Fintech and

the customer
experience:
Best practices, trends
and expert insights
Table of contents
Introduction
Part 1:
Fintech trust starts with the customer experience. P4
Part 2:
How fintech is redefining customer experience - and not just in
the financial industry. P7
Part 3:
Big banks and fintech start-ups - partnering for customer
experience and innovation. P10
Part 4:
Four keys to retaining Millennial customers in fintech. P13
Part 5:
As more countries go cashless, customer care still reigns
supreme. P17
Conclusion
 Introduction
Customers today have higher expectations than ever before. They
also have more options. For every financial service, there is now at
least a handful of fintech companies offering a solution that’s available
right at the customers’ fingertips.

It’s easy to argue that fintechs are changing the finance industry for
the better. They tend to put more focus on the customer and often
cater to previously under-served consumers, forcing incumbents to
examine their own costs and quality of service.

In many cases, customer adoption has been swift, with many fintech
companies boasting hundreds of thousands of users, or more.
Adoption is doubling year over year, according to EY. However,
developing and launching an innovative product or service is only half
the battle. Start-ups are great at launching products, but sustaining a
brand experience throughout the entire customer journey requires a
different set of competencies.

Both traditional financial firms and upstarts need robust customer

support practices in place in order to ensure loyalty, retention and
growth. The following articles take a closer look at customer service
best practices, trends and expert insights as they relate to the financial
services industry, with a focus on fintech. We know this collection will
prove helpful in the never-ending quest to meet and exceed customer
needs and expectations.

Thanks for reading!

TELUS International - Fintech and the customer experience 3

 Part 1
Fintech trust starts
with the customer
experience
When it comes to building customer trust
and expanding customer care, the financial
services industry is evolving quickly, at least
from a contact center and business process
outsourcing perspective.
At the heart of this evolution is the
dramatic change in the way customers pay
for things. We now see a vast array of options
offered to consumers, along with an equally
large selection of companies competing to
facilitate transactions.
Disruptive industry trends like the
digitalization of traditional services, along with
increasingly demanding customer segments
TELUS International - Fintech and the customer experience
like Millennials, small businesses and the
underbanked are making it even more critical
(and difficult) for financial service providers to
garner customer loyalty and trust for the long
haul.
The changing customer landscape
Customers are no longer satisfied with the
one-size-fits-all model traditionally offered by
large financial institutions. Instead, they are
looking for a more personalized and engaging
approach to managing their finances.
Fintech companies are filling that void
by offering innovative solutions that allow
4
customers to own the creation each and every customer
of their experience. Features interaction.
like intuitive user interfaces,
personalized solutions and real- Start with customer support
time recommendations based basics
on interactive data are just a It’s important not to lose sight
few of the unique characteristics of the basics when it comes to
that are redefining the customer customer service. The product
experience. itself sets a precedent, and the
Transactions are now almost level of service being delivered
entirely in the control of the should live up to that expectation.
consumer — an ideal scenario for Building a solid service
the overly skeptical Millennial or foundation ensures a positive
the underbanked customer. customer experience right from
the start, while allowing for the
Customer trust begins introduction of more multifaceted
with elevating the brand solutions in the near future.
experience For one of TELUS
Innovative ideas and unique International’s peer-to-peer
service offerings matter, but payment services clients, we
it’s the elevation of the brand proposed something as simple as
experience throughout the entire implementing an interactive voice
customer lifecycle that is critical response system to address top
to achieving long-term success. contact drivers, including basic
This means defining what the card activations and account
optimal customer and brand balance inquiries.
experience should be in the first This tactic alone reduced
place. the number of inbound calls by
Unfortunately, when providers need approximately 6,000 per month — saving
to focus on pushing out new products, time and money for the client and removing
customer service can often be overlooked. potential frustrations for their customers.
In fact, establishing a support ecosystem This was not a revolutionary support
Innovative ideas
is generally not a strategic initiative until the solution; however, the client was simply
and unique service
organization realizes that it can no longer growing too fast and needed help building
offerings matter, but
keep up with demand, and the customer basic support systems based on best
it’s the elevation of
experience is starting to suffer. practices.
the brand experience
This is often when organizations turn to
throughout the entire
outsourcing partners to help them sustain Aim for customer experience
lifecycle that is critical
their brand experience by managing their innovation
to achieving long-
customer support needs, especially during Once the basics are taken care of, we
term success.
times of hyper-growth and market disruption. can look to more transformative solutions
As an extension of the financial institution’s involving customer journey mapping, Six
internal operations, it is the outsourcing Sigma business process improvement
partner’s responsibility to sustain the brand initiatives and the use of data and technology.
experience, building ongoing trust through Indeed, utilizing the right data and

