“People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.” This statement by Theodore Roosevelt several years ago is very relevant in the area of customer experience even today. That brings me to the question, what is customer experience, as opposed to service or putting the customer at the heart of all we do?

They are set to disrupt the payments industry. Payments Service Directive 2 (PSD2) and open API banking will ensure that banks invest significantly more into digital. They will require banks to open up their infrastructure to third party service providers.

Trust is a characteristic that we all expect from our banks and financial services providers. Not without reason, as in most cases we are entrusting them with our life’s savings. Yet another regulation, the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) looms large on the horizon - May 2018 to be precise, when banks and financial services providers must be compliant with the new data protection rules.

Differentiation is difficult in the financial services and banking world. And arguably, until the advent of the banking crisis, new market entrants and competition driving regulation, the industry has quite honestly taken customers for granted. With customer churn at a low level of around 4% per annum, the client’s apathy to explore the market is not surprising.

With more and more financial services and banking providers entering the market, clients have a plethora of providers to choose from. As a result, lower interest rates owing to lower margins have affected differentiation in the current financial climate. Which is why, Customer Experience and the ability to provide access to value-added services is the battleground upon which Financial Services (FS) organisations will either win or lose.

Mobile devices have become ever more of a necessity in people’s lives. This has given banks the opportunity to directly engage with their customers, the majority of which seldom visit their branches.

The single view of the customer continues to be the nirvana that banks strive towards. But, this outlook comes in different forms depending on who you are talking to. Whether that be wanting an integrated view of the customer’s product holdings with their bank, or a broader understanding of the customer’s channel interactions (omni-customer), or a combination of them all.

Rebuild customer confidence! That’s the clarion call from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to banks in its recently released Report on ‘Making Banks Work Harder for You.’

With over 600 branch closures annually, banks risk being distanced further and further away from their customers. As the banking industry continues to further shrink the branch network footprint, banks should make the most of digital and mobile channels. This will enable them to extend their reach and relationship with customers who hardly ever visit the branch office.

The recent instruction by the Competition and Markets Authority to banks on capping unarranged overdraft fees should come as no surprise. According to the banking regulator this will improve competition in the sector, whilst ensuring that customers get a better deal. Further, the BBC highlights that banks must operate transparently to create customer stickiness and demonstrate how they compare to others.