How to Retain Customers and Grow Deposits in a Digital World - Performance monitoring helps improve consumers' digital experience and can directly ...
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How to Retain Customers
and Grow Deposits
in a Digital World
Performance monitoring helps improve consumers’
digital experience and can directly impact
business outcomes
PRESENTED BY SPONSORED BYConsumers continue to embrace all things digital. The majority (81%) of U.S. consumers are online
every day, and more than one-quarter (28%) say that they are online almost constantly.1 This digital
lifestyle has implications for all industries—including financial services. By 2021, 58% of consumers will
bank using mobile devices, predicts Javelin Strategy.2 And 115.6 million consumers will use mobile
banking at least once per month, says eMarketer.3
It’s natural for consumers, impressed by fast and convenient one-click shopping, image-rich websites
and mobile apps, and personalized offers from digital retail giants to compare their digital banking
experience with their shopping experiences. Unfortunately, the digital banking experience often falls
short of expectations. While most (80%) consumers rate shopping on a mobile device as easy, almost
one-fourth (24%) of consumers say that mobile banking is not easy.4
In addition to the impact of the Amazon shopping effect on consumer Consumers are 1.5 times
expectations, financial institutions are also feeling pressure from the more likely to open an
increasing number of fintechs disrupting areas of finance that were
account based on experience
rather than interest rate.
traditionally the domain of banks. Non-banks including Stripe and
Kabbage are offering financial products to consumers in areas such as
payments, lending, and personal finance. Fintechs are even partnering with issuing banks to offer
checking account-like products.
The reality is that these digital disrupters often offer more engaging digital experiences with web and
mobile app design that puts the customer first—in stark contrast to financial institutions’ more utilitarian
digital offerings.
Financial institutions have always relied on the advantage of consumer trust to compete with non-
banks. But while it’s true that consumers still trust financial institutions to keep their money safe, they
no longer have a stranglehold on consumers’ trust. According to Bain & Company, 29% of consumers
trust a technology company more than they trust their primary bank.5 Sixty percent of consumers say
that they are willing to try a financial product from a technology firm. For consumers under age 35, the
percentage increases to 73%.6
How to Retain Customers and Grow Deposits in a Digital World 1The Digital Experience is the Branch of the Future
Traditionally, financial institutions relied on their branch network to inspire consumer confidence. They
invested in opulent branches with plenty of marble and rich wood to create a brand that exuded
stability, wealth, and trust. The more well-appointed the branch, the more trustworthy the bank
appeared.
29%
Today, branches matter less and less, especially for consumers under
35 years of age. According to PwC, only half of consumers over 35
choose a bank based on the local presence of a branch or ATM. For
of consumer trust a consumers under 35, only 30% make a choice based on location.7
technology company
more than they trust Digital-only banks such as Ally and Simple attract billions of dollars in
their primary bank.
deposits without brick and mortar locations.
Consumers are increasingly using online and mobile banking more than they use branches.8 The digital
experience has become the branch of the future—and consumers expect much more than a pretty
home page to rate a digital interaction with their financial institution positively. The digital experience—
just like the branch experience of yesterday—needs to make good on its brand promise of stability,
wealth, and trust.
What Builds (and Erodes) Trust and Loyalty in a Digital World?
Without the physical presence of marble and dark wood—and with customers who rarely visit a branch
anyway—how can financial institutions build trust and loyalty? Financial institutions may not have a
physical location but they do have a digital location comprised of websites and mobile apps that serves
as one component of the full customer experience.
To build trust and loyalty, the digital experience must be flawless. Consumers want fast, convenient, and
reliable interactions that are available anytime on any device. They expect no failed transactions and
have no tolerance for security breaches. Perhaps one of the most frustrating experiences for consumers
is to push the action button when the page looks ready but receive no response because the page is
still loading in the background.
How to Retain Customers and Grow Deposits in a Digital World 2Digital users quickly lose patience when digital experiences don’t meet their expectations. Google research found that more than half (53%) of mobile site visitors will leave a page that takes longer than three seconds to load.9 This impatience extends to financial services: 43% of Millennials abandoned mobile banking activities because the process took too long or was too complicated.10 The website or mobile app must download quickly. Slow transactions not only frustrate consumers but erode trust, with 44% of consumers saying that slow online transactions make them unsure if the transaction was successful, according Akamai research. In fact, slow transactions can be even more damaging to customer trust and loyalty than an outage. In an Akamai study, sites that went down had a permanent abandonment rate of 9% while the permanent abandonment rate for sites that suffered from slow performance was 28%. Of course, one way to ensure fast downloads is to eliminate graphics and video. However, a visually unappealing site does not have the same impact on consumers. Consumer expectations go beyond reliability and safety; they also expect a digital experience that is dynamic and engaging. Monetizing the Digital Experience The potential cost of a poor customer experience for mobile banking is high. Of those consumers who abandoned at least one mobile activity, 31% shared their negative experience with family or friends, opened an account at another financial institution, filed a complaint, or simply stopped banking with the financial institution. The bad news for financial institutions is that low switching costs make it easier than ever for consumers to change banks. Almost half (46%) of Gen Z and 26% of Millennials plan to open a new deposit account this year—and half won’t open that account at their current financial institution. When they do decide to make a switch, consumers are 1.5 times more likely to open an account based on experience rather than interest rate.11 Even if consumers don’t switch banks, a frustrating web or mobile experience has other monetary repercussions. If they are unsuccessful in a digital channel, some consumers will try to complete the transactions in the more expensive branch or call center channels. How to Retain Customers and Grow Deposits in a Digital World 3
Data Drives Performance Improvements
The more quickly financial institutions identify website and mobile app slowdowns and errors, the
more quickly they can reap the rewards of delivering a better digital experience to consumers. Data is
a critical component of knowing where to start and it’s imperative to have a broad view that monitors
100% of visitor traffic. Armed with real user data and advanced analytics, financial institutions can
determine what performance issues are getting in the way of quality user experience and business
success.
Digital performance issues aren’t created equal. Some performance issues have a more severe impact
to the business than others so it’s critical to prioritize and fix the issues that, if corrected, will improve
the metrics that matter most for your business.
Financial institutions can use advanced performance metrics like time to visually ready, time to
interactive, and time to first interaction to understand the relationship of performance to user
experience. They can then correlate those performance metrics to business metrics like conversion
rate, form completion, or engagement to determine how making enhancements to the site and user
experience translate into business opportunity.
In the following example, built-in data analysis calculates expected the business outcomes resulting
from a change in performance.
Changing Page Load from 1.88s to 1.78s -100ms could change conversation rate to 2.21% +0.10 pts, resulting in a
daily revenue change of +$58.9k.
Bounce rate would change to 16.11% -1.21 pts and session length would change to 12.2 +0.4 pages.
Page Load
1.78 s
-100ms
Session Count Conversion
6.0%
Conversion rate 2.21%
Changing the median speed by +0.10 pts
100 ms from 1.88s to 1.78s
would yield the results shown Total Revenue
$15.3M
100k + $412.5k
4.0% Bounce Rate
16.11%
Conversion Rate
The overall conversion rate
Sessions
would change to 2.21% -1.21pts
Session Duration
9:58 m:s
+0.16 m:s
50k
2.0%
Pages per Session
12.2
+0.4
Time on Page
41.8s
Ok 0.0% +0.53s
0.0 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000
Page Load (ms)
How to Retain Customers and Grow Deposits in a Digital World 4The following example illustrates page load time, comparing the time to the application visually looks
ready (orange shaded area) to time it is actually ready (blue shaded area). This metric gives a much
more accurate representation of what the user is actually experiencing.
Find and fix analyze
Are you using the same performance metric for everything?
Time to First Interaction
touch, click scroll
Time to Interactive
actually ready
Page Load Time
(what you've been optimizing for)
looks ready Time to Visually Ready
First Contentful Paint Time to Visually Ready Page load Time to Interactive
947ms 2.47s 3.17s 5.95s
#EdgeWorld 2019
Performance monitoring information empowers teams across the organization to coordinate efforts to
improve the key performance indicators most valuable to the business and allows IT, marketing, and
digital teams to partner on a shared view of success.
Once financial institutions identify and prioritize performance issues, they can remove performance
barriers based on business impact. The most likely culprits are heavy JavaScript and high-resolution
images.
For example, financial institutions can defer or block first or third-party JavaScript that is slowing
down an application. They can also automate image optimization with a tool that uses a math-based
algorithm to adjust the quality of the image, and intelligent logic to optimize the size and format. The
lighter image downloads quickly, but any quality degradation isn’t detected by the human eye.
How to Retain Customers and Grow Deposits in a Digital World 5The Final Step: Integrating Performance Monitoring into a Digital
Banking IT Organization
Performance optimization is not a once and done proposition, but a process of driving continuous
improvement of the consumer’s digital experience. While technology is critical, successful performance
monitoring also requires building a performance culture based on shared goals and a common set of
metrics. This culture should align development, IT, and the business.
Information sharing helps build this culture. Financial institutions can implement dashboards to serve
as an executive overview of digital performance or to support IT. Correlating performance monitoring
to business results can help marketing and IT teams get on the same page regarding the impact of the
digital user experience to the financial institution’s bottom line.
1
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/25/americans-going-online-almost-constantly/
2
https://www.javelinstrategy.com/press-release/‘big-bang’-mobile-banking-adoption-over
3
https://www.emarketer.com/content/is-mobile-phone-banking-usage-near-saturation
4
https://ww2.idology.com/second_annual_consumer_study
5
https://www.bain.com/insights/in-search-of-customers-who-love-their-bank-nps-cx-banking/
6
https://www.cbinsights.com/research/jpmorgan-chase-consumer-banking/
7
https://www.pwc.com/us/en/industries/financial-services/library/pdf/pwc-consumer-digital-banking-survey-2019.pdf
8
https://www.aba.com/press/pages/101618mcresults.aspx
9
https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/data-measurement/mobile-page-speed-new-industry-benchmarks/
10
https://www.jumio.com/about/press-releases/millennials-abandon-mobile-banking/
11
https://www.pwc.com/us/en/industries/financial-services/library/pdf/pwc-consumer-digital-banking-survey-2019.pdf
12
https://www.pwc.com/us/en/industries/financial-services/library/pdf/pwc-consumer-digital-banking-survey-2019.pdf
13
https://www.bain.com/insights/in-search-of-customers-who-love-their-bank-nps-cx-banking/
14
https://www.cbinsights.com/research/jpmorgan-chase-consumer-banking/
15
https://www.jumio.com/about/press-releases/millennials-abandon-mobile-banking/
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