TELUS International - Fintech and the customer experience 5

 technology can be big customer service
differentiators. For example, speech
analytics allows us to analyze voice-based
conversations for key words and phrases,
including word frequency and voice
inflections.
With this data in hand, we can determine
primary call drivers, identify customers at
risk for leaving and determine opportunities
for self-service — all with the end goal of
improving the customer experience. Similar
outcomes can be accomplished through text
analytics by determining ongoing themes and
issues buried within unstructured text-based
feedback.
By converting the large number of text-
based interactions into useful information, we
can better identify opportunities for enhanced
loyalty, retention and revenue.

Start the customer experience

conversation early
The customer service conversation often
begins at a crossroads when business growth
comes at the expense of the overall customer
experience. Ideally, though, this discussion
would take place at the forefront of the
planning process, well before the product or
service ever reaches the market.
Trust is hard to build and easy to lose,
making it critical to prioritize customer
experience and brand leadership right from
the start.

TELUS International - Fintech and the customer experience 6

 Part 2
How fintech is
redefining customer
experience –
and not just in the financial industry
According to one senior global banking
executive in PwC’s Global FinTech report,
“We thought we knew our customers, but
fintechs really know our customers.”
We’ve all experienced how grueling
interactions with large financial institutions can
be. Whether it’s applying for a loan, setting up
a business account or making investments,
we’re often faced with lengthy hold times, a
deluge of forms to complete or confusing,
non-intuitive web design. But upstarts in
the financial technology sector are taking it
upon themselves to improve this perpetually
TELUS International - Fintech and the customer experience
frustrating customer experience.
Fintech innovations in customer
experience don’t apply exclusively to the
financial industry. In fact, many technologies,
strategies and tactics fintech companies
employ are changing the game for customer
service and experience altogether.
To enable customer experience leaders
to keep pace with evolving customer
expectations, we’ve compiled some of
the key ways that fintech is redefining the
customer experience, and not just in the
financial industry.
7

The focus on seamless and
responsive user experience
Today’s digital customer experience goes far
beyond a simple website. Think of banking
and applications that people are now using
on both their smartphones and tablets while
on the go. Square is a great example of a
fintech company that has a seamless, multi-
device responsive design that functions on
any smartphone, tablet and Point-of-Service
(POS) device. Big banks are struggling to
offer a comparable user experience to their
customers. A recent Accenture survey found
that 50 percent of respondents would bank
TELUS International - Fintech and the customer experience
with Square if they offered it, with most
people’s knowledge of Square limited to
simply making or receiving a payment.
People now judge a company’s credibility
and trustworthiness by the quality of the
user experience, so don’t underestimate
its importance. Make sure your design is
responsive and optimized for most devices
and screen formats now, and keep an eye out
for new technologies you may need to adjust
to in the future.
Fintech firms help customers make
sense of financial data
Let’s face it. Many people have grown tired
of the same old graphs and pie charts in
dashboards and reports. Fintech upstarts
are especially interested in overcoming this
challenge to get people more engaged with
their personal finances.
Take Mint, a fintech start-up acquired by
Intuit. With colorful, interactive reports and
dashboards, rather than a vanilla numerical
tally, people can interpret their spending
habits visually. Mint’s dashboards were
recently cited as one of the top examples of
Emerging Trends in Dashboard Design by
FusionCharts. Also take Concur, an expense
reporting application acquired by SAP in
2014. Their real-time, interactive dashboards
have brought a fresh spin to monitoring travel
expenses.
No matter what industry you’re in, being
able to take customer data, analyze it and
present it in a way that is powerful, insightful
and actionable to the end user will go a long
way in improving their experience.
Fintech firms are advising customers
with automation first, humans second
In PwC’s Global FinTech report, financial
executives cited “automation of asset
allocation and wealth management” as one of
the top trends in the industry. These so-called
“robo-advisors” provide an initial
8
touch point for customers, administering
investment advice based on a customer’s
profile and financial goals. Robo-advising
applications like Robinhood operate with
less fees than traditional wealth managers
and are available 24/7, unlike their human
counterparts. This allows robo-advisors
to provide more personalized service to a
greater number of people, many of whom
can’t afford traditional advising.
That being said, the human touch to
customer experience in most industries
isn’t going anywhere. But humans are now
used more as the “second line of defense”
to robo-advisors. Fintech is showing that
by automating up front, you can scale
customer experience personalization without
a significant cost increase.
Pushing boundaries across industries
To sum it up, one of McKinsey & Co’s latest
fintech reports states that the second of six
TELUS International - Fintech and the customer experience
digital imperatives for the financial industry in
the near-term is to “create a well-designed,
segmented and integrated customer
experience, rather than one-size-fits-all.”
This is in large part due to fintech start-ups
like Square, Mint and Robinhood pushing
the boundaries of customer experience
innovation and personalization. Customer
service and customer experience leaders
would benefit from asking themselves a few
questions: Is my digital user experience truly
optimized, user-friendly and responsive? Can
I present data to my customers in a more
engaging, actionable format? Where can I
use automation effectively in the customer
experience value chain?
Fintech has already redefined the customer
experience in the financial industry, and big
banks are now playing catch-up. By taking a
look at these fintech strategies, companies
across all industries can avoid missing out on
similar opportunities.
9
 Part 3
Big banks and
fintech start-ups –
partnering for customer
experience and innovation
Financial technology firms may be small,
particularly when compared to the titans of
industry we traditionally trust for our day-to-
day banking and lending needs. But they’re
certainly fierce. As a growing source of
disruption, traditional banking and financial
institutions can no longer ignore them.
In his annual letter to shareholders last
year, Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase CEO,
wrote, “It is unquestionable that fintech
will force financial institutions to move
more quickly, and banks, regulators and
government policy will need to keep pace.”
JPMorgan Chase has now partnered with
more than 100 fintech companies — and
TELUS International - Fintech and the customer experience
it’s not alone. Several major banks, such
as Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman
Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo,
have invested in fintech start-ups, too. In
2015, total investment in fintech companies
around the world reached roughly $19 billion,
compared to $12 billion in 2014, according to
a report from KPMG and CB Insights.
A start-up for every banking service
Banks are moving beyond equity
investments, and are now scouting for
new ways to not only integrate start-ups’
innovative technologies into their proprietary
infrastructures, but to also help them create
10
 Clearly, banks need
innovative ideas
and technologies,
but simply jumping
on the fintech
bandwagon will not
guarantee efficient
financial services.
new services. Gartner predicts that by the end of 2019,
25 percent of retail banks will use start-up providers to
replace legacy online and mobile banking systems.
Fintech start-ups are developing tools that understand
customer behavior. They are also looking to build bridges
between isolated apps in efforts to offer a frictionless
user experience — and their services are catching
on fast. “Start-ups and emerging providers of digital
banking platforms offer banks interesting opportunities
for innovation,” says Gartner research director, Stessa
Cohen.
A study from analyst firm EY suggests adoption of
fintech products is relatively high for such a new sector,
and that the risk of disruption is real. In a survey of more
than 10,000 consumers across six countries, EY found
that the adoption rate among digitally active consumers is
TELUS International - Fintech and the customer experience
likely to double this year.
Clearly, banks need innovative ideas and technologies,
but simply jumping on the fintech bandwagon will not
guarantee efficient financial services. “CIOs must prepare
to manage the challenges of evaluating and selecting
new vendors that may not have proven track records in
the financial services vertical or may simply be new and
untried without an extensive customer base,” says Cohen.
That doesn’t mean excluding untested technologies is
a good blanket approach; some risk is inherent, but many
fintech start-ups may be established enough to justify a
partnership or an investment. Still, selling that internally
can present challenges. “It can be difficult for CIOs to
justify investment in their solutions to their boards and
regulatory agencies, but don’t use that as a reason to
exclude new vendors,” she says.
11
Partnership models
Banks and fintech companies need each
other. It’s a delicate balance, and several
partnership models are emerging. Here are
the most popular ways banks are working
with start-ups:
1. Extend outsourcing: Banks have
been outsourcing their internal services
to their outsourcing partners for a
long time. It makes sense to extend
a similar arrangement to customer-
facing innovative services and apps
that can match customer expectations
of a modern banking experience
to fintechs. JPMorgan Chase, for
instance, is using OnDeck to help offer
quicker approvals and same-or-next-
day funding to some of its four million
small-business customers.
2. Invest in start-ups: Big banks
seem eager to invest in start-ups to
manage disruption. Goldman Sachs,
Citi Ventures, JPMorgan Chase and
Morgan Stanley have put their money
in mobile payment company Square.
Meanwhile, JP Morgan Chase and
Goldman Sachs have bet on online
brokerage Motif Investing, and Morgan
Stanley, Bank of America and Citibank
have all invested in Visible Alpha, a
start-up offering a platform to interpret
and forecast stock data. The benefits
to both parties are significant. This
is an easy way for banks to access
innovative products and services that
can benefit their business and get a
leg up on the competition, while the
TELUS International - Fintech and the customer experience
start-up secures a huge distribution
network and regulatory compliance.
3. Nurture new ideas: Many banks are
plugging into the start-up community
Hackathons and
without buying any direct equity. They
other rewards-based
start their own incubators, accelerators
competitions can get
or innovation labs to get early access
a bank’s brand some
to new technologies and ideas they
recognition in the
may not otherwise discover on their
start-up community,
own. Wells Fargo, for instance, has
while exposing
pumped funds into boot camps
the bank’s staff
to support a start-up developing
to new ideas and
automated real estate transaction
technologies.
technology, and another early stage
company exploring voice technologies.
Some banks also sponsor hackathons
to discover new ideas, technologies
and the best potential partners for
mutually beneficial collaboration.
Hackathons and other rewards-based
competitions can get a bank’s brand
some recognition in the start-up
community, while exposing the bank’s
staff to new ideas and technologies.
The downside, however, is that there
is no exclusivity in most of these
partnerships.
No doubt, most banks and fintech start-ups
are experimenting with multiple partnership
models to cover their innovation bases. And
these relationships continually evolve. As they
scout for ways to reconnect the fragmented
finance value chain, banks and fintechs are
integrating their innovation strategies and
learning to work like — and with — each
other.
12
 Part 4
Four keys to
retaining Millennial
customers in fintech
Customer service leaders today know the
importance of catering to Millennials in order
to retain their business. Nowhere is this more
evident than in the financial services industry.
According to a recent survey conducted
by LinkedIn and Ipsos MediaCT, less than half
of Millennials (46 percent) plan to stay with
their current financial services company over
the next few years. What’s more, two out of
three (67 percent) are open to products and
services from non-financial brands.
Millennials are used to being early adopters
of new technology and are attracted to
products that are mobile, social and as
on-demand as possible. They’re also more
