Digitization of customer relationships: Where is the greatest potential?
The digitization of customer relationships is still in its infancy in many areas, and customers would like to see it expanded. However, the corresponding offers are still lacking.
When it comes to digitizing customer relationships, much more could be done. The potential for innovation is particularly great in the insurance industry (including health insurers), but banks also have some catching up to do in some areas. These are some of the key findings from a survey conducted in Switzerland and Germany by the market research company GFK on behalf of the digitalization specialist ti&m. For this purpose, around 1,500 German-speaking Swiss and people in Germany aged between 15 and 75 were surveyed online in October 2017.
Online banking at the top
The frontrunner among digitized services in Switzerland is online banking: 91 percent of survey participants use a corresponding service. Online ticketing (75 percent) and online payment (73) also enjoy high acceptance. The positioning of these services, which have been available for some time, shows that processes cannot be transformed overnight. Their implementation takes time and patience. Digital customer contact between citizens and the administration is somewhat less advanced: at least three out of five respondents complete their tax returns online and 54 percent use an online counter for transactions with public offices. Even less use is made of the insurance industry's digital services, such as online processing of claims notifications (42 percent) and benefit statements (39 percent).
Insurers lagging behind in innovation
In addition to the pure use of the services, the study also examined the extent to which the services subjectively simplify customers' everyday lives and how satisfied they are with the current implementation. A comparison of these values clearly shows where the greatest potential for digitization is hidden. According to the study, mobile banking and payment as well as personal finance management offer the best growth opportunities. The insurance sector is lagging far behind in terms of innovation: Here, many customers would like to see additional offerings, which are still largely lacking today.
Further potential for improvement is revealed in cross-industry digital customer service topics such as onboarding (i.e., new customer intake), customer portal, chat, and making appointments. The biggest gap between desire and reality is found in e-voting. Over seventy percent of survey participants would like to vote and elect online, but only four percent are able to do so - this indicates a clear mandate to policymakers.
On the whole, high satisfaction with regard to customer relations
The survey also shows which providers score well with customers. Customers of St.Galler Kantonalbank are the most satisfied with online banking, but this financial institution does not (yet) offer mobile banking. When it comes to mobile banking, Zürcher Kantonalbank and Raiffeisen come out on top ex aequo. When it comes to online claims reporting to insurance companies, customers of Die Mobiliar were the most satisfied, while Visana's solution seems to be the most convincing when it comes to online billing for health insurance benefits. Overall, it can be seen that customers are largely satisfied with the digitized offerings - but there is still room for improvement everywhere in terms of digitized customer relationships.
The study also makes it clear that there is a discrepancy between the sexes in the use of online services: All the services studied are used more by men than by women. "Up to now, digitization seems to be mainly a popular buzzword among strategy consultants," says Thomas Wüst, founder and CEO of ti&m. "The study finally dares to get up close and personal with the users and beneficiaries of the new digital services. And it separates the wheat from the chaff, because it shows what is useful, necessary and desirable - from the customer's point of view."
Source: www.ti8m.com
