Why Banks Should Scrap Their Digital Strategy

The last thing banks need when they pursue a digital transformation is a digital strategy.

Not too many banks get this right. Rather than create a digital strategy, companies instead need one cohesive enterprise strategy for how to be the best in serving their clients’ needs.

Setting up distinct channel strategies, or a digital strategy that runs outside of your bank strategy, only generates a bunch of disparate go-to-market ideas. That siloed approach puts your bank on a road to failure by generating and instigating conflicts, as teams vie for differentiated levels of support and resources to strengthen now-competing channels.

Instead of standing on its own, digital should shape and drive your single banking strategy. You are striving for integrated omnichannel delivery, which will translate into the best experience no matter how customers engage with you. Even if you want customers to handle the overwhelming percentage of their banking online, many will continue to walk into branches, particularly for complex transactions like mortgage applications, and call you with questions.

Granted, safer-at-home guidance in response to the coronavirus pushed digital adoption forward, more by necessity than desire. In July, nearly five months after the pandemic started, 91% of consumers conducted banking online, mostly to deposit checks or review account balances. Even more striking: 40% of consumers reported using their bank’s mobile app more often. But bankers shouldn’t take these adjustments for granted or consider them permanent.

Customers don’t care that different teams manage your digital, branch and telephone channels. They want to trust you to meet them wherever they are, and not have to explain who they are and what they want every time they interact with your bank. Digital allows you to walk that fine line with insights to follow their electronic footprints to specific products that match their financial needs.

Digital Is a Tool, Not a Product
This is so important that I need to repeat it: Digital is a tool, not a product.

I already know some folks are saying, “But, yes, it is. We produced a mobile app.” That’s not the same. You created that app for its own purpose. It also needs to be connected to something else – your banking systems – and deliver a real solution.

Granted, your bank needs digital visionaries who can envision powerful, engaging capabilities and stay ahead of customers. But these leaders must start with your banking strategy and weave their innovative ideas into that bedrock. Your team should be constantly stepping up its capabilities and services, and positioning them in a near-linear fashion alongside the customer journey so that customers can get what they want, when they need it.

And while you should never have a distinct digital strategy, you do need a dedicated team to monitor and track performance in this channel and identify new customer needs and opportunities. This is the essence of digital transformation, as you continue iterating your offerings and migrating more customers and transactions into your digital channel.

Changing the Internal Mindset
Digital transformation is about changing who you are as a bank and bringing that to your customers. The starting point is always your enterprise strategy, which anchors your value propositions on how you serve customers and your role in the community.

Every bank associate will have a role in achieving the future vision defined in that strategy. Be clear on how digital connects to your bank strategy and communicate expectations so that everyone from the call center team to the C-suite understands where they fit in. Even as your bank inches forward, it remains on a treadmill: continuing to advance to stronger performance that outpaces the competition but never crossing the finish line.

As you develop your bank’s enterprise strategy, establish and monitor metrics upfront to gauge success and maturity, including in the digital channel. Some metrics to consider include improved efficiency, the amount of customers adopting digital behaviors and successfully escalating the right transactions in your digital channel.

Be sure to measure progress in three dimensions: Are you getting more efficient as customers migrate to higher digital usage? Are you freeing up funds to invest in other initiatives? And are you maintaining the customer experience that defines your bank?

Because if you lose that in the long run, you’re going to lose your customers.