Customer experience in banking has been significantly improved over recent years, at least so far as digitisation and AI are concerned. Today, customers expect fast, frictionless, and highly personalised services.In the Indian context, one of the banks that adopted customer experience as a business strategy and derived significant benefits is ICICI Bank. This blog briefly narrates the journey of ICICI Bank in redefining customer experience.

Key Takeaways

1. Customer experience in banking is now the top differentiator for growth and retention.

2. Customer experience in digital banking, powered by AI, is transforming financial services.

3. Indian case studies will offer the best examples of remaking the customer experience of ICICI Bank’s “Customer 360°”.

4. Training in banking customer experience in India is critical to prepare future-ready talent.

5. Generative AI will dominate customer experience trends for banking from 2025 onwards.

Understanding Customer Experience in Banking

Customers expect their banks to provide fast, frictionless, and personalised services. With digitalisation, customer experience is now a key differentiator between performers and laggards. Generally, banks that provide superlative customer experience also achieve better financial metrics such as shareholder return, growth, product penetration, etc.

Higher-product purchases from a bank are possible if the client has a better customer experience in financial services (Shital Chheda et al., 2023). This stands to underline the the importance of customer experience in banking, hence placing it at the core of competitive advantage.

Source: Xerago

Did You Know?

More than 84 per cent of Indian banking customers use digital channels for daily transactions; however, 60% of such customers still prefer hybrid experiences where there is a combination of human and digital touchpoints.

Traditional Banking Services vs. New Age Banks

To improve customer experience in the banking industry, banks need to have an optimum mix of physical customer interface and digital delivery. There are friction points in opening up new accounts with traditional banks, which come with limited online and AI capabilities:

• New Onboarding;

• Loan approval;

• Customer querying;

• Information on product offerings.

The source of friction is from the siloed structure, limited sharing of information, and inadequate technology (Nick Malik & Akshay Kapoor, 2019; Shital Chheda et al., 2023).

On the other hand, new-age banks leverage data analytics and AI to create hyper-personalised offerings. With generative AI to enhance customer experience in banking, institutions can predict customer needs, deliver frictionless onboarding, and offer 24/7 intelligent support. This multichannel, data-driven strategy not only improves service but also reduces emotionally charged interactions.

Customer Experience in the Indian Context: The ICICI Bank Example

One of the best examples of excellent customer service in banking in India and reimagined their strategic priorities is ICICI Bank. The bank adopted Customer 360°, which is aimed at bringing the entire bank to the customer as well as their ecosystem to meet their requirements. It is in alignment to serve the vision and mission of ICICI Bank in offering customer-centric financial services; the three pillars on which this plan is built are:

1. Process Decongestion 

essentially improves the operational efficiencies by digitising some of the processes and removing redundancies. Friction points like the onboarding of new customers have been addressed by introducing digital onboarding for savings and current accounts. 

Other friction points like customer queries have been smoothed by enterprise-level CRM and Virtual Relationship Manager (VRM). Other initiatives like the digitisation of the entire credit underwriting process and the instant loan approval process help in keeping the customer well informed about their loan application and sanction. 

2. Bank to BankTech 

Some transformations are those in which technology is at the heart of the overall business strategy. Some of the digital platforms, like iMobile Pay, InstaBIZ, and Trade Online, serve an end-to-end seamless digital journey for customers, providing personalised solutions and value-added services, thereby facilitating data-driven cross-selling and upselling and ensuring a great digital banking customer experience.

3. HR Measures

Mainly includes investing in capability building in employees through in-house functional academies, industry-academia initiatives, etc.Other initiatives include job rotation to develop expertise in different domains and the creation of cross-functional teams to tap into key customer and market segments across ecosystems, enabling 360° coverage of customers.

Customer 360° is enabled by working as one team across various departments of the bank by bringing together the strength and expertise of each employee.

To encourage teamwork, the bank also scrapped the bell curve assessment for employees, which rewards individual outperformers as part of a human resource (HR) policy overhaul (named “one bank, one team”). This focus on team performance led to the bank’s superior financial and operational performance (Anand Adhikari, 2023; Rebello, 2021).

This integrated approach, for instance, showcases training customer experience in banking in India as a tool to empower the workforce in achieving customer-centric outcomes.

Source: WEF

Did You Know?

Banking is supposed to have the generative AI reduce customer onboarding time by as much as 40% by 2025, with the added advantage of localisation and compliance accuracy.

ICICI Bank’s Performance Transformation

ICICI Bank has changed fundamentally, demonstrating that customer-first aspiration, process reengineering, and state-of-the-art digital platforms can and do improve financial and operational performance. This model sets forth a vision of what customer experience in banking in India—holistic, AI-powered, and employee-centric—could be.

Way Forward

The story of ICICI Bank highlights that superior customer experience in banking requires:

• A strong aspiration to integrate customer-first values into every function.

• Transformation in people’s mindset and processes.

• Deployment of AI and advanced analytics to redefine customer experience trends in banking in 2025 and beyond.

Banks that invest in training customer experience in banking in India and adopt digital-first strategies will not just meet customer expectations but also strengthen retention, growth, and profitability.

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