INTERVIEW
The new brand of personalisation that’s shaping Citi’s digital banking journey Customers want options, but curate it–don’t just offer it, says Citibank’s Nilesh Kumar.
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he word personalisation gets thrown around a lot when it comes to digital banking. With 80% of their customers logging into their applications monthly, Citibank knows only too well about these expectations: a customer experience-centred banking journey, right at their fingertips. But walking the tightrope between personalisation and creating a seamless banking experience is no easy feat, and banks run the risk of “over-personalising” their offerings to the point that the service takes a full 180 turn and appears impersonal. “Just because you have a service, don’t just offer it all to them, curate it,” Nilesh Kumar, digital channels and experience head of Citibank Singapore, told Asian Banking & Finance. “The customer wants to see all the options upfront. They don’t want banks or any institution to make decisions for them and show them only one option. “Give me the choices and I will make the decision” is what the customer’s preferences are now.” This is different from the past, when banking interaction consisted of customers focused on completing one specific task. “They’ll come with a very specific task and complete it, that’s what the banking interaction was. Now it’s changed. I would say that expectations have increased,” Kumar recalls. Now, it’s all about having options. But curating the right set of options to offer the customer is not as simple as it sounds–especially with financial institutions still attuned to old ways of thinking. Focus on the individual One notable pitfall that banks and financial service providers often fall into, Kumar said, is treating customers as part of a larger segment–whether they are a particular demographic, a particular risk profile, or a particular customer belonging to a bucket based on your assets under management or AUM. Kumar said that this no longer works because customers nowadays have distinct behaviors. For example, he notes two investors of similar demographics, with similar AUMs and risk profiles. “If we talk about our earlier banking, then we would just send them a similar offer. But if you look at them as an individual, especially in a market up or down situation, they will behave differently. One’s outlook to money can be different from their neighbor’s,” Kumar said, adding that one may engage in panic selling whilst the other may choose to top up on stocks during a market downturn, for example. This is why data analysis is now central to Citi’s operations. Citi sends their customers outlooks based on where the market may be going in the future, which in turn is based on data from the bank’s own analysts as well as industry analysis available. “With this, the customer can make an informed decision: should they top it up, or sell it out and maybe enter again. So having that data for the customer, giving them the right information and sending it using the right channel–that’s
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Banks run the risk of “over-personalising” their offerings to the point that the service appears impersonal (Photo: Nilesh Kumar, Digital Channels and Experience Head, Citibank Singapore)
what personalisation means. You’re treated as an individual and not a bucket of customers.,” Kumar said. Apart from personalisation, speed is another factor that customers seek in their digital banking experience. Speed, according to Kumar, is not just about how fast your web page or app is loading, but rather operational efficiency. This refers to ease of access to contextual information and channel performance. As an example, Kumar notes of a scenario in which a relationship needs to have a pertinent document signed by a customer. “Earlier, if you wanted to get a document signed, either an RM would book time with the customer, or give the customer a schedule to come to the branch. Now we have virtual banking. An RM can simply initiate a video call with the customer, share the screen, share the document, and then walk through all the discussions and advice the customer needs. Once all those things are done, the document can be sent digitally and customers can simply use their mobile app to authorise and digitally sign it.” “Give me the choices and I will make the decision” is what the customer’s preferences are now
Constant self-improvement In order to further transform their customer experience journeys, Citi has further implemented services that allow them to gauge the effectiveness of both current and soon-to-be added features, not just from customers but also from their staff. Kumar shared a special feature in their staff’s mobile app called “tell us.” The feature enables staff to share any glitches
