Balancing human and digital: Macquarie Group

What is your top customer challenge right now?

From my perspective as the Chief Design Officer for a growing, well-respected bank, I can see that one of the biggest challenges facing our industry is how to provide customers with a better banking experience. In Australia, the big four banks have dominated the market for over a century, leaving customers with little choice beyond these established players or small, relatively unknown new banks. While some customers have tried banking with new institutions, there is an increasing segment of the population that seeks a more personalized and trustworthy experience from a bank that is not one of the traditional big four.

These customers want to bank in different ways, and they expect their banks to keep pace with the latest digital technologies. They want to learn how to save money, stay on top of their spending, and use newer technologies to connect multiple accounts and stay on top of their finances. Their expectations of banks are being shaped by their experiences in other industries, such as the seamless connection between different Apple devices.

As a relatively new bank, we must strive to fulfill these changing customer expectations while also building trust as part of a larger, established group. This means creating a seamless, user-centric experience that integrates all aspects of our banking services, from digital channels to traditional branch banking. It also means providing customers with the education and tools they need to stay on top of their finances and achieve their goals.

In conclusion, the challenges faced by the bank and its customers are closely intertwined. As a Chief Design Officer, my role is to help the bank overcome these challenges by creating a more personalized, trustworthy, and seamless banking experience that meets the growing needs of our customers.

How do you decide the balance between human contact and digital interaction for your retail banking customer segments? Can you give an example of where your approach has created a distinctive service? Do customers ever get lost in the process or experience lower levels of service?

We are a digital bank, but that doesn’t mean that there is no human interaction. In fact, there are two types of customers who want to interact with us. The first group is those who are not digitally active and not digitally native, and the second is those who have a complex problem that they cannot solve on their own. Our goal is to make things so smooth and interconnected that our customers do not need any help, but we recognize that this is not always possible. Therefore, we strive to make self-service the easiest and fastest way for our customers to get help. We believe that contextual understanding is critical to building a self-service system that actually works. Our goal is to make sure that people don’t have to interact with a human at a bank because they enjoy it, but because it is necessary. 

However, there is an exception to this rule, which is when customers are trying to make a big decision, such as buying a house, and they need human interaction. We have brokers and sales teams to help customers with their banking needs, but we also believe that technology can make that process more seamless. For example, we use digital solutions to make sure that we already know who you are and what you are looking for when you speak to a home loan specialist. 

We believe that finding a balance between human interaction and technology depends on the context. As a digital bank, we have created distinctive services, such as our two-factor authentication system, which is much better than traditional authentication methods.

Are you developing any partner ecosystems and how are they integrated into the end-to-end customer process? What issues do you typically face? Can you demonstrate the benefits of adopting this approach?

As a bank, we understand that we are part of a larger ecosystem that includes the banking, payments and legislative spheres. Our company has a responsibility to contribute to the development and implementation of policies and systems within these areas. For instance, we are involved in a centralized entity that develops standards and platforms for real-time payments. One example of this is the use of a common identifier, such as in Australia, where customers can make payments using just a phone number or email address. As a bank, we not only participate in these developments but also educate our customers about their benefits. While I don’t have much insight into partner ecosystems, I believe this example demonstrates our commitment to shaping and participating in broader ecosystems.

How do you collect and use customer data to improve the customer experience? Can you give an example?

We have a multi-pronged approach to measuring customer experience, which includes CX metrics around MPs, insights and complaints. Additionally, we collect different kinds of metrics from a user experience perspective to measure the efficiency and usability of our app or website. We analyze the data to understand how customers navigate through our platform, identify hiccups, and test and experiment with unique designs to improve their experience.

To illustrate, we often ask customers why they call us for help, as this helps us to address the root cause of their issues. For instance, we may have customers calling to inquire about the status of their replacement credit card when they could have received the information digitally. To reduce the need for such calls, we may develop new products or add a help message to our platform. As a design officer, I am also interested in experimenting with new features and designs and collecting data to inform our decision-making process.

What collaboration tools do you provide for your employees so they can work more effectively on improving customer service?

As a large company, we utilize internal collaboration tools, such as instant messaging, email, and meetings. However, within my role as a design function focused on customer experience, we also have access to other specialized tools. For instance, my team can coordinate with call centers and listen to customer interactions to gain insights. They can also analyze website and app data to understand customer behavior, identify pain points, and pinpoint areas for improvement. In addition, they conduct independent research to gather new customer insights. We have multiple tools at our disposal to achieve these goals, all falling into two categories: how we can collaborate better as a bank and how we can better understand our customers’ needs. By sharing this knowledge across departments, we can design and develop superior products.

What issues do you face in adopting technology to manage customer interaction? How have you managed the need for legacy modernization, for example? How are you applying AI and analytics to generate better customer engagement?

To be frank, this is not my area of expertise. The Chief Digital Officer of our bank is primarily responsible for handling these issues. As for legacy modernization, it is a challenging process that we, like many other banks, are currently undergoing. The banking industry is complex, and we cannot simply shut down operations for a month to modernize. We must continue to serve our existing customers during this transition, which is no easy feat.

Regarding the application of AI and analytics for better customer engagement, I am not the most qualified person to address this topic. We have a Chief Data Officer who oversees analytics programs, and my team collaborates with them occasionally. However, I suggest directing this question to the Chief Data Officer for a more comprehensive answer.

Is there anything else you would like to contribute or articulate in a broader sense?

Your questions have been quite comprehensive, and as I mentioned earlier, any industry or company operates within a larger societal framework that undergoes generational shifts. These shifts are not primarily driven by banks, but rather by other products and industries such as gaming, which have a more profound influence on youth behavior. Nonetheless, as a utilitarian function, people turn to banks to safeguard their finances and help them achieve various financial goals, such as buying a home or growing their wealth.

Although the fundamental function of banking has remained consistent for thousands of years—borrowing and repaying loans–it’s crucial to develop and adapt to the growing social and customer expectations. As Chief Design Officer, my focus is to understand how customers perceive and manage their finances differently now than they did twenty years ago and the implications this has for their banking expectations. My primary mission is to design the right products, services, and interactions that fulfill those expectations effectively.