Frank van der Velden’s Post

𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐚 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤𝐬 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲—𝐈𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐩𝐩 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜? 🎄 💻 The holiday season means a surge in online banking and app usage. Ensuring seamless performance is critical for customer satisfaction and trust. In his latest article on Finextra, Konrad Litwin, Global General Manager - Testing at Perforce, shares expert insights on preparing your banking websites and apps for high traffic. Discover how performance testing, AI-driven insights, and real-time monitoring can help your systems thrive during this critical time. Check it out today to ensure your systems are holiday-ready! https://lnkd.in/gr7fNA_r #PerformanceTesting #BankingApps #HolidayTraffic #ContinuousTesting #AIInsights

Dear Banking Colleagues, As many of you are aware and experience first hand managing banking Apps for customer success is an intense and expensive business. We track customer scores and comments for Apps in many countries. The scoring being 1-5 with 5 being excellent. Banks scoring above 4.0 tend to have happy customers and therefore negligible customer churn. Consistently achieving scores above 4.0 is challenging and even the best mobile teams can go through tough times, especially with major software releases. I’m sharing here a high level view of what has happened with the major banks in the US and UK over the past six months to illustrate how Customer perception of their banking Apps can change even for the best mobile teams. In the US the number of banks scoring 4.0 and above has gone from 7 to 9, representing an overall market improvement. Of the 7 above 4.0 at the start of the period, 2 have slipped below 4.0 illustrating just how challenging the task is. Yet in the UK the number of banks scoring 4.0 and above has actually declined from 10 to 7. Much of this decline has been caused by major App releases. This illustrates the high risk to customer experience and loyalty with new releases. Detailed care needs to be taken across all operating systems (that’s a big task!), but its well worth the investment. After all the name of the game is seamless self service for our customers in the Apps, which means they buy more and become more profitable, remembering the App is now the primary banking channel for the majority of customers. I’d be interested to hear more first hand experiences and learnings here. Want to learn more please reach out. #customerexperience #mobilebankingapp #customerstability #customerchurn

💡Is your team bridging the gap between digital tools and human touchpoints? In his latest contribution to The Financial Brand, Rivel Banking Research’s Corey Wrinn discusses how today’s consumers expect more than just a seamless app or a quick transaction—they demand true convenience. That means delivering the right service, at the right time, in the right place, whether online or in person. #RivelBankingResearch #TheFinancialBrand #bankingconvenience #bankinginsights https://lnkd.in/ez8tVbEh

There are three terms that get thrown around a lot in the #banking/#fintech world that need a rethink. The first is the concept of customer loyalty. 15 years ago, loyalty was synonymous with retention. If you “kept” a customer on your books, you had a loyal customer. About 10 years ago, that dynamic started to change. Consumers (particularly younger ones) didn’t “switch” they providers, they simply added new accounts (and tools) and shifted their banking activity and behavior. Share of wallet (particularly from a transaction, as well as balance, perspective became a more relevant measure of loyalty. But that’s changing as well. This is pretty squishy, but “reliance” is becoming a better measure of loyalty—i.e., to what extent does a customer rely on a particular provider for some aspect of their financial life. I know what you’re thinking: “How do we measure that, smart guy?” I don’t know. And to make matters worse, there’s probably more than one way to measure it, with different measures for different aspects of someone’s financial life. This has some big product implications. Was talking a with a banker recently who’s launching a new digital brand. He commented, “we know we’ll need to offer a payment account in order to generate adoption and loyalty.” Really? You think you can compete for share of payment wallet with the 15 to 20 other payment providers consumers use? Wouldn’t it be wiser to launch a digital wallet that helped consumers make smarter choices of which payment option to use, and become the provider they RELY on to make smart financial decisions? This leads to the 2nd obsolete term in banking: “primary financial institution.” Today’s younger consumers (and probably a lot of older ones, for that matter) don’t have a (single) primary FI. They have different primary providers for the different aspects of their financial lives. Who is the “primary” provider for each aspect? The one they “rely” the most on. Are there certain aspects of the financial life that are more important than the others? Yes—but it differs by customers, and is (in all probability) tied to life stage and financial condition. Which lead us to the 3rd obsolete (or, if not obsolete, then irrelevant) term: customer lifetime value. What’s the definition of “lifetime” here? These days, it seems like the “lifetime” of the provider is shorter than the lifetime of the customer. It also seems very unlikely that a customer’s “lifetime” (in a banking sense) is their physical lifetime. Lifestage seems to me to be a better timeframe to measure someone’s potential value to the organization. Anyway…I keep seeing these terms thrown around as if there’s general acceptance and understanding of what they mean. And I don’t think they mean what you think they mean.

Dear Banking Colleagues, As many of you are aware and experience first hand managing banking Apps for customer success is an intense and expensive business. We track customer scores and comments for Apps in many countries. The scoring being 1-5 with 5 being excellent. Banks scoring above 4.0 tend to have happy customers and therefore negligible customer churn. Consistently achieving scores above 4.0 is challenging and even the best mobile teams can go through tough times, especially with major software releases. I’m sharing here a high level view of what has happened with the major banks in the US and UK over the past six months to illustrate how Customer perception of their banking Apps can change even for the best mobile teams. In the US the number of banks scoring 4.0 and above has gone from 7 to 9, representing an overall market improvement. Of the 7 above 4.0 at the start of the period, 2 have slipped below 4.0 illustrating just how challenging the task is. Yet in the UK the number of banks scoring 4.0 and above has actually declined from 10 to 7. Much of this decline has been caused by major App releases. This illustrates the high risk to customer experience and loyalty with new releases. Detailed care needs to be taken across all operating systems (that’s a big task!), but its well worth the investment. After all the name of the game is seamless self service for our customers in the Apps, which means they buy more and become more profitable, remembering the App is now the primary banking channel for the majority of customers. I’d be interested to hear more first hand experiences and learnings here. Want to learn more please reach out. #customerexperience #mobilebankingapp #customerstability #customerchurn

The Financial Brand these are great thoughts from an insightful article.

