Customer Experience in Banking: A New Approach

From Fragmented Touchpoints to Seamless Value Creation

Bank customers’ expectations have fundamentally changed.

Banks have been responding to this by investing in apps, portals, and new online services for years. While there are now more touchpoints, this does not automatically translate to better experiences. Quite the contrary: from both the customer’s and the sales partner’s perspective, much of the experience still feels fragmented.

Instead of holistic customer experiences, customers are actually confronted with:

• disconnected front-ends and communication channels,
• different data and process logics,
• media breaks between advisory services, self-service, and service processes, as well as
• parallel systems with limited integration capabilities.

This increased contact, coupled with inadequate digital processes, can lead to a significant loss of trust.

What does this mean for banks?

This shows that customer experience is no longer merely a marketing or UX issue. It is increasingly becoming a strategic concern that affects business models, IT architectures, and organizational structures alike.

At the same time, the nature of competition is shifting: It is no longer the individual product that matters, but the ability to orchestrate relevant, trustworthy, and seamless customer experiences across all channels.

On top of that, financial institutions are under significant pressure to improve efficiency and comply with regulations. Processes must remain cost-effective, systems must be resilient, and changes must be implemented quickly.

It is precisely at this intersection that a tension arises that is currently preoccupying many institutions: How can a consistent customer experience be created—without introducing additional complexity?

Customer experience is thus no longer a mere “nice-to-have” in banking, but a strategic core competency. It must be simple and convenient, just as many providers from other industries (Amazon, etc.) are already demonstrating.

1. Customer experience has become a core strategic competency

In the banking industry, products are becoming increasingly interchangeable. Interest rates, terms, and pricing details can be compared quickly.

Today, differentiation arises primarily through:

• trust during critical life moments (claims, financing, retirement planning decisions),
• seamlessness in daily interactions (self-service, status inquiries, changes, advice), and
• relevance in communication (right message, right timing, right channel).

For decision-makers, this means: Customer experience is not just a marketing or IT issue, but a key lever for business models, growth, and efficiency, because:

better CX increases customer loyalty as well as cross-selling and upselling,

clearly guided digital customer journeys reduce processing times, error rates, and process costs, and

a consistent experience layer reduces complexity in the IT landscape

2. The New Vision: Phygital and Seamless Journeys

Customer needs and preferences are changing. Customers often no longer distinguish between “online” and “offline.” They expect stores, agents, customer portals, apps, contact centers, and partner channels to feel like a cohesive dialogue. The physical and digital worlds overlap and are increasingly merging.

This shift in consumer behavior and the resulting combination of physical and digital experiences is referred to as “phygital”—a combination of physical and digital. Especially in times of advancing technology and shifting customer preferences, phygital bridges the gap between the physical and digital worlds—with the goal of combining the best aspects of both worlds.

Two examples from banking

1. A small business customer initiates a loan inquiry online and elaborates on it during a conversation with their relationship manager either in person at the bank branch or online. Later, they upload documents to their corporate client portal—without any media breaks or loss of information.
2. Retail customers start a mortgage check in the bank’s app and simulate various scenarios at home. They finalize their mortgage with an advisor via video call or at the bank branch and then manage all documents digitally.

3. Why CX Is Particularly Challenging in Banking

Banks and financial institutions aren’t starting from scratch. Three factors make the transformation particularly complex:

1. Regulatory Requirements

Regulatory pressure is high. Banks must meet high standards for data protection and anti-money laundering; regulations such as MiFID II, MaRisk, DORA, Solvency II, and others set strict guidelines. Every change in customer interactions must be verifiable and traceable. Personalization must never conflict with compliance and consumer protection.

1. Legacy landscapes and system diversity

Many institutions work with core banking systems, host applications, inventory management systems, and commission and partner solutions that have evolved over many years and are, in some cases, outdated. There is no common database; contracts, processes, and documents are stored in different systems and follow different logics. This complex situation complicates digitalization projects. Digital initiatives often end up as “shadow front-ends,” which in turn create new silos.

