KPMG, a professional services firm has given insights into why it decided to release the 2021 Digital Channels Scorecard for leading retail banks in Africa.
Releasing the scorecard via a Zoom virtual meeting with the press, KPMG said the scorecard highlighted in a Thought Leadership publication unveils in-depth insights on the state of user experience at 26 leading retail banks across Africa.
According to KPMG, the publication offers perspectives on how well the featured banks deliver on customer preferences, user experience and adoption of emerging technologies such as AI and Robotics, to drive better engagement and experience differentiation.
“Customers no longer view their experiences in an industry silo. They expect banks to focus on creating experiences that are functional, responsive, intuitive, and delightful. As Fintechs and Neo-banks begin to scale on the continent, the window of opportunity to attain experience maturity levels demanded by today’s customers may be closing faster than imagined for retail banks. To attain these experience maturity levels, retail banks will need to be more intentional with product design, journey optimization, data analytics and building resilient digital channels,” said Boye Ademola, Partner and Lead, Digital Transformation at KPMG during the press conference.
He explained that this is the age of the consumer, changing consumer expectations, increasing competition from non-bank players, emerging technologies and an evolving political and regulatory landscape, which have all converged to form an inflection point that is redefining the future of enterprises.
“As organizations respond, we are beginning to see patterns that differentiate digital leaders from others; patterns that take root in the experience consumers have across the digital touchpoints with which they interact. We are seeing an acceleration of growth, enhanced engagement and stickiness with the players that have intentionally invested in user experience,” he added.
The KPMG Digital Scorecard provides an industry perspective of how banks across the continent deliver the experience demanded by a new generation of consumers many of whom are digital natives. It measures the quality of user experience (UX) as customers traverse a range of journeys to access products and services on four (4) distinct digital channels—Mobile banking, Internet banking, USSD, and Chatbot. The Scorecard covers 12 anchor journeys grouped into five (5) thematic areas: Digital Onboarding, Payments & Transfers, Self-Service, Lending and Customer Care.
Digital leaders are intentional about personalized services, 24/7 reliability and availability of the digital channels, and real-time customer care. They have a relentless focus on simplifying user journeys, can onboard customers end-to-end on most channels and empower customers through robust Self-Service programs. Late starters are still grappling with convoluted and disjointed user journeys, inability to onboard customers digitally end-to-end, unstable channels and unresponsive contact centers.