Artificial intelligence, avatars and embedded finance are changing the customer experience

What do customers who are used to the accessibility, speed and digital offerings of online shops and streaming services expect from the customer experience at their financial services company? How should banks, insurance companies and asset managers address their customers and what products and services can they use to make the customer interface attractive?

Benedikt Höck, Partner, Financial Services at KPMG, and Prof Dr Olaf Zeitnitz will discuss these and other questions. Olaf Zeitnitz is a founding member of VisualVest, the robo advisor of the Union Investment Group, where he also holds the position of Chief Visionary Officer (CVO). It therefore comes as no surprise that Benedikt Höck asks his interviewee to look a few years into the future and reveal his vision of the customer interface for financial service providers in 2030.

The use of technology, a new competitive situation due to the increased emergence of FinTechs and changing customer needs are already leading financial service providers to revise their products and services, and this process will continue. Offerings should be easy to understand, always available and convenient to consume. Financial institutions have a very heterogeneous customer base that nevertheless wants to be addressed in line with their personal needs. This means offering many different points of contact: from branches to service centres and online to apps. Customers should be met where they want to be and not where it is most convenient for the financial services provider, argues Dr Olaf Zeitnitz.

And: financial service providers should not emphasise their sales role, but instead focus on advice. Olaf Zeitnitz: "If the bank sees itself as a salesperson, it will have a problem in future. They need to emphasise the topic of advice, as this will continue to be sought after by all customers.

Making products and services available to customers at all times is only possible with the use of technology. Artificial intelligence also plays an important role here. Sooner or later, AI will at least partially replace human advisors and human contact points at financial service providers. The quality that AI can offer in customer advice will continue to improve and, particularly for the customer group that is not concerned with large investments, advice via chatbots and similar AI-based services will be the future.

AI can also be used for customer acquisition. Benedikt Höck explains that knowledge and understanding of customer needs can be derived from data. This makes it possible to place personalised offers at various points in the customer journey using intelligent technological solutions and thus address new customers in a targeted and efficient manner.

In the following video, you can find out about the importance of data, particularly when using artificial intelligence, and what Olaf Zeitnitz's vision of the customer interface at financial services companies will look like in 2030: