Digital experience in banking and insurance: here’s how customers feel about it

Reliability and no chance to go bankrupt: according to our latest research this is our most important concern when we choose a bank or insurance provider.

Proximity of the customer touchpoint to the home stands at the second place, despite the fact that 6 out of 10 people chose digital channels for their financial administrations during the pandemic. In a perfect world where everything is available online, 40 percent of customers would never visit a branch or customer point, and the same amount of people are also willing to accept service offers through online video calls.

Among others these are the most important findings we picked from our nationwide online research surveying 800 Hungarian banking and insurance customers.

Not vital, but still beloved

When choosing a financial provider, reliability is the most important point for the Hungarians, customers do need a solid guarantee that the company won’t go bankrupt. From the list of 8 aspects the last two are recommendations by friends and brand recognition. 

Places 4 and 6 are held by fast customer service and the availability of digital channels. The pricing of different packages and services stands at 3rd place, overtaken by the nearby geographical location of customer points, which earned the silver medal in our list.

Although the availability of digital channels are only ranked at the 6th place, customers usually appreciate these solutions. According to our survey, in today’s Hungary two-thirds of customers are managing at least three-quarters of their financial administrations digitally, through mobile apps or websites.

60 percent of customers have been using digital channels more often during COVID, and one-third of them would leave their company instantly if these channels would be closed.

Senior citizens showing the way

Remarkably, more than 70% of customers between 50-59 years prefer online solutions for most of their financial administrations. This tendency is also significant in the 60+ age group, who turned to real power users during the pandemic: two-thirds of them are managing most of their finances digitally, and with this outstanding result they even overtake the youngsters. 

Apparently, when it comes to choosing a bank or insurance company customers tend to show sings of cognitive dissonance. While almost everything is available online by now (such as opening an account or asking for a loan), and customers tend to use digital platforms more and more, a nearby located customer touch point is still an important factor for us. Our still existing inclination to visit a good old brick and mortar branch personally, while also using online channels quite frequently, indicates a slight tipping point toward the digital world.

The need for a human face and voice is still here

Of course, digital transition comes with mistakes. 4 out of 10 customers experienced difficulties during their online customer service experiences and they could not finish their financials. As much as 10 percent of all clients got stuck during at least half of their online administrations.

The main reasons for these failures were system freezes or simple slowdowns, but 40 percent of people complained about the lengthy and difficult processes, making them impatient. In addition 18% of customers said they could use human assistance to guide them through the process. Looking at these numbers it’s not a surprise that customers would be happy for the option of an instantly reachable customer service agent, through a live video stream.

This last requirement leads us to one of the most fundamental problems of digital transition: self-service without additional human support. It seems that a significant group of customers still doesn’t believe in full self-service processes, and they think that human face and voice will always be essential when they go online. 

We are more open to insurance offers through video calls

Gaining ground of video call as a digital channel in Hungary was induced by the bank sector first. Usually it is used for client identification where a service agent guides the customer through the process in a live stream. Our research shows that 25% of customers already experienced this type of remote identification, one-third of whom went through it at 2-3 different financial institutions. 

Interestingly this service is also fancied by customers who only heard about it, but haven’t tried it yet. To be specific, half of Hungarian banking and insurance customers would gladly use video for doing all their financials they needed to do personally before. Moreover 44% stated that signing their contracts digitally through the videostream process would be a comfortable solution. 

While customers usually hang up sales related cold calls, 40 percent of them are open to listening an agent in a video stream introducing detailed credit offers or insurance services. Consequently video call as a digital channel goes beyond remote identification, and it can be used as a consultation based sales tool as well.

While many customers are still looking for the nearby touchpoints, half of them think that walking into a branch is as old-fashioned by now as paying utility bills at the post office. Some of them even stated that if every administration would be available online via video call or other online channels, they would never visit their chosen financial institution personally.