In our previous piece, I described the importance of a clear and concise communication strategy for companies in the age of a crisis. Every minute counts, so it’s crucial to act quickly. Some of the companies have already made moves to adapt to the situation and enhance their service. Let’s see what mechanics of customer communication they have used to combat the crisis and how will it help them retain customers.
The first article in the series: What Should We Do When The Earth Stops: Communicate and Overcommunicate
Basic guidelines
As you might expect, mobile technology has experienced a significant rise. People are forced to keep out of brick-and-mortar offices, which has made smartphones their office and communication hub at the same time. That’s why communication is no longer limited to your marketing message—it comprises overall Fintech systems’ user experience as well.
The requirements for internet connections have risen, so technology platforms are encountering bugs provoked by connection issues more often. In this regard, proactivity in searching for possible problems and elaborating a concise plan on how to cope with them will stabilize the panic and strengthen relationships with clients. Together with improved customer experience, these basics should keep you out of trouble.
With these basics in mind, let’s dive deeper into concise practices you can apply to save clientele and businesses in crisis.
Handy mobile and tablet experience
Mobile-first Fintech solutions reign supreme today. Today, mobile flow and interface is an important part of your communication with customers. Mobile applications are the only way people can access their savings now, so the load on such services has grown exponentially. Last week, Robinhood reported several outages on their infrastructure, which struggled with an unprecedented load. That, in turn, led to a “thundering herd” effect—triggering the failure of their DNS system, Robinhood’s blog post reported.
Today all digital and especially mobile Fintech solutions experience unprecedented market conditions, which stresses systems with high volatility, record volume, and account sign-ups. That’s why infrastructure resilience and flow efficiency are now tested hard.
What can you do to prevent these issues? Try to customize your flow so customers can reach their goals as quickly as possible. Define customer segments by what needs they have, and provide them with what they want in just a few steps. This will shrink customer support loads as well as total loads on your infrastructure, faults, mistakes, and so on. Regarding communication, newsletters with changes you make to your system to improve customer experience may be useful as well as webinars clarifying new flow. You can also use webinars to make question-answer sessions with customers.
Personal service
During the crisis, personal service is going to play an important role in stabilizing both the information and economic spaces via extensive communication on a first-priority basis. Special attention should be given to financial advisors. To communicate their messages to customers, advisors can use demo or customer education sessions via video conferencing as well as onboarding programs. Sometimes it may have great effect to have a face-to-face online conversation with a client at loss.
Too often, fear drives investors into bad decisions. What can relieve the fear are determination and solidarity, which originate from lots of communication and proactive guidance. But now advisors are stressed by client attrition, extensive communication, shrinking income based on client revenue, and so on. What technology companies should do is help advisors feel less stressed during the crisis and enhance their offerings.
For example, Robert Sofia, CEO at Snappy Kraken, published an open letter to financial advisors in which he outlined the changes his company implemented to serve the needs of advisors. For instance, they are waiving all setup fees for financial advisors willing to join in quarantine times as well as lower prices on marketing because traditional marketing events like seminars and networking events are of no use today.
Meanwhile, the adoption of digital services will be accelerated, although it can’t be the reason for a regress in client adoption and servicing. To help colleagues figure out how to deliver advice remotely, H. Adam Holt, CEO at Asset-Map, announced an emergency spin-up webinar on best practices. Sharing knowledge at difficult times is also a way to preserve customer loyalty.
Proactive customer support
High infrastructure loads will be followed by internet connectivity failures and support claims. But even when you process a ticket, think beyond just helping with the issue. Try to think about what other problems the customer will have in the near future, and give instructions beforehand to prevent more support claims and loads. Such techniques as customer feedback loop and customer advisory board can help your support service define future bottlenecks and provide straightforward solutions.
The other way to be proactive is to track claims in the most natural environment for customers—in social networks. There you can see the most widespread bottlenecks and come out with a solution that will prevent thousands of dissatisfied customers.
Savings security
According to Entreda’s recent press release, the surge of financial advisors working from home and relying on weaker residential-quality internet connections and tech protections has significantly raised the risks of cybercrimes aimed at stealing clients’ personally identifiable information. Amplified by market volatility, it enforces overall customer anxiety and panic. That’s why it’s time to communicate to customers that their savings will be safe in any situation.
What specific marketing techniques can Fintechs offer to defeat panic? Try using a customer loyalty program. For example, provide loyal customers with a guaranteed refund where possible, and remind them that these times are dangerous for their money because there’s an illusion of lack of control.
Giveaway tools that add value
The crisis is stimulating competition between solutions that provide similar or equal services. To stand out from the competition, companies can grab customers’ attention by providing useful tools for free. Also, it’s important to inform customers about any social responsibility programs, decisions, and actions your company does to support society during the crisis. This customer communication technique contributes to both customer retention and acquisition.
As an example, by making its Endpoint Monitoring and Remediation suite of solutions, which is designed specifically to deliver better cyber protections to remote employees in the wealth management space, free to existing clients, Entreda is addressing a sudden and major industry need in a way that supports the ability of firms and advisors to comply with public health best practices during this global pandemic.
Another example from Fintech is how small business lender Kabbage helped businesses gain access to income by launching a website for gift certificate purchases. The idea is to get money into the pockets of small businesses today while encouraging customer traffic once the pandemic passes, says cofounder and CEO Rob Frohwein. More similar cases on how Fintechs have responded to the crisis can be accessed here.
Afterword
Communication is the best remedy against panic. Fintechs can help stabilize the market by addressing fear. In this piece, we’ve gathered some thoughts and examples of what techniques you can use to help combat fear and panic in Fintech.
When so many companies are quickly adapting to the new reality, the main focus is on preserving existing clients and saving the workforce. However, this is also a great opportunity to attract new customers. Long-term strategies are out of focus today because the situation is changing too quickly for that. So, aggressive customer acquisition strategies with an obvious value advantage will most likely work for the short run.
