Virtual Branch: Partnering with the Banking Elite to Empower the Financial Industry

The world as we knew it before COVID is gone forever. There are many things that can now be done online, and if you want to attract and retain new customers, you need to provide services in this manner. As a result, an increasing number of businesses are investigating potential internet services that could better satisfy their clients' needs. The financial industry now has a solution in Virtual Branch. It's a cutting-edge system that banks employ to provide remote assistance to their clients, and it was developed in response to customer demand.

Marta Klepka: The product development is progressing, how is it going? Which version of the Virtual Branch do you have right now? What end does it serve?

Karol Stępień, Head of Banking and FinTech at 10Clouds: Customers, both present and prospective, no longer have to physically visit a bank branch since the product accomplishes exactly what it claims to do: relocate all service and client acquisition activities to the virtual environment.

It is intended for both business and consumer markets. Clients appreciate this service as it can be a time-consuming and irritating process to go to the bank, find the proper person to obtain help with a simple activity, and then possibly to need to locate another person for a different task, and then, finally, finding a parking place.

To avoid becoming stuck in traffic, you should search throughout a large number of physical banking locations for a parking spot or a person with the appropriate skills. We want to provide our final customers with access to high-quality service that could be provided entirely online.

The solution brings together the skills of numerous individuals, reduces wasted effort, and boosts client satisfaction by allowing them to carry out all of their desired tasks in a risk-free, centralized online environment.

To help banks provide excellent service to the final client in a digital environment, we developed a collection of microservices. With the use of tools like digital customer needs research, document upload and exchange, electronic signatures, and video authentication, we've made it feasible for consumers to do a wide variety of chores online.

There is now a web-based version of the Virtual Branch. Shortly, we'll go to work on the mobile version.

Virtual Branch can serve as a sales enablement tool just like any other. How can we improve the customer experience during the sales process? To what extent can we increase online banking customers' satisfaction and encourage them to make purchase?

I guess we're all familiar with what Amazon is doing and, in this case, it's very inspiring. I mean the line in their code of behavior for leaders. It says that the consumer should come first. It's spot-on; I couldn't agree more. Because of this, we prioritized making our solution's sales process interesting and useful to the customer.

Getting credit is not something that makes me happy, and I don't know anyone else who feels the same way. In and of itself, it is not the end game. One of your goals has been accomplished, and you claim credit for it. The truth in banking is that although consumers' shopping preferences have shifted substantially, banks' sales strategies have not kept up.

Many salespeople haven't changed their methods in the last decade or more. Those text files in Times New Roman typeface that are currently being given as templates will soon be boring. Customers will choose the least expensive option if they are not engaged in any way during the buying process. Adding value by making things novel and engaging is a good idea.

If we're having a conversation with a bank, for instance, we might demonstrate the branding area of the virtual branch, which includes a video room and other amenities that can be tailored specifically to that bank. Maintaining open lines of communication with the customer and setting yourself apart from the competition in the way you promote your service are crucial. This gives buyers a taste of the future and gets them pumped. In this way, a positive feedback loop is created when the sales process is revitalized and reenergized.

It's crucial in the current day to connect with clients in a method that's both up-to-date and appropriate for their specific situation.

In Central Europe, Virtual Branch is one of the first products developed in collaboration with clients' financial institutions. How did it come to be built?

There has been a rise in interest in the practice of collaboratively developing a product or service's final form with the target audience; this approach ensures that customers never feel like they're being marketed to and always walk away with something they truly want to own. It's deceptively subtle at first glance, yet it makes a huge difference. As much as possible, we hoped to reap the rewards of that strategy.

Therefore, we endeavored, with the help of our partners at Pexip and Mastercard, to learn what the "Virtual Branch" concept actually entails and how it is received by financial institutions. Since financial institutions were keen to collaborate with us, we applied all of our expertise to the problem.

We started by talking about their goals, the kinds of clients they hoped to attract, the kinds of customers they already had, and the kinds of procedures they hoped to digitize. We then conferred with staff members to learn about challenges, threats, and hopes. In addition, we were wary to assuage their concerns about the impact of digitization on their jobs.

To us, Virtual Branch is not about replacing human interaction with robotic ones; rather, it's about making things better for our customers and ourselves. This is an excellent example of the need of considering the other person's perspective when serving clients.

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