To secure a larger market share, financial industry leaders are searching for new ways to build brand identity and educate potential customers about their latest offerings. In an annual survey of 760 financial institutions, 54 percent of respondents said the most important focus for 2017 was to make the customer journey easier and more straightforward.
For many bank managers, employing digital banking kiosks in their branches and in other high-traffic locations, such as malls, is paying dividends by reaching a new potential customer base and informing existing customers about new products and services.
What else can self-service and digital signage bring to financial institutions? Olea Kiosks has identified these three critical trends every bank and credit union operator should follow.
Trend #1: Digital Signage as Essential Marketing Tool
Consumers are always looking for new ways to maximise their dollar. With fewer customers transacting business in-person at their local branch, it is becoming critical for banks to find new methods to reach new potential customers, and accordingly, many banks are turning to digital signage, which has been shown to have a powerful effect on attracting new business. One study showed that 19 percent of Americans have decided to purchase a product after seeing it advertised through digital signage, and another 68 percent say they’ve bought an item just because they were attracted to a digital ad.
Digital kiosks are proving to be an effective cornerstone of digital marketing and outreach strategies because the interactive messages that can be displayed on a brilliant, high-resolution touchscreen are captivating and informative, yet also allow for easy customer acquisition through simple data forms. In addition, studies show that digital kiosks help drive a better revenue stream; one brand reported that on average, customers spent 20 percent more when they bought a product using a self-service kiosk.
Trend #2: Security as a Given
Most financial institutions treat security as their top issue, especially with the increasing move toward digitisation of data. IT teams are always wary of adding new devices to their networks, but the fact is that self-service banking kiosks are made with security at the forefront. Cutting-edge, built-in virus scanning software can protect against ransomware, malware, and viruses. In addition, advanced remote monitoring systems allow IT teams to monitor self-service machines remotely and even configure them to store sensitive data on remote servers that use encrypted connections.
Self-service banking kiosks also can be configured to use the latest biometric security devices to verify customer identity and provide easy access for existing customers. Advanced biometric scanning devices, such as retina scanners, palm print scanners and even facial recognition software, can be used to verify a customer’s identity and prevent against fraudulent access through the kiosk.
In addition, payments can be taken with trust as many kiosks are built to utilise EMV chip card technology, which protects against virtually any type of card fraud. Though digital kiosks are built to help reduce downtime (when many attacks can occur), the best kiosk manufacturers, such as Olea Kiosks, offer 24/7 technical support and an all-inclusive warranty.
Trend #3 The Value of On-Demand User Analytics
Many of the best financial institutions drive their decisions about the market with hard data and analytics. Some of the most innovative banks apply the same approach to marketing, relying on numbers to make decisions about what and how to sell to their customers.
Digital kiosks can play a central role in data collection and customer analytics with software that monitors and tracks customer interactions with the device. The resulting data can prove instrumental in determining which marketing messages are most effective, which product offerings are most compelling and even whether sign-up forms are too complicated. The marketing teams of the top financial institutions are utilising the user analytics to both optimise their product offerings to existing customers but also enhance their outreach efforts to new customers by leveraging data about previous campaigns. Additionally, kiosk software can be configured so that data can be collected while still adhering to the strict industry standards of privacy.