Category: Blog Posts

When banks and credit unions open the door to multiple digital channels

It allows them to acquire a greater number of customers than by in-person branch visits alone. According to a 2021 digital banking consumer survey, 20-25% of consumers would prefer opening a new bank account digitally but are still unable to do so today. In fact, the difference between one customer’s business for a few years vs their entire adult life can be worth tens of thousands of dollars.
With Verivend, banks gain: an increase in customer adoption and retention, and additional revenue opportunities.

Going Digital Drives Lifetime Value

Listening to what consumers want and offering high-quality digital experiences is a vital part of creating a long-term customer strategy. So, improving lifestyle value must start from the beginning, by modernizing the way customers open a new account through digital means. Customers don’t just want a seamless account setup experience anymore, they expect it. Thus offering quick and convenient features like integrated document management, integration with existing billing and accounting platforms, and the ability to build trust and reputability with their vendors One of the greatest benefits consumers express about going digital is being able to manage their financial lives in the palm of their hand, at any time, from anywhere. The rise of the API economy, Open Banking, and digital is allowing banks to merge with strategic partners whose services they can offer and benefit from together.
Verivend opted to break the competitive ties traditionally woven between banks and Fintechs by striking up a cutting-edge partnership with Lake Shore Savings Bank. Now, Lake Shore Savings can deliver a seamless, white-labeled experience to their customers as they integrate Verivend into existing AR and AP systems and workflows to modernize their B2B transactions. Creating a tech-based partnership with superior value drives consumer value to last a lifetime.

Does Creating a Customer for Life Really Matter?

The short answer to this question is: of course, it does. Creating a customer for life quickly turns into creating customers for life. This, in turn, helps businesses determine important factors such as how much time and resources to dedicate to new customer acquisitions. It actually costs more to continually acquire new customers than it does to keep existing ones so adding lifetime value to an existing customer experience can be a cost-efficient growth strategy. It’s vital to gain a genuine understanding of each customer and their financial lives as they make decisions on products and services to buy depending on where their financial status stands. Something else to consider when asking does a customer for life really matters, is age-range demographics, since certain age groups may be less profitable when they first sign up but provide a much higher lifetime value in the future.

How to Face Changing Consumer Values

Banking and the financial industry face continuous threats from all different directions including, rapidly changing customer values and new digital competition from other banks and or platforms. However, not only taking into consideration but implementing some of the strategies mentioned above to improve the financial lives of consumers can help increase brand loyalty and derive lifetime value from customers.

Like COVID-19 has done with just about everything in life, it is now changing the way customers interact with their banks

possibly forever. Customers are starting to want more than just a “cool” mobile app and hollow promises from their banks to support the community they serve. In fact, 44% of consumers say their purchasing decisions will be negatively impacted when they see banks focused on maximizing profits during this difficult time. However, some banks aren’t quite buying this and are beginning to question if these changes will really last as the pandemic dispels? Below, we’ve highlighted consumer-focused shifts in banking and where they’re taking the future of finances.

Banking the Responsible Way

Product and profit maximization focus in banking has started to take a back seat to providing a consumer-centric banking experience. Responsible banking is becoming more important than ever as customers don’t want or need financial products anymore if those products can’t actually do something positive for them. While the global pandemic did send a surge of panic that left some banks scrambling to prioritize their profits over their growth, it is now time to take a step back and reestablish long-term investments in top-notch customer experience. A strong and trusted relationship with customers is pivotal to banks competing with, or embracing fintech solutions, but this doesn’t happen overnight. Banks will need to begin putting a long-term plan in place right now that puts intuitive and compelling customer experiences at the forefront of what they do.

Banking Is Beginning to Fragment

Banking services such as payments, savings, and loans are beginning to fragment as Fintechs create a more consumer-centric way of handling them. According to recently collected 2020 statistics, 47% of financial service companies considering a third-party collaborator wanted to partner with a fintech firm. As of 2021, Western New York’s fastest-growing bank, Lake Shore Savings Bank partnered with Verivend so as to combine their banking capabilities with a robust and secure cloud-based payment platform that immediately helps Lake Shore’s business banking customers. Even the majority of banking business executives at 84% believe cloud technology will play a transformative role throughout banking. Thanks to open banking, the data around consumers are much more accessible, making it possible for both Verivend and Lake Shore Savings to design a digitally financial environment geared toward consumers in a more intelligent way. Banks like Lake Shore Savings have already secured a partnership with Verivend and here’s what’s in it for them.

• Increased customer retention.
• New customers attracted.
• Additional revenue opportunities.

