Best Practices for Keeping Millennials Hooked to Account Onboarding

• Post author By admin
• Post date October 11, 2021
• Category Onboarding

Banking has gone digital, and when was the last time you went to a physical bank? Traditional brick-and-mortar banking is slowly becoming obsolete, over the last six months, 40% of Americans haven’t stepped foot in a traditional bank. Most generations are in the favor of digital banking as it saves time and offers all the features of traditional banking. Millennials are taking the lead when it comes to using online banking, 47% of all millennials are relying on digital banking instead of traditional banking services. Millennials are more apt to adopt mobile banking, but they’re also the most likely ones to walk away if they don’t like the services. Almost 93% of all millennials abandon the customer onboarding process whenever they run into any trouble. 

Financial institutions have a huge opportunity to win all millennial customers by offering seamless mobile account opening, or digital account onboarding. Customers aren’t willing to sit through the cumbersome digital customer onboarding process. 

Identity verification is a vital process in the customer onboarding process and more than often the step where countless potential customers abandon the process because of the time and effort it requires. ID verification is important because that’s the step that will help banks determine which online customers are legit and which ones are fraudsters. By enhancing the number of fraudulent checks, banks can increase the chances of reducing the risk of fraud, this additional due diligence steps can also increase the level of friction during customer onboarding leading to an increased rate of abandonment. 

According to a report by IBM, more than 75% of all millennials have no problem in leveraging biometric authentication for digital onboarding. This signifies that traditional ID verification methods like Knowledge-Based questions and Multi-Factor Authentication will no longer be relevant. Millennials are more than comfortable with mobile-based ID verification methods that are needed to prevent fraud. 

So how is it possible for financial institutions to find a balance between tackling fraud and ensuring that new customers have a seamless experience while opening a new account? By working with a perfect online ID verification solution, you can make the customer onboarding process as smooth as possible.

Best Practices to Provide a Seamless Customer Onboarding Experience

1. Speed Up the Process

The biggest reason behind abandoned customer onboarding applications for banks is because the processes take way too long. Traditional customer onboarding methods are used to take up to 3-5 weeks. Millennials don’t have the time or the attention span to wait this long. For banks to keep millennials engaged in the onboarding process, it’s essential to quickly and correctly verify users within the mobile experience in minutes.

2. Better User Experience

User experience is a major part of customer experience and is mindful of the number of screens in use. Banks can utilize on-device data extraction to pre-populate forms during the ID verification process, thus reducing the amount of information a customer has to add manually. Create a custom journey for users by providing different colors and themes to the screens and sections. Make sure that you take care of the needs of every customer by adding multiple functionalities. 

3. Provide Clear Instructions

Not every user is tech-savvy, so banks should focus on making the process as clear as possible. There should be clear language on each screen so that every step is explained easily to the user. Provide clear instructions in simple English. It’s vital to clearly explain why banks require a picture of the ID document and the selfie and what they’re willing to do with the information. 

4. Instant Feedback is the Key

Users want to know their application status in real-time. If there are any issues with the ID document or photo submitted, then users would want to get that feedback in real-time too. Providing instant feedback allows users to understand how long it’ll take for their application to be completed. 

5. Omnichannel Support

For companies that want to capture as many users as possible, it makes sense to ensure that you provide Omnichannel support for potential customers. For example, a variety of ID verification solutions support smartphone image capture and exclude other channels such as desktop webcams. By doing so, banks are leaving out customers that are more comfortable on their desktops and laptops.