Engage customers with technology or sink

Financial services businesses need to humanise customers' digital experiences so they can have better conversations and provide better customer services to clients, according to AMP.

AMP's digital director, Michael Weeding said the digital realm was the backbone of a financial services brand, as it was for AMP.

"Humanising it (the experience) is just making sure you are delivering a really simple, effective experience, the way the customer wants to have it," Weeding said.

Businesses needed to understand that digital customer experiences were also often a customer's first experience with a brand, he added.

Weeding spoke at FST Media's Future of Banking and Financial Services conference and said the biggest challenge financial services organisations faced, was keeping customers constantly digitally engaged.

Companies needed to make sure they provided enough digital services so customers could easily ‘service themselves' if they chose to, he said.

Whether clients were online and seeking self-service, or seeing a financial adviser face-to-face who leveraged off digital technology, digital engagement was critical, he said.

"How that all connects back up is really key to delivering AMP's future strategy. It's going to be really instrumental to connecting the experiences across all the channels, as digital is going to play a really important part in the future," Weeding said.