A new survey shows financial institutions are seeing benefits from video banking but only a small percentage of their customers are using the service.
The joint report, coauthored by CUNA Strategic Services, Vidyo, a video communications technology provider and Efma, a not-for-profit organization of retail financial services companies, outlined the results of an online survey of 282 bankers from 63 nations. Nearly 40% of the bankers who completed the survey were from North America.
Among the 53 bankers who have fully deployed at least one form of video banking, more than 70% said their video banking service increased the perception their organization as an innovator. More than 60% of bankers said video banking increased customer satisfaction, reduced workload at branches and facilitated faster customer service.
Additionally, less than 40% of bankers said video banking increased customer loyalty and more than 20% said video banking helped recruit new customers and increased revenue.
The two forms of video banking referred to in the report included the service offered in the branch, ATM or kiosk, and video banking delivered online (desktops, laptops) or remotely (smartphones, tablets).
Among the 229 bankers who are piloting a video banking service or who plan to offer it in the future, more than 70% said the No. 1 reason to offer the service would be to increase customer satisfaction and the No. 2 reason was to be perceived as an innovative financial institution. Nearly 60% said another reason to provide video banking is to facilitate faster customer service and more than 40% of bankers thought video banking could attract new customers and improve customer loyalty.
The report noted that when bankers were asked about the key metrics such as customer usage rate, net promoter score and sale closure rate, many respondents were not able to provide answers, which is typical of a tool that hasn’t reached fully maturity yet, according to the study’s authors.
Nevertheless, about 51% of bankers estimated 0% to 25% of their customers use video banking but 32% of bankers did not know. While 55% of survey respondents said they did not know their net promoter score for video banking, 15% said it is equivalent to the average NPS of other channels and 23% said it is higher than the average NPS in other channels.
Likewise, 53% of bankers surveyed said they did not know the sale closure rate of video banking sessions compared to other channels. However, 26% of bankers said the sale closure rate was equal to the sales closure rate of other channels while 17% said the sales closure rate for video banking was higher than the average sales closure rate of other channels.
The top services offered via video banking include customer questions or resolutions about savings accounts, investments, current accounts, cards, introduction meetings for new customers, mortgages and loans, private banking, wealth management and insurance.
