Banks Should Use The COVID-19 Crisis As An Opportunity To Engage Customers With Empathy And Bolster Digital Capabilities

Financial services firms should help customers whose finances are affected by COVID-19, including through mortgage and loan repayment holidays and by extending access to finance responsibly. Banks’ COVID-19 email communications to customers should demonstrate empathy and recognition of customer vulnerability and help customers by providing clear, prominent info about digital services as well as info about branch closings and new policies. As social distancing becomes a common tool in the fight against COVID-19, banks need to reshape and accelerate their digital roadmaps to make up for the off-limit channels — branches and possibly the contact center as well — extending digital sales to more complex products, boosting digital self-service, and promoting online payments should be top priorities. Social distancing will increase demand for digital banking and increase load on many banking applications and systems supporting customer-facing processes; resilience of banking applications and systems is now more crucial than ever to ensure availability of digital banking capabilities.