The Future is Fintech

So, whether banks believe in the future of fintech or not, it’s clear consumers do and they’re more than willing to immerse themselves in the future of experience. In order to not only catch up but compete, the banking sector must step up to the challenge of solving customer problems in a customer-focused way. So, open the door to the future by receiving exclusive access to our platform’s banking-centric features by signing up through verivend.com/banking.

Customer experiences are built from every interaction no matter how minuscule between a business and its consumer.

The needs of customers are always changing which drives the ever-evolving and increasingly difficult to keep up with customer experience development. Today, banking as well as many banking products tend to meld together in one indistinguishable pile which means customer experience can be a huge differentiator. Thus, it’s becoming increasingly vital financial institutions pay close attention to these upcoming 2022 customer experience trends and more.

Create Human Connection (Yes, Even Digitally)

According to customer satisfaction surveys, financial services are generally ranked at a lower satisfaction level than other industries. In order to improve customer experience and satisfaction, financial institutions shouldn’t forget about “human touch” either. The digital human touch comes into play by improving contact centers that allow customers to chat and interact with a representative digitally. So, when customers reach out with complex concerns and issues it’s important institutions match their expectations. For example, Verivend enables real-time communication per invoice or payment and empowers customers to collaborate with partners. The platform then securely stores every interaction in one place that can easily be referenced in the future.

Omnichannel Expectation

In order to provide customers with what they’ve come to expect, financial services have to begin investing in technology that allows them to offer the digital omnichannel. In other words, customers expect to be able to connect with their financial services through an app, live chat, or email on whatever channel best suits their needs at any given time, and from anywhere. With Verivend banks who integrate with our innovative SaaS platform benefit from:

• Increased customer retention.
• A secure intuitive user experience.
• Improved end-to-end operations.

When organizations implement omnichannel platforms, this provides a seamless experience for customers to handle all their digital channels in one place. Thanks to Verivend, not only do customers carry their cash flow wherever they go, but they put more trust in their transactions and spend less time waiting to get paid for a quick and convenient experience.

Niche Banking and Personalization

Targeting a niche community is a great way to reach a customer base beyond geographical boundaries. Now, financial institutions can create a community from anywhere and all online. An example of this personalization is Verivend specifically targets B2B transactions and customizes their platform and services to meet the needs of business owners. Specific features that cater to this community include cashflow clarity, paperless pay, business reputation rankings, real-time messaging, and a connective network. The pandemic, in particular, has driven forth the idea of building a community and helping others with 72% of customers ranking personalization as “highly important” in financial services today.   

Conclusion

While following these trends greatly increases the digital and consumer success surrounding financial institutions, in order to avoid future issues it’s important to still maintain a proper balance between digital and in-person service. However, don’t just read about upcoming trends today and forget about them tomorrow, putting good service into action is what will truly elevate financial services into a competitor. So, what’s the easiest way to do this? Partner with Verivend to offer customers a platform built to save them time and money.

Today, almost all businesses in every sector are expected to offer some form of digital service.

The expectation for banks and credit unions to do so has become even higher. Providing users with just a mobile app is no longer enough, and many financial institutions are failing to realize that keeping up with digital transformations takes consistent innovation, which often leads to higher profit margins. In fact, 84% of companies that consistently work to improve their customer experience, while breaking old bad habits report an increase in revenue.

What Keeps Banks Behind in the Technology Race?

A Fixation on the Traditional: Just because a business model or system may have worked in the past doesn’t guarantee its future success and longevity. The problem that arises when banks and credit unions stick to their bad habits and don’t see a need for the new is they fail to provide customers with a fintech solution that addresses and solves their concerns.

Risk Aversion: For many banks and credit unions, taking UX-based risks or discovering new methods through trial and error is often frowned upon. As a result, many do not leap toward total digital innovation. However, the risk can be well worth the pay-off as companies that have embraced digital transformation are 26% more profitable than their peers.

Faulty Measures of Success: Oftentimes, when banks measure the success of their UX professionals it is by the number of features shipped to customers. This may have a negative impact because though they are providing more, that doesn’t mean they’re providing what’s necessary. In fact, 81% of companies view customer experience as a competitive differentiator, therefore, banks and credit unions narrowing their focus into how they provide customers with the experience they need can have far greater impacts.

How Verivend Raced Ahead

Before launching Verivend, co-founder Aaron Santarosa noticed the way his businesses were doing business wasn’t working efficiently enough for him. He saw an opportunity emerge to create a completely digital platform that would allow businesses to spend less time getting paid and eliminate hefty paper trails — two of his own particularly problematic pain points. As a result, Verivend has taken off in the financial marketplace as the fastest and most secure way for businesses to pay and get paid.

