The customer facing technology to open a current account for retail customers at Bank of Ireland was revolutionised in 2016 through simplification and digital enablement. The process was designed with the customer at the heart of the solution, which led to outstanding NPS increases and huge reductions in customer complaints reports Douglas Blakey
It’s a common challenge at incumbent banks and start-ups alike: how to optimise the onboarding of new current account customers.
But Bank of Ireland has a winning solution and snapped up the award for best customer facing technology at the RBI Annual Global Awards, sponsored by Fiserv.
In the old pre-digital world, customers required to open an account in-branch, using a lot of paper or take their place in the queue in a call to a contact centre.
Cue a 30-40 minute process and inevitable complaints from a chunk of customers.
At Bank of Ireland, the bank reported that around one-half of potential new customers were sent away from the branch and asked to make an appointment: as many as one-in-three of such customers had difficulty obtaining an early appointment at the branch.
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By GlobalDataOther Customers were put on a phone in the branch which dialled the contact centre directly to apply over the phone.
Many new customers who called the Account Opening team direct found the process complex and arduous.
Applications were completed over the phone but all documents including Identification and address verification documents had to be brought to branch so the customer started non face to face but ended up completing the process face to face.
The whole process took Contact Centre agents and advisors up to 40 minutes time each – not to mention the customer was unable to complete the application in one process.
As a result, many customers who had to use multiple channels and could not complete the account opening in their channel of choice were more likely to give a negative net promoter score (NPS).
Additionally, many customers were not always given their account number – all of these led to high levels of complaints, a lot of which related to the account opening process.
That was then: now, Bank of Ireland has revolutionised its account opening process.
ONE WAY – Bank of Ireland’s new fully digital end to end application service
Bank of Ireland’s “One Way” online application form allows customers to complete a simplified application form either from the comfort of their own home or in branch in just 10 minutes.
The complete removal of paper applications and the multiple account opening options removed confusion for front line staff and ultimately reduced delays processing the applications.
Bank of Ireland’s Upload Hub was launched in the first quarter of 2017 and enables the bank to remove paper completely from the process: 100% digital onboarding.
As a result, customers no longer require to make an appointment with a customer service representative.
To comply with AML and KYC requirements, customers can upload ID and address verification.
Early results are outstanding.
An impressive 70% of all new Bank of Ireland personal current account applications are now submitted on a self-service basis, compared with 18% as recently as last year.
Other highlights include:
- NPS for the account opening process increased +12 to +23 in just six months
- 4 out of 5 customers are ‘very satisfied’ with the account opening journey;
- Current account complaints are down by 50% year-on-year
