When it comes to an organization’s success, employee experience is a perennially crucial contributing factor. Customer satisfaction is the corollary of employee satisfaction and the success of these two underpins the success of an organization. Hence, there is a direct connection between employee experience and customer experience, that is, satisfied employees lead to satisfied customers. However, it is only through engaged employees an organization will excel in performance, achieve organizational effectiveness, and improve financial results.
A report by Gallup states that disengaged employees cost the global economy approximately $8.1 trillion a year in lost productivity. In present day scenario where employers are exploring the possibilities of creating competitive advantage through a human-centric approach, the focus on employee satisfaction can have a direct impact on an organization’s bottom line. The employee-customer relationship has changed drastically since the pandemic as the digital revolution and Industry 4.0 paradigm manifest themselves across all sectors, including the financial sector.
Transforming employee experiences and customer expectations
The financial industry today faces the same ongoing challenges as many other industries, but the situation is exacerbated by the growing levels of distrust among customers. The sector is also witnessing ongoing structural changes. But whatever the change, employees are key to the successful evolution of financial services organizations as they adopt the new practices required to succeed.
As stated earlier, employee satisfaction plays a significant role in defining the success of an organization. To this end, with digital transformation in banking, the sector has been creating organizational cultures to ensure a positive employee experience. With more millennials and Gen-Zers becoming a part of the workforce demographics, establishing a culture that encourages younger employees to feel more comfortable and connected has become an important factor for employee retention.
Understanding and securing the new workforce
While reducing the cost of turnover and retraining can be stated as the direct benefits of employee retention, there is another benefit - the retention of knowledge. Studies have shown that customers often have a negative perception of organizations that offer sporadic and irregular communication. Here, an employee with a longer tenure will be more experienced to navigate the company’s internal structure and policies more smoothly, and better equipped with the soft skills required to offer support to the customers.
Millennials and Gen-Zers also place high importance on, and have high expectations from, the technology provided to them by their employers. A study by Deloitte shows that millennials are concerned about the next-gen technologies emerging with Industry 4.0 and how it has altered the nature of work. It also shows that they expect their employers to provide proper training and ongoing learning so that they can be involved in a digital workplace.
Millennials also want to be able to choose when and where they work. A survey by LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index found that workplace flexibility has become the most sought-after work benefit for employees, even above work culture, salary, and work-life balance. As we approach a “post-pandemic stability”, hybrid and remote work models are becoming more prevalent and have rendered physical face-to-face communication nearly obsolete. Technology is now paramount when organizations examine how their employee experience stacks up and drives the customer experience forward.
Empowering employees for better CX
The global digital lending landscape has transformed leaps and bounds, and the market is expected to grow from $10.7 billion in 2021 to $20.5 billion in 2026 at a CAGR of approximately 13.8%. Next-gen technologies such as machine learning and automation have allowed digital lending organizations to improve efficiencies and the overall customer experience in loan applications. HCLTech’ lending and mortgage solutions have spearheaded this change by integrating machine learning with automation to handle and identify ill-formed and unstructured data from handwritten receipts, checks, and other documents.
The new normal has witnessed an accelerated push for fully digital lending. Consumers now demand faster loan origination processes. As the pandemic rendered human contact perilous, digital lenders helped borrowers to address this shift. While not the same as an in-branch interaction between a customer and an employee, the digital lending platform still enables employees to interact with customers over video meetings and e-signing. This increases the speed of loan origination processes, enabling them to be more efficient. This also enables them to gauge the customer’s reactions and offer better services.
Traditionally, lending solution providers have largely been dependent on manual processes fraught with issues of efficiency and speed. Digital lending solutions offer a seamless journey by integrating all employees involved in the origination of the loan enabling them to interact with each other without delays. These solutions, powered by RPA (robotic process animation) and combined with AI and machine learning capabilities, have streamlined processes, improving both employee and customer experience.
Integrating innovation into the equation
From playing an integral role among financial institutions, digital lending and mortgage solutions have transformed into becoming an imperative. Improving customer experience and employee experience, identifying new business opportunities, reducing operational costs, and managing compliance risks all require businesses to form strategic partnerships with leading technology solutions companies that can offer robust, best-in-class, next-gen technologies to help them meet their business goals.
Be it AI enabled machine learning or natural language processing, it is only by embracing these best-in-class, next- gen solutions that lending organizations will be able to get ahead of the curve, improve their performance, and exponentially broaden their customer base. As the economy begins to recover from the onslaught brought on by the global pandemic, forward-thinking lending institutions that were quick to adopt digital innovation in their loan fulfilment and servicing processes will be the best positioned for the future.
To learn more about how HCLTech’s customized lending solutions can empower your employees to deliver exceptional customer experience, click here or contact us here: dpomarketing@hcl.com.
