CX We Love: Betterment
At Winter Sun, we love thinking about the best brands in the world and what exactly makes their customer experiences exceptional. We also know that there are plenty examples of smaller brands in our everyday lives that we are passionate about because of the connection that they create with us through experiences.
Equally fascinating are industries like financial services. While these are some of the brands that we interact with the most frequently, they aren’t always experiences we care to tell our friends about. Despite personal finances being inherently personal, the customer experience of banking is often more about rates and transactions than relationships.
However, this doesn’t have to be the case. The recent rise of fintech options that design experiences around the customer and their needs are changing the landscape of what people now expect from their financial institutions. A recent study of 3,000 retail banking customers revealed several critical “wants” that drive loyalty:
Customers want new technologies to add value
Customers want banking providers to keep things simple and uncomplicated
Customers want to be treated like people and depend on their institutions
Customers want predictability and joy in their banking transactions
Reading through this list of wants, I immediately thought of Betterment. I’ve been a customer of a large retail bank for about 20 years and a customer of Betterment for about five. One of those brand relationships is out of inertia and one is out of loyalty. Can you guess which one is stronger? That loyalty is born out of an exceptional customer experience that adds value, is uncomplicated, treats me like a person, is predictable and even a bit joyful.
What makes their customer experience exceptional?
For me it comes down to ease. I’ve never been a very active investor but I recognize the importance of investing my money. Betterment provides value through technology by making the experience simple and uncomplicated. Their interface is straightforward, they connect my accounts from other institutions for a unified view of my finances, and they are constantly evaluating and optimizing my investment with little to no effort on my part.
Essentially they solved a problem for me. That’s what the best customer experiences do, they understand the true points of friction along an experience and offer a solution. By starting with motivations and experience, a brand puts the customer and their needs front and center - treating them like people rather than accounts.
TL;DR What’s the bottom line?
An experience that creates brand affinity starts with a thorough understanding of your customer. Even in an established industry with frequent transactions, there still may be pain points or hesitations holding people back from having a true connection to your brand. If you can use digital CX to offer them a solution to their problem and make their lives easier, lasting customer loyalty will follow.
