Latin America’s largely cash-based economy presents a challenge for fintech companies. The cultural preference for cash payments can become an obstacle in gaining customers for platforms that manage digital payments. However, the pandemic has helped accelerate the adoption of fintech solutions as people seek contactless forms of making transactions.
The fintech sector was recently given a valuation of more than $150 billion and is expected to continue to expand year-on-year in Latin America as new players join the ecosystem. With this growth in mind, fintech companies have to find ways to compete for consumers’ attention and loyalty, making an effective customer engagement strategy key to a company’s success.
How to engage customers every step of the way
There are many ways to leverage the use of technology to develop channels for engaging customers. That being said, it is important to stay on top of current digital trends and evaluate which emerging technologies can help instill trust in fintech customers and deliver a seamless experience. Here are a few tips on how to effectively engage fintech customers through the onboarding process, customer service, and payment process.
Establish trust
Transparency is key in establishing trust between a customer and a digital platform, especially when it concerns customers that are entrusting a platform with the management of their finances. Being intentional about displaying security badges that demonstrate compliance with industry standards lets the customer know the platform can be trusted. Part of this also involves communicating clearly what the information that they provide will be used for, including safety precautions.
Easy enrollment and login process through UX
According to a recent Deloitte study, 38% of customers state that UX is the most important criterion when choosing a digital financial service. A positive user experience adds credibility and creates trust in a fintech platform. Additionally, 26% say that easy enrollment and login is the most important factor when evaluating platforms. If the enrollment and login process is not smooth, this can become the first obstacle and reason for losing leads.
Explore customer service options
As fintech businesses primarily have digital relationships with their customers, they need to put the effort into connecting with them through the right social media channels. In Latin America, communication through WhatsApp is an important channel to consider since it is the second-largest market after India in terms of the number of users.
More enhanced features include allowing customers to converse with a human or a conversational AI assistant for customer service. These interactions can strengthen relationships with clients, increase engagement with the banking app, and boost retention rates.
Unified customer profiles
A crucial step to expand engagement strategies with multiple touchpoints –whether that is through an app, e-mail, social media, or a website– is to have a unified customer profile. One of the perks of adopting AI technologies is that repetitive interactions can be automated, however, providing easy access to agents remains critical for high-value and more complex interactions. Over 30% of customers in financial sectors want to talk to a real person when settling disputed transactions or getting investment advice.
Unified customer profiles help agents access real-time data from customer conversations with chatbots or any other relevant information that can better equip agents to resolve any issues faster and gain loyal users. Easy access to this information creates a smooth transition for the customer from AI bots to human agents. Although interactions might be coming from different channels, the person interacting with the customer must see these as one long conversation.
UX and security
One of the reasons fintech products are so appealing is their ease of use. Even so, their use cannot be so effortless that users easily make mistakes when handling their own money. That’s why users place high demands on the reliability and security of access of a fintech.
Alert notifications are a great feature to help customers manage their finances and security in real-time. By offering these features via mobile, fintech companies can monitor and instantly notify users of any suspicious account activity and guard against fraud.
Find out what your clients need, and deliver it
Analyzing user flow and user data allows fintech companies to continuously monitor, gain insights about why users did or did not complete a certain key action, and understand what is working and what needs to change. This data is essential for developing strategies to optimize performance and improve the customer experience.
Albo is a great example that demonstrates the importance of understanding users and their actions. The Mexican fintech had been operating blindly without an analytics or engagement strategy, but after partnering with Clevertap, they were able to identify KPIs and optimize their onboarding and retention strategies.
The value of a customer engagement strategy
Building a customer engagement strategy based on data is key to winning customers’ loyalty in this highly competitive industry. There are many aspects to consider when engaging customers through a digital bank. For example, trust plays a huge role in the fintech industry which means that these types of customers need to be constantly reassured of the security of their information throughout the journey. These valuable insights can be a gamechanger for a business and can be gained by partnering with a customer engagement platform that truly understands the best practices in the fintech industry.
