Four Ways Branch Self-Service Improves CX and Reduces Costs
By John W. Smith, CEO of CFM
Adding in-branch self-service doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing decision for banks and credit unions. Small steps can be highly effective. When kiosks are implemented with a range of self-service, assisted, and full-service capabilities, financial institutions see benefits in terms of client adoption, experience, and cost reduction.
It should come as no surprise that self-service is catching on, especially given how costly it is to operate traditional branches. In a recent Celent survey, 55% of financial executives suggested that cost pressures are profoundly influencing branch network changes.
According to the Celent research, 20% of financial institutions say they have already implemented drive-through and/or lobby video teller machines, and 17% have implemented assisted self-service devices not involving video tellers. Additionally, a large majority of the market is considering adopting self-service technology in 2023, with non-video in-branch self-service high on the list
Growing Trend: A fifth of financial institutions are already using ITMs – either in drive-through lanes or in the lobby
Our research shows that financial executives ranked self-service solutions as the most critical technology in their current retail branch strategies. And with today’s rising costs and staffing shortages, it is easy to understand why.
But technology solutions are doomed to fail if they don’t carefully consider the user.
As Steve Jobs once said, “You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology, not the other way around.” This wisdom is borne out by our research and experience in working with thousands of executives and seeing how customers are interacting with self-service in bank and credit union branches.
At the end of the day, financial institutions need to make the changes that are necessary to help them sell products. To avoid painful mistakes, it’s wise to take some pointers from those that have already taken the plunge toward increased self-service capabilities and come out on top.
There are many lessons to be gleaned, starting with four easy-to-implement ideas.
About CFM
CFM helps credit unions optimize the foundational technology behind transformation by integrating cash recyclers, self-service kiosks, tablet-banking interfaces and other peripherals into credit union cores. These integrations and powerful data analytics capabilities allow credit unions to simplify the complex banking ecosystems of disparate technologies, and leverage hardware to its full potential and support modern banking experiences.