Industry guide expectations during the upcoming wave of Covid-19

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The money transfer industry worldwide is in the middle of turmoil. It is facing new entrants along with the specialist service providers in the field of money transfer that are capable of capitalizing, leveraging, and using customer service for grabbing a share of the market. Let’s look at the forces driving the change. The money transfer industry has seen some dramatic changes over the last ten years. Digital international payments have grown dramatically during the last decade. The banking industry that was a stickler to tradition providing minimal customer support is also in the middle of a revolution. The speed of many changes across the money transfer industry has changed rapidly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The threat and the opportunity due to changing customer expectations

The customer expectations from the service providers have never been higher. Most of the customers want their transfer to take place faster than it was 5 years ago. These kinds of changes in customer expectations are a result of the innovations from across the world shaping the expectations of various customers while evaluating different brands. Customers are expecting intuitive and seamless digital experiences in all aspects of financial services. However, many customers are reporting satisfaction with the digital experience during online banking transactions. They have also reported that online banking services are simple to use and if a player fails to meet the expectations he might face significant consequences.

More self-service

Research has indicated that more than 75% of the customers are looking to resolve their issues on their own. But, it is also a fact that only about 10% of them succeed in resolving these issues. The trend is that if a customer fails to resolve the issue he is likely to abandon the online transaction. Losing customers at the point of finalizing a money transfer can be detrimental for the service provider. If support can be provided to a potential client at the time of the transaction, it can make a huge difference. It has been possible to make these transactions successful with razor-thin margins earlier. All this is happening with the measure players experiencing mounting pressure from UN and G2O to lower the remittance costs. The self-service offer might have a huge impact on the operational costs of these organizations.

Seamless omnichannel experience

It is estimated that the banking industry is spending $120 billion every year to provide the best possible omnichannel experience to its customers. The reason behind this is that the companies providing omnichannel support manage to resolve the customer support tickets 3 times quicker and their customers spend far less time waiting for the various agents to respond. Continually changing communication preferences lead to the adoption of the latest contact channels. Real-time communication in the form of messaging and chat is appealing more to the customers. More than 40% of the customers are asking for better options to communicate with the companies.

Companies such as Azimo provide the option of live chat, phone, email, social media, and contact forms as options. Best PEO services available can be used for developing a workforce needed for this operation.

Greater agility with integrated omni channel solutions

Transferwise used the integrated channels strategically in the year 2019. It allowed the organization to achieve a faster overview of the customer queries as they came in. It allowed them to understand customer queries faster and reply to them quickly. They achieved impressive results with more than 84% of the requests getting resolved by Q2. More than 80% of the customer requests from the chat were resolved the first time they contacted the agent. Most of the calls were answered in 15 seconds while more than 80% of the emails were replied to within 15 hours. This allows the customer to ask their service provider a quick question in chat or over a phone without losing context. It is significant to have a full view of a customer as it provides the financial services the necessary context for more intimate interaction.

Conclusion

The biggest challenge faced by the money transfer industry is taking out the front office and back office barrier to integrating siloed systems for developing agile operating models. This will allow them to develop processes that are flowing, real-time, and customer-focused. Modern technology is allowing this shift and this can be implemented within days and weeks.