In the digital engagement banking era, customers have higher expectations of their financial institution. Consumers are no longer content with traditional banking products and simple transactional services – and if it’s not up to their standards they tend to look elsewhere.
According to the Backbase Fintech and Banking 2025 IDC report, the top three factors that drive customer loyalty include access to a wide range of financial services, fast turnaround time, and empathy.
We will take a deeper look into how to best optimize the customer journey, better the digital sales experience, and the key to creating seamless onboarding processes. All of these steps aim to assist banks in quickly expanding their customer base.
Optimizing end-to-end customer journeys
Did you know that most banks fail to convert 85% of customers on digital channels? Well, it’s no surprise considering customers are often faced with time-consuming application processes, have limited support touchpoints, and have to cough up a huge amount of information to even apply for a financial product or service.
Something has to change if financial institutions want to compete with big techs and challenger banks. These competitors are already offering bespoke digital onboarding experiences that are frictionless, engaging, and have near-instant support services.
It’s clear that banks need to re-architect their thinking when it comes to providing engaging solutions to their customers. Banks should also shift away from high-friction processes and adopt solutions that streamline end-to-end digital processes for faster customer acquisitions.
For example, Austria-based BKS Bank saw a 90% reduction in processing time for lease applications – with an average of five minutes to complete applications. Powered by Backbase Digital Sales, using an end-to-end digital process, improved the bank’s cost-income ratio by increasing sales while reducing operational costs.