Strategies to Engage & Delight Banking Customers in Australia

Most of the banking firms in Australia have loyalty programs but they are not very successful. One of the main reasons is their focus on short-term profitability rather than decisions that could deliver better long-term customer outcomes. To regain the trust of banking customers, banks must go for a purpose-led culture and a level of commitment that focuses on a customer-centric approach. 

In this blog, we will learn everything about building a successful loyalty program for financial Institutions and the types of rewards you can offer to delight customers. 

Main Barriers that Prevent Banking Loyalty Programs to Grow 

Banks often face pressure from shareholders that demand quarterly results leading to lesser focus on customers’ experiences. Senior banking professionals are too focused on short-term goals rather than keeping their focus towards the needs of customers. For instance, they prioritize short-term gains like increasing bank charges without caring about the multiyear effect of annoyed customers who switch to competitors frequently. 

Banks need to deal with separate departments that may not work well together, which makes it difficult to improve overall processes and even impossible. The silos within the organizations may hamper employees from collaborating effectively.  

Banks in Australia rely mostly on general measures to track customer experiences rather than focusing on specific customer metrics. Additionally, they also lack practical ways to measure how efficient their processes are. Without knowing what keeps customers happy and what makes them unhappy, you cannot fully make your loyalty program successful. 

After learning about the key challenges, it is clear that Australian banks must now keep their focus on changing the way they invest money and organize their operations to better serve their customers.  

How Australian Banks Must Focus on Customer-Centric Goals? 

Banks in Australia must build new loyalty programs that highlight customer-centric goals and to do so, we have highlighted some of the best strategies- 

Ensure that your bank offers digital-first, easy and personalised customer experiences that will make customers’ lives easier and more convenient. For instance, we can consider the example of DBS in Singapore which invested several times over the years to encourage their customers to switch to digital interactions.  

Their digital customers nearly generated twice the income of other customers and have higher deposits, loans and investments, which also cost DBS less to acquire. Being simple and opting for a digital-first approach can help your Australian bank gain higher loyalty in the long run.  

More and more financial institutions are now setting up processes that incorporate customer feedback into business operations and decisions like changing pricing on select products. This will help in making major decisions that customers expect from the bank and will make them choose you over competitors.  

Make sure that you focus on offering customer-friendly services to attract more customers and drive profits. For example, Santander Bank in the UK came up with a ‘Simple, Personal and Fair’ proposition with low fees and simple cashback rules, which helped the bank streamline the number of transaction accounts.  

Having good monitoring mechanisms for your bank is a good choice as it will help to keep focus on the full suite of customer feedback and financial and operational metrics that are needed to produce better customer outcomes.