"Nobody goes out, buys a new iPhone, gets halfway through setting the thing up and then throws it in a drawer, saying it's too complex," says Chris Powell, head of deposits and customer engagement at Citizens. "But consumers seem to do this all the time with checking accounts." Today's customers need more than just digital features — they need intuitive, purposeful banking experiences that solve real problems. Here's what's working: - AI assistants that don't just answer questions but take action - Practical savings tools that help customers reach specific goals - Smart appointment scheduling that bridges digital and physical banking Powell puts it perfectly: "The old way was to hang features in the mobile app and hope customers find them. The new way is to walk them through a very simple, curated experience."

In the March 2024 Banking App Insights Session for the US market, our customer feedback analysis for version 4.43 in March, we observed prevalent complaints regarding PNC's baking app functionality and login issues. However, with the release of PNC's new banking app version 4.5, there's a notable shift in sentiment. Approximately 90 customers using this version have expressed positive feedback, highlighting the app's enhanced usability and friendliness. Subsequently, with version 4.45.1, which garnered around 100 reviews by March 31st, we witnessed a surge in positive comments, maintaining an average score of 4.3 to 4.4, akin to the last quarter of 2023. To quantify this sentiment shift, we've employed a comprehensive analysis, focusing on customer ratings across different app versions. Version 4.42, dominant in the last quarter of 2023, boasted an average rating of 4.2. However, with the introduction of version 4.43, the rating dipped to 3.7. Notably, recent versions launched in March exhibited higher scores, indicating improvements in user experience. Delving deeper into the underlying reasons for these fluctuations, our foundational pillars analysis reveals significant insights. While version 4.42 demonstrated relatively low technical issues, the adoption of version 4.43 led to a near doubling of technical concerns and an increase in app login and functionality problems. Conversely, the launch of version 4.45 saw a substantial improvement in addressing these pain points, with a noticeable decline in technical issues and app bugs, crashes, and freezes. Our analytical approach unveils actionable insights crucial for app optimization, showcasing the direct impact of version updates on user satisfaction and performance metrics. Watch our full video to learn more: https://lnkd.in/g7vukcJr

Banking apps live and die by their ratings. The opportunity cost of a star is more valuable than you think. For example, improving your rating from 3 to 4 stars can boost conversions by nearly 90%. So, why do users leave bad reviews? It usually comes down to the basics: ❌ App crashes and slow performance ❌ Confusing transaction histories ❌ Poor customer support These issues lead to a loss of trust. And in banking, trust is everything. According to a survey by Alchemer, 77% of consumers read at least one review before downloading a free app, and 80% of users will not download an app if they see negative reviews about its performance. Here’s what you can do about it: 1. Fix the core issues first—a stable, fast app is non-negotiable. 2. Make transactions clear—no one wants to guess why they were charged. 3. Prioritize user feedback—use NLP to categorize and resolve frequent complaints. 4. Improve support responsiveness—most bad reviews could be prevented with timely help. Star ratings aren’t just vanity metrics. They provide a direct reflection of how well you’ve earned your users’ trust. If you’re serious about improving conversions and long-term loyalty, improving your app’s rating is the first step. More insights on having 5-star app reviews here: https://lnkd.in/eQ56nHNN

In the March 2024 Banking App Insights Session for the US market, our customer feedback analysis for version 4.43 in March, we observed prevalent complaints regarding PNC's baking app functionality and login issues. However, with the release of PNC's new banking app version 4.5, there's a notable shift in sentiment. Approximately 90 customers using this version have expressed positive feedback, highlighting the app's enhanced usability and friendliness. Subsequently, with version 4.45.1, which garnered around 100 reviews by March 31st, we witnessed a surge in positive comments, maintaining an average score of 4.3 to 4.4, akin to the last quarter of 2023. To quantify this sentiment shift, we've employed a comprehensive analysis, focusing on customer ratings across different app versions. Version 4.42, dominant in the last quarter of 2023, boasted an average rating of 4.2. However, with the introduction of version 4.43, the rating dipped to 3.7. Notably, recent versions launched in March exhibited higher scores, indicating improvements in user experience. Delving deeper into the underlying reasons for these fluctuations, our foundational pillars analysis reveals significant insights. While version 4.42 demonstrated relatively low technical issues, the adoption of version 4.43 led to a near doubling of technical concerns and an increase in app login and functionality problems. Conversely, the launch of version 4.45 saw a substantial improvement in addressing these pain points, with a noticeable decline in technical issues and app bugs, crashes, and freezes. Our analytical approach unveils actionable insights crucial for app optimization, showcasing the direct impact of version updates on user satisfaction and performance metrics. Watch our full video to learn more: https://lnkd.in/gQBDx5VK