1. Organizational Silos

Organizational silos result in individual product lines (retail, corporate, leasing, life, health, property & casualty) “thinking” in their own customer journeys. Sales channels (branches, brokers, exclusive partnerships, platforms, collaborations) are organized separately, and responsibility for the customer experience is often fragmented. There is no clear end-to-end ownership across marketing, sales, IT, and functional departments.

The result: Customers experience the internal complexity of the organization.

Decoupling precisely this is at the heart of modern customer experience.

4. From Technology Implementation to a True Experience

In many organizations, CX has so far been viewed primarily as a technology issue: a new customer portal, a new app, a chatbot, or a campaign tool is developed. Each of these projects makes sense on its own. But they are rarely coordinated or linked. However, to turn individual projects into a seamless customer journey, CX must be understood as an orchestration task.

1. Clearly defined end-to-end customer journeys instead of a channel-centric view

Customer journeys—for example, in projects such as “Mortgage Application,” “Commercial Loan,” “Auto Claims,” “Disability Insurance,” or “Broker Onboarding”—must be clearly defined. Thought out end-to-end, including consulting, self-service options, back office, and partners.

1. Experience layer over the legacy world

An approach based on a Digital Experience Platform (DXP) enables the connection of different core systems via a unified “experience layer.” Here, the customer view, content, interactions, and workflows are consolidated without having to reinvent every legacy system.

1. Governance and control logic

Defined responsible parties (journey owners) are assigned to each journey. Success is measured using CX-relevant KPIs: conversion rate, turnaround time, NPS, self-service rate, etc. The technology follows the target architecture—not the other way around.

5. Specific Use Case: Digital Loans with a Focus on Advisors

A customer wants to take out a loan, preferably digitally and with minimal hassle. The financial institution uses separate solutions for online inquiries, advisor workstations, and the loan backend. The customer notices these disconnects because the advisor works with Excel tools and has to deal with data silos.

Solution Approach:

• Central Experience Layer with a consolidated interface for the corporate customer portal and the advisor workstation. The platform aggregates data from third-party systems and eliminates isolated front ends.
• End-to-End Journey – from initial contact through document management and scoring integration to the loan decision.
• Regulatory requirements for documentation and advisory services are incorporated into the process design.

The result: The customer experiences a seamless process, as the advisor accesses the same information as the customer—including status, tasks, and documents. This gives the bank transparency and control over the entire loan lifecycle.

6. AI-powered low-code development as a pragmatic accelerator

AI-powered low-code platforms can significantly accelerate and improve the design of customer journeys by simplifying complex processes, data integration, and personalization through artificial intelligence.

However, AI and low-code are only effective when embedded within a clearly defined vision for CX. This could look like the following:

1. Accelerated implementation of journeys
   • Low-code approaches make it possible to implement interfaces, forms, workflows, and integrations with external systems more quickly.
   • AI support helps with the design of dialogs, content variations, or initial rule sets—under the supervision of the business departments.
2. Intelligent support for advisors and customers
   • Suggestions for “Next Best Actions” based on existing data—but embedded within a transparent set of rules.
   • Support for filling out complex forms or classifying documents.
   • AI-powered knowledge provision for advisors to improve the quality and efficiency of consultations.
3. Keeping governance, risk, and compliance in view
   • Integration of AI and low-code usage into existing control and governance structures.
   • A central hub through which AI functionalities and Large Language Models (LLMs) are controlled, versioned, and integrated into business processes in a traceable manner.

This results in a manageable use of AI-supported low-code as an accelerator for seamless customer journeys.

Conclusion: Customer Experience as a Bridge Between Customer and Organization

Today, customer experience is far more than just a superficial matter. It serves as the interface between customer expectations, technological architecture, and internal value creation.

Banks that strategically integrate customer experience with a platform-based approach lay the foundation for sustainable innovation, more efficient processes, and long-term competitiveness.

The vision for banks and insurers can be summarized in three sentences:

Customers see an integrated world, even though many systems and organizational units are involved behind the scenes.

Business units actively manage customer journeys, rather than merely formulating requirements for IT projects.

IT provides a robust, flexible platform to quickly connect new services, channels, and partners.