Forrester’s Singapore Customer Experience Index annual study found that the average customer experience (CX) quality of the brands is merely “OK.” It also found that the average industry scores across the banking, investment, and home and auto insurance industries mainly remained flat, indicating a lack of improvement in the overall CX quality.
The three sectors logged a narrow gap between the top and bottom CX scores, underscoring a lack of competitive differentiation. Individual brands lacking competitive differentiation will struggle to stand out in the market.
Improving CX
Forrester suggests that financial services brands must focus on the drivers impacting their CX quality to improve their customer experience. Banks must solve problems quickly and provide easy-to-use mobile banking apps.
The auto and home insurance sector can improve CX by making appointments with an agent more accessible and transparent about policy costs.
“Customers found hybrid experiences significantly easier, more effective, and more emotionally positive across all three sectors: banking, auto and home insurance, and investment. Digital-only CX had a slight advantage over physical-only CX. However, both failed to rise above 50%, in terms of the number of customers who agreed that experiences there were either easy, effective or emotionally positive,” Tom Mouhsian, principal analyst at Forrester, said.
Mousian recommends the financial services sector focus on the ease of using mobile and web channels, the ability to quickly find answers or get help using web and mobile, and communication using plain language.