Increasing customer retention, attracting new customers, and adding revenue opportunities have never been as easy as with Verivend. Now, we want to partner with banks to help them break their old habits and evolve as their customer’s needs do. Which involves making the most out of each business opportunity through our completely digital platform, giving SMBs immediate control over their cashflow, and more. Visit verivend.com/banking today to learn more.

The answer is both.

Since banking and financial institutions are largely the same everywhere, service tends to be their most differentiating offering. Customer experience and product innovation revolve around putting people at the forefront of services, actions, thinking, and innovation. Thus, Fintechs tend to be winning so many new customers because they know how to gather feedback and develop products, features, and more, that quickly and efficiently improve customer experience.

Customer Experience

Ask yourself, when you have the chance to give your business to a company that makes the effort to show they care about you as a consumer, or one that simply does not, which one would you choose? Obviously, the one that cares. The overall mindset is no different when the roles reverse, and a consumer has to choose which financial institution to bring their business to. For example, technological advancements and innovations aren’t always just product-focused, but a pivotal part of the customer experience. In fact, everything is customer experience from interior design, the wait time on the phone, to the methods of obtaining personal information. Therefore, even when a new product exhibits superior design, if it fails to put people at the center of its thinking, it can still lead to catastrophic failure.

Product Innovation

New products and features succeed when they are built on the foreground of customer feedback that comes from their experiences. Thus, a budget toward customer experience should definitely not be dissolved altogether. An article from Forbes argues, “Financial institutions that cling to the belief that improving the customer experience (whatever that is) is the key to winning customers and differentiating themselves from their competitors are misreading the trends in the market.” So, while some opinions may lean towards one way more than the other, it is incredibly hard to deny that product innovation can be accomplished without user experience and vice versa.

For example, while Verivend has a comprehensive suite of features including a more accurate picture of monthly cashflow, paperless pay, in-network connection opportunities, real-time communication, and more, these features would fall to the wayside if they didn’t comply with UX. Every feature on the Verivend platform is targeted toward giving B2B consumers looking to transact faster on a more secure platform everything they need to satisfy their customer experience. 

A Budget for Both

Therefore, the question shifts from which one should banks be building a budget toward, to how can they be combined to create the best business model right now? Product innovation and CX should merge into one in order to benefit the consumer and the financial institution. In fact, today’s technology is often so associated with experiences, product innovation happens simply by improving that customer experience.

Over the past two years, more consumers shifted their preferences and behavior toward digital engagement than they have in the last decade.

As a result, most industries will fail to ever look the same again, especially the banking industry which was forced to shift its clientele away from physical branches and toward online transactions. As a completely digital platform, Verivend helps financial institutions transform their online banking experience by offering an enterprise payments platform to their business banking customers.

How Verivend Was Founded on Digital Grounds

Verivend was co-founded on the idea that there was a better way for businesses to do business. This need grew from the desire to eliminate paper checks and invoices that too often ended up lost in the pile and provide one central location to securely transact and track payments. Specifically, better invoice tracking became essential as business owner and co-founder of Verivend Aaron Santarosa needed a better system that would allow him to see that his invoices were acknowledged, processed, and paid. The result? A completely digital financial institution that reduces time and costs associated with B2B transactions. Not only does the Verivend platform leverage the consumer shift toward technology but provides a seamless and user-centric experience as well. 

A Cutting-Edge Partnership with Lake Shore Savings

Most consumers have or have started to embrace the idea of a multi-platform-based business that reduces friction, lowers costs, and provides flexibility and speed-to-market. Thus, the standard banking business model is no longer sustainable in the years to come, forcing banks to quickly identify new and improved fintech solutions.

One of the fastest-growing banks in Western New York, Lake Shore Savings Bank did just this when they struck up a partnership with Verivend in order to innovate their banking process. Now, Lake Shore Savings Bank business customers can seamlessly integrate Verivend into existing AR and AP systems and workflows to modernize their customer experience offerings and increase customer retention. This means, thanks to this savvy tech partnership, neither consumers of Verivend nor Lake Shore Savings have to worry about messy paper trails or disorganized email chains. Instead, they’re provided with efficient, secure, and instant digital payment processes.

Innovation and Integration Take Importance

Though many banks and credit unions didn’t hesitate to move quickly toward a digital model for their consumers, there’s no denying that to maintain long-term success it’s time to go beyond the basic digital offerings. Many of the new digital-only banks use open platforms and cloud technologies to integrate with outside vendors like Verivend as a way to continuously innovate their fintech.

We’re leaving the old way of doing things in the past where it belongs. Instead, we’re encouraging banks to innovate their offerings to see how much business banking customers can save by integrating Verivend with their current accounting processes.