Financial Institutions spend a great deal of effort understanding customers on the back end of their transactions: Seeing their monthly statements, overall financial picture and helping them make educated decisions about their overall financial health. However, on the other side of those transactions is a complex and shifting world of transactions, many of which are happening through ecommerce. These interactions shape the way consumers think about their finances and affect their expectations of financial institutions. Consider the following ways ecommerce is evolving and improving for customers.
Enhanced Product Information
Consumers can make more informed decisions than ever before about the products they’re purchasing. Reviews, independent blogs and usability tests on YouTube all illustrate ways customers can learn about products. Beyond this, even closer to the point of purchase, customers have access to enhanced photos, customer support, creative payment plans, greater transparency in the services they’ll receive, and customized offerings created by leveraging customer data. The world of ecommerce is more personalized than ever before.
Highly Personalized Shopping Experience
Online retailers have become very sophisticated about where their customers are in the purchase process, creating unique landing pages and more personalized customer journeys to help individual navigate their online platforms easily. Additionally, the advent of data science in the ecommerce space helps businesses understand what their customers are looking for, create customized offerings and even sell customers on the value adds that are most important to them.
Expedited Processes
Customers are now benefitting from things like one-click purchasing, pre-loaded payment options and simpler account creation by linking to their social media platforms. These various processes make purchasing easier, and have an effect on customers’ expectations of their financial institutions. Simply put, they want ease of purchases and ease of transactions. In particular, Millennials have less patience when it comes to technology that isn’t intuitive. They expect it to work right the first time, and consider the efficacy of the online platforms they’re using a reflection of the brand they’re working with.
