In today’s world environment changes in all aspects of life. Customers don’t want to make trips to a Banking branch and take a queue number to wait idly for many minutes even hours just to take a basic action. Also operating many branches in every corner of a country is a serious burden for any bank in terms of financially and operationally.
” Remote Advice for SMEs” is to create a virtual branch by connecting customers with our agents via digital virtual meeting sessions. That would include the range of giving financial consulting, informing them about our new products, campaigns, and services, getting feedback about product demands, and giving them mobile app coaching, etc.
As ING Türkiye Business Banking, we are providing this range of services to our all-Business Clients and potential customer base who value time as a currency that halves each second. Merging it with our digital onboarding process we are bringing a digitalized journey for a customer base which can be defined as conservative until now.
OG: Please explain briefly what this innovation does, how it addresses the business problem above, and what technologies you used or what changes to the business or your organization you implemented.
“Remote Advice for SMEs” is based on Smart Voice infrastructure which allows customer recognition, simultaneous translation, etc. if the demand occurs and is fully built within our mobile app which allows our customers an integrated service journey. Remote Advice for SMEs service is a digital branch that allows our personnel who have Capital Markets Board certificates to act as agents just like a call center build-up with a more efficient and satisfying service approach thanks to our Virtual Meeting which has 3rd party adaptations and in-app builds.
This product comes with a scheduler system that if you are the type of customer who likes to organize your meetings beforehand and can join at the destined timeframe just like a normal meeting which is set to be bound in your Office. There is also an option to call immediately to our agents just like making a Video Call which is convenient for your urgent matters.
This service required the implementation of a video call service application by consideration of our client’s safety and privilege needs. There is also an implementation of a scheduler which has time planning time frames for our employees and notification reminders for our customers, included in our app without compromising any performance.
This would allow us to close many branches and simplify our chain organization and structural layout in the country. That would allow us to show our commitment to sustainability and our proposed target for carbon footprint for brands & customers alike.
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OG: What does this capability do that’s different, or new, how does it benefit clients, and the resulting market impact? Tell us why you consider this to be innovative and what the unique selling points (USP) are.
The model we are currently using is a complete digital overhaul of a process many people observed in their Daily life’s. We are making this exhausting experience to fully digital and time-efficient journey. In terms of market research, there is a demand from the customer base to make virtual experiences more digital after the pandemic like many required fields.
Our main advantage against our banking rivals is their employees who are customer service agents but, in our methodology, we are fielding fully trained digital branch employees who have their required certifications from the Capital Markets Board of Türkiye which is essential in the investing market for accountability and regulation matters. In terms of USP, we can summarize it by 4 main pillars.
Time Efficiency: We are discarding all the processes of traveling to a branch and waiting in line just to interact with our agent. So, it allows our customers to save that time to use on something else which is very crucial to our business clients.
Cost Efficiency: It works in both ways our clients need to spend money for their travels or need to close their shops etc. to create a time to go to a bank. So, it allows them to not lose any financial income and continue with their regular jobs. It also allows our bank to restructure our branch layout to minimize operating branches in terms of various costs.
Sustainability: Our carbon footprint is meagerly reduced due to the energy consumption of maintenance of many branches and our clients had to travel to come to our branch to have a meeting with us. So, we managed to reduce their carbon footprints by their requirements to come to our branches in person.
Accountability: Our personnel have the required training in terms of giving financial advice. This also allows our customers to take appropriate actions in the circumstances they face on.
OG: Which quantitative metrics you have used or are planning to use to measure success, such as product usage, transaction time savings, stewardship of scarce resources, cost savings/avoidance, NPS, and return on investment? Include qualitative benefits such as a defined and improved customer experience, data reliability, marketing returns, etc.
Our initial NPS recordings already show that customers love this product in terms of efficiency and availability. Our general CX ratings have improved marginally in general satisfaction with the app, transaction user scores, and customer queue time for waiting. There is also a major reduction in organizational costs and expenses.
Per marketing returns, we can see an increase within our digital customer gains with the range of digital products we are serving, and we are tracking & expecting further increases with digital services related to our mentioned digital journey. As mentioned, we are tracking the service which has been sold/provided via this channel. It would be safe to say there is a huge transition for preference of customer buying on this channel based on our sales reports.
Also, we can’t calculate our customer’s carbon footprint they spent to go for a physical branch, but we are calculating our ex-branches carbon footprints which are now closed due to our digitalized experience makings. For data reliability, there is also room for improving our customer interaction methodology due to our improved data tracking capabilities due to information gathered before arranging a call. For summarization, we are seeing EBITDA increases in the selected parameters due to increased use of products and decreased amount of digital expenses.
Technologies we used to achieve the aforementioned goals:
- Digital Advisor
- Our mobile app infrastructure
- Digital / Virtual branch
- Our Payment Services
- CRM infrastructure
- Straight – Through Processing (STP)
Our Expected Outcome Areas of Remote Advice:
- Drive revenue growth
- Improve customer centricity.
- Cost saving
- Innovative products/services
- Sustainability focus
- ESG commitment
- Drive digital transformation in the market.
- Increase mobile capabilities.
