines, and other local regulations, being accessible for customers across all of your digital entities, including your software vendors, matters. Find a technology partner that prioritizes accessibility so you can provide the best user experience across the entire customer journey and serve your customers without fail.
Information security: As a top priority for the financial services industry, finding an appointment scheduling solution that puts security first is crucial. From GDPR to ISO and more, strict information security policies should protect your company and your customers.
Integrations: When your business relies on all kinds of technology to run efficiently, you need your technology partners to integrate with other tech seamlessly. With the importance of Microsoft Outlook, given the financial services industry has the highest usage of Office 365, you need to find an appointment solution that includes this crucial integration and more!
Analytics: You need to be able to measure the results of your appointments strategy. Utilizing analytics, your financial institution can make critical business decisions to drive growth. You need an enterprise appointment scheduling solution that gives you data on no-shows, cancellations, lead times, wait times, and more! It should be robust while giving you and your stakeholders the information you need at ease.
Utilizing an appointment scheduling solution that can help you personalize experiences at scale - before, during, and after the appointment - will be the true differentiator in why customers and members choose you and stay with you. After all, the engaged customer not only spends more, but they’re overall less expensive, they’re more satisfied with their customer experience, and will be more loyal.
At JRNI, we’re helping top financial institutions personalize their experiences at scale through appointment scheduling, virtual queuing, and more. With the tools in place to ensure you can engage your customers after each appointment, our platform is driving value for banks, credit unions, insurance companies, wealth management firms, and more! Some results our customers have seen since implementing JRNI:
62% reduction in no-shows
40% less employee time spent scheduling
Exceeded booked appointments goal by 9x
Interested in learning how JRNI can help your financial institution thrive in the experience economy through personalized, one-to-one appointments? Then sign up to speak with an expert!
