What is the first thing people do every morning?
They check for new messages on their smart phone or read the news and check their daily schedule. Or they search for new photos and events from family and friends and then they send happy birthday messages. Maybe they upload a couple of new photos from last night, answer urgent emails and check their bank account for the credit card payments from yesterday, making sure that they are properly charged. Maybe they order groceries for this week and make reservations in their favorite restaurant for this evening.
Most people every morning make the first couple of steps in the “digital world”. Only after spending some time in the digital world, they get back to the “physical world” and take a shower or have breakfast with the family. After breakfast, they check traffic situation and weather forecast in the digital world and go to the office. Again, jumping from digital to physical world.
In the office, they are facing “digital economy” while searching for information on subjects of interest or communicating with business partners and clients using Zoom or some other app, and then using a different app for entering a business trip plan and updating forecast for this month. Jumping back to “physical world”, they are going out for lunch or ordering online and staying digital.
For most of us, life consists of constant jumping back and forth between the two worlds, and we are happily living a double life. These two worlds are mixing and overlapping and rules from the digital world are slowly transferring to the physical life and influencing it. Waiting is one of the things that are different in these two worlds, and we expect that a fast (read immediate) reaction will be transferred from digital to physical world.
If a client has an issue with a bank transfer while using the mobile application, she will try to find a solution by reading instructions, then the Q&A section and if she can’t find an answer, she will send an email asking support team for help. If the answer doesn’t come in the next couple of minutes, she will try to start a chat conversation. If it doesn’t work within the app she will switch to laptop and try it in the web application. Client expects an answer NOW! Only immediately is acceptable as you want to finish the transaction you started. If you successfully resolve this problem and finalize the transaction, you feel good, if not, you’re angry!
In both private and business life these two worlds are different. One is traditional – physical world based on material assets, on manual work, on long and costly operational processes, on many controls and human decisions. Digital world is automated, with no or minimal manual work, where operational processes are designed for the digital and are done by software that operates on data, where decisions are made by algorithms and where clients expect an immediate fulfillment.
Digital or virtual world runs on software (applications, programs) and clients now have different expectations:
- Clients in the center
- Better price/performance
- Immediate fulfillment
- Clients are using intuitive, simple, easy, and fast self-service (app) for fulfilling their needs
Clients are communicating by using applications and they are ready to type the data in, share personal data and accept proposed rules. But they expect an immediate fulfillment with better value proposition.
In the banking industry there are traditional banks that are still working in the traditional way and digital banks (Neo banks) that are fully digital and have no client facing physical presence except call or chat centers. Many traditional banks are doing digital transformation and transferring a part of the operation to digital world, so they are working in the hybrid world (part physical part digital). The question is are they fulfilling the clients’ expectations.
Branislav Vujovic
President of the Supervisory Board
