Mobile Banking App: 6 Techniques To Elevate User Experience

Long back, mobile app development has become all-important for the banks to beat disruptive competitions. That’s why increasingly banks are jumping on building efficient banking software or app in order to not lose customers, revenue, and competitive edge in the market.

However, in the last couple of years, even after entering into the digital fray, the banking customers who have high confidence in banks has now become little-to-none, and the mobile banking apps with basic functionalities are leveling off.

It raises a question- What’s changed?

As the mobile app has gone into the mainstream, the banks are serving the customers efficiently through ‘more digital and less human’ way, but it’s not enough to reinforce the customer relationship. Moreover, the customers have to deal with the challenges solely, and there is no safety net of human assistance, which spruce up the frustration.

It’s a clear indication that banks have to open a window of innovation embracing advanced technologies to go beyond the superficial perspective of ‘We have a mobile app,’ and score highest on positive user experience.

In a nutshell, to live up to the customer expectations, it’s vital for the banks to focus on customer experience innovations and engineer the app with “customer-first” philosophy, in addition, follow a few tips.

Let’s discuss in detail 6 tactics which help in improving the mobile banking user experience

Make it simple and intuitive

The user experience has reached a level of saturation where the customers are opting for the bank services that are offering the banking app, and which can be used with minimum efforts, easy to navigate, and don’t require the repetitive actions to be performed by the customers.

Design the app in such a way that customers can easily land to the page they are looking for, and don’t play with conventional icons so that customers won’t get lost in the navigation process. With data auto-fill, auto-suggestion, spell-check, and predictive text, the time and efforts spent on repetitive data entry can be truncated, which please the customers. The login with a simple touch, a tap on ‘Pay’ to make payments, and check deposit with a snapshot makes the app more intriguing.

Such experience satiates the customers and fuel up the loyalty, which in turn, augment the sales and revenue.

Also Read:UX Design Strategy and Tips to transform your Mobile App

Chat with them based on personality, not just a zip code

The banking customer journey is not linear, instead, there will be circle-starts, random stops, and false starts, which makes it essential for the banks to have 360-degree view of the customers to better understand the customer’s path, their needs and preferences, and pain points, and thereafter enhance the customer journey in an individualized manner.

At the basic level, the customers can be allowed to customize the home screen by choosing the features, colors, and font size. The immediate access to customer support can be provided to the customers who are looking for self-service.

Taking a step ahead, based on the customer’s account balance, investment portfolio, and previous financial saving history, the customers can be approached with tailored messages, or by financial advisors, which more likely engages the customers and upsurge the likelihood of purchase.

The level of personalization can be taken up a notch with AI (artificial intelligence) integration where the technology after collecting and analyzing all the customer’s data offer the personalized insights and recommendation to the customers. For instance, the AI-powered Robo-advisors provide personalized financial advice, helps in creating a financial plan for the future events, auto-pay the bills on due dates, and remind the customers when the account balance is low in an automated fashion with a high degree of accuracy and speed.

Help them out as advisors

The personalized date with customers won’t bring success to the banking apps unless the subtle sales pitch is made wherein the products are not pushed; instead, they are advised. The right mix of segmentation and contextual marketing is vital to make the users feel while reading the message or email that the content add value to their financial management strategy and helps in creating saving goals.

To serve the purpose, the banks are also adding personal financial management (PFM) tool to the apps which provide valuable information to the customers in the form of plotting spending history on the map, categorizing the investment, and suggesting plans for future saving. It’s beneficial and useful for the customers that make them stick with the bank and recommend the banking services to peers.

However, a few barriers- translucency around product condition and fees, a lot form filing requirements, numerous calls, and long waiting for the approval ruin the customer experience as the customers are accustomed to doing things in a couple of clicks. The friction can be eliminated by making the process fast and straightforward with minimum taps and touch, which improve the user experience as they can do more in less time and efforts.

Step in with the market

The user experience has evolved in the last few years. Now, offering just the basic functionalities in the app won’t allure the customers anymore. This is the reason the leading banks are leaning towards AI technology to enable predictive analytics, voice recognition, and a recommendation engine in the apps. 32% of financial executives have accepted that AI technology is already in practice.

The point in the case: The royal bank of Canada has added Siri functionality to the iOS mobile app to stay relevant and make the customers take an interest in. The Siri functionality after analyzing the user’s activity in the banking app, suggest the shortcuts to the customers based on in-app behavior. Also, the customers can accomplish the routine tasks like- balance check, bill payment, or search for something just at the voice command.

The voice technology is becoming an indispensable part of the user’s life, and by making it an integral part of the app, the users can make feel like the bank maintain a pace with rapid technology transformation to stay synced with the customer’s needs. The approach and its effects certainly enrich the user experience.

Also Read:How Is AI Extension To Mobile Apps Unearthing Lucrative Opportunities?

Stay relevant and interesting

When the customers are turning to the bank just to make a payment, it’s a sign they are just nice to the bank; they don’t want to stick, invest, and strengthen the relationship with the bank. What’s missing? The banking apps are not maintaining a rhythm with the customer’s financial lifestyle just the way Amazon did.

Incorporating intelligent tactics leveraging technology is significant to make the customers take an interest in the recommended banking products, and purchase them with zero frustration.

Parallel to Amazon model, the banks have different variables such as a digital banking usage pattern, call centers, ATM, and cards that can be taken into account to gather customer’s data, and analyze the customer saving and spending patterns.  After that, the precise segmentation will help in engaging the customers with personalized interaction rather than typical demographics-based communication.

For instance, when the relevant alert is sent to the customers at the time they withdraw money from the credit card to make shopping regarding the enormous fees they will be hit with for using a credit card and how withdrawing money from the debit card will help them managing finances, there is no chance that alert will go unnoticed. Also, the personalized service tagged with relevant business action creates new cross-sell opportunities and improves the user experience.

Security is a key

Customers’ financial data security has become the foremost concern of the banking industry with increasing fraudulent activities and data breach cases. The app design, features, and performance will go into the bin if the malware attacks can put a dent in the app security. The banks are leveraging several security measures such as biometric authentication to prevent third-party intrusion.

Using blockchain technology is one of them, that’s making the user’s data impossible to change, hack, or transfer unless the customer permits the same.

With security-first philosophy, the banks can strengthen the customer’s trust in the bank and reduce user friction in addition to no security lapse. Maintain an excellent balance of unique UX design and unmatched security to earn customer’s favor in the bank’s favor.

Final words

From the customer’s angle, the mobile apps which were just a tool to check the balance or conduct transactions must go 360-degree transformation to provide all-rounder services. Catering to the growing demands of the digital economy, the banks are putting the customers at the center of the app experience to stay on the top of the customer’s mind and pave the way to ultimate success.

It concludes with simplicity, hyper-personalization, robust security, contextual marketing, and modernized technology adoption; the banks can listen, understand, and speak to the customers in a style they want, in place of dropping the customers into irrelevant demographic boxes. Keep the mobile banking customer experience refreshing through our customer-centric app development services

Ashish Parmar

He is the Co-Founder and CEO of Prismetric . An enthusiastic entrepreneur, interested to discuss new app ideas, rich gadget tricks and trends, and admires signature tech business styles to readily embrace. He enjoys learning most modern app crafting methods, exploring smart technologies and passionate about writing his thoughts too. Inventions related to mobile and software technology inspire Ashish and he likes to inspire the like-minded community through the finesse of his work.