Recently at the  Forrester’s Forum for Customer Experience Professionals in New York on June 26,  Graham Atkinson, Chief Marketing and Customer Experience Officer at Walgreens, spoke about his work to transform the company from one that traditionally differentiated based on location to one that differentiates based on experience.

As reported in a recent blog by Harley Manning of Forrester, Graham talks about three customer experience initiatives underway, including:

• Delivering the well experience
• Transforming the community pharmacy
• Taking the Walgreens brand to the world

You may have seen a recent Cisco video commercial on the area of customer experience called “Weekend Warrior”:

Here at Cisco, we believe that customer experience is part of the connections made possible by what Cisco describes as the Internet of Everything (IoE).

To further our knowledge in this area, Cisco recently released the Cisco Connected Customer Experience Report focused on the retail shopping experience.

In this report, we discovered that:

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Tags: Cisco, customer experience, customerexperience, retail

Are you familiar with the bank of yesterday? One where trying to meet with an expert can translate into being required to travel across town or deal with lengthy wait times and lines? Where it can take days and even weeks to receive and sign documents to close a mortgage or open a new account? And yet many other aspects of your life can be addressed from the privacy and security of your home, at a time that is convenient to you.

I suspect many have encountered these or similar frustrations while attempting to gain valuable advice and support from a financial expert at a bank. However, these are becoming issues of the past thanks to the emergence of the omnichannel banking model.

The bank of now is here. Customers may make their own choice of when, where, and how they want financial service interaction. The omnichannel model orients the bank to focus on the customer, independent of product or geography, enabling customers to connect with the right expert at the right time at their preferred channel. One key to executing this strategy is recognition that a bank has to go beyond yesterday’s multi-channel integration by leveraging technology to virtually connect customers with the people who are best suited to address their needs. To get started down the omnichannel path, Read More »

Tags: banking, branch, Cisco, customerexperience, Financial Services, omnichannel, video, wealth management

In part two of this three-part series detailing the “Evolution of Immersive Video in the Retail Bank Branch,” I looked at Cisco’s Remote Expert Solution more in-depth and discussed how the solution’s contact center enables virtual face-to-face meetings with high-definition video. By offering customers instant access to knowledgeable experts, even when customers are in remote areas, banks can provide personal service resulting in improved customer confidence in the relationship and greater loyalty. Now that we understand how the solution works, I’d like to take a deeper look at the solution in action and discuss how Remote Expert can meet customer needs in three key business areas.

Wealth Management Services

Remote Expert’s video sharing capability allows investment advisors to visually see the customers they are pitching new products and services to and helps them to gauge how to lead the conversation. In some cases, portfolios may be complex, especially when involving trusts, so video adds an additional medium in which to connect with the customer and explain the approach being presented by the wealth advisors. This is something that cannot be accomplished easily over the phone and traditionally has involved air travel to meet the customer in person. For ultra-high-net worth customers (> $2 MM), Remote Expert also provides a way for multiple advisors to join the conversation remotely to guide the client through the estate planning or wealth planning discussion.

Mortgage Sales

Today, there are many mortgage programs and products available. In addition, many state and federal regulations exist as it relates to quoting and working with customers on mortgage programs. Video has been shown to be an effective way to drive additional understanding of those various mortgage products and a way to work with the customer through the pre-approval process and up to the point of underwriting. We are finding that banks are still opting for the traditional in-person closing process, but more and more institutions are experimenting with completing the entire mortgage process using Remote Expert and the available video capabilities it provides. Read More »

Tags: branch, Cisco, customerexperience, delivery channel, Financial Services, omnichannel, remote expert, retail banking, video

Imagine a customer calling their insurance provider and reaching a representative that has never spoken with them and is unfamiliar with the customer’s claims history or company policies. That doesn’t sound like a good experience. Now imagine after a quick verification from the customer, the same representative is able to access the customer’s complete insurance profile, detailing coverage history and other necessary information needed to forward their inquiry to the proper agent or broker. The latter experience is now a reality, made possible by connecting data sources across the Cisco enabled network. By bringing together data, it allows insurers to get a full picture of their customers and allows them to create a differentiated customer experience, helping increase customer satisfaction, retention, loyalty, and referrals.

Insurers are continually looking for the best way to attract and retain customers while also increasing cross-sell opportunities. By employing data mining coupled with collaboration technology, insurers are changing the way transactions are conducted. Many insurers are using technology to their benefit; not only through offering differentiated services or channel choices to customers, but also by the information gathered from customers. Read More »

Tags: Cisco, collaboration, customerexperience, Financial Services, insurance

In the first part of the “Evolution of Immersive Video in the Retail Bank Branch” series, I discussed how the retail banking industry is currently undergoing organizational changes that are affecting customers’ banking experience, including the knowledge and interaction they receive upon entering a bank.

Through these new organizational changes, banks are integrating new technology as part of their business processes to attract the more tech-savvy customers that desire choices and convenience when banking. Through Cisco’s Remote Expert solution, banks can meet these customer needs while making their business processes more cost and time-efficient and improving the customer experience. The Remote Expert solution enables virtual face-to-face meetings with high-definition audio and video.

Through Remote Expert’s integration with Cisco’s contact center, retail banks can leverage their existing database of enterprise-wide, skills-based information on the organization’s experts and make it available to customers at any time during business hours. Remote Expert allows a customer in the branch to find the right banking expert to meet their needs, including inquiries about annuities or questions specific to mortgage brokers.

Not only does Remote Expert enhance the bank’s existing channels and provide convenience for banking customers, it also reduces costs for all parties involved. Read More »

Tags: branch, Cisco, collaboration, customer, customerexperience, Financial Services, omnichannel, personalized service, remote expert, retail banking