TELUS International - Fintech and the customer experience
skeptical towards the traditional financial
services industry.
Fintech companies are using this
information to their advantage to turn out
some of the best marketing material targeted
at Millennials. An advertisement by low-cost
stock trading app Robinhood, for example,
showcases the simplicity and modern design
of the mobile application, along with a retro-
electronic soundtrack that caters perfectly to
Millennials’ sensibility.
But what about customer service? Are
fintech companies doing everything they can,
not just to earn, but to keep the business of
Millennial customers? We spoke with experts
13
in fintech, Millennials and customer service
to determine four keys to retaining Millennial
customers:
1. Find a customer service partner
with both product launch and finance
experience
Lindsey Groepper is the president of
BlastMedia, and is responsible for helping
companies get the most out of their product
launches. She shared her perspective on
choosing the right partner:
• Look for curiosity – “Look for a partner
who is willing to look under the hood of
your business first before any strategy is
developed or tactic is executed. Without
understanding the current space, your
company’s specific challenges and
emerging trends in the industry at large, it
will be very difficult to formulate the right
launch strategy. In the initial meeting, a
good partner will ask a lot of questions
and do more listening than talking.”
• Seek Millennial-specific experience
– “Millennial = mobile. If your partners
are focused on traditional marketing
and messaging, they are not the right
partners. Millennials are not influenced
by traditional news or design; they want
communication and a user experience
that is specifically tailored to their need
for simplicity and speed. One common
trait in Millennials is their desire to be a
part of something. Whether it is a job or a
volunteer opportunity, Millennials want to
feel connected to the larger mission. For
this reason, they are a valuable group to
involve in product design and message
testing. They are more likely to purchase
a product if they feel like they’ve been a
part of it from the beginning.”
• Find a partner with finance experience
– “It helps if the partner has experience or
knowledge about working in a regulated
space. This does not necessarily have to
TELUS International - Fintech and the customer experience
be in finance, but a similar industry that
is highly regulated and requires a certain
level of due diligence and detail.”
Millennials are
2. Make sure your staff understands
used to being early
Millennials
adopters of new
John Rampton is an entrepreneur, CEO
technology and are
of Due and an expert in Millennials and
attracted to products
technology. Here’s what he had to say on
that are mobile,
making sure your customer service staff
social and as on-
understands Millennials:
demand as possible.
• Millennials want everything now –
“Millennials are the first generation to be
raised on their cell phones, and are used
to everything being on-demand, whether
it be social media, entertainment or
customer service.”
• Patience is a virtue – “Millennials tend to
expect highly personalized service and to
be catered to. This requires that your call
center staff be especially patient when
resolving service issues with Millennials.
They won’t hesitate to complain or voice
their opinions about a poor experience
via social media, so your call center staff
needs to have the ability to take whatever
time is necessary to work through
14
 issues with Millennials to prevent them
from voicing their displeasure via Yelp,
Facebook, etc.”
• Hire Millennials – “One of the best
The main challenge
strategies for providing Millennials with
both fintech and
great customer service and retention
traditional financial
outcomes is to hire Millennials to be
institutions face is
part of your customer service staff.
building trust with
They understand their own generation,
a generation that’s
especially the fact that Millennials don’t
skeptical of financial
really like speaking to customer support
services.
agents unless they really have to. And
especially in the realm of fintech and
financial services, they expect service to
be quick, easy and frictionless.”
3. Incorporate social media into your
service strategy
Brad Cleveland is known globally as one
of today’s foremost experts in customer
strategy, management and omnichannel
services. These are his keys to incorporating
social media into customer service – a must
for any fintech company serving Millennials:
TELUS International - Fintech and the customer experience
• Join the conversation – “By listening to
and learning from conversations across
social sites, you can determine where
you’ll be most effective. As you get better
at identifying and handling interactions,
you will be positioned to evolve into a
more sophisticated approach, geared
around criteria such as a customer’s
influence, root cause analysis and
marketplace opportunities. In short, the
first step is to get in the game!”
• Harness the contact center’s
potential – “Many organizations start
out by treating social channels as a part
of marketing, publicity, or corporate
communication efforts. But the sooner
you are ready to pull the full range of
interactions and channels into your
customer service operations, the sooner
you will be able to scale resources and
respond as opportunities unfold.”
• Social doesn’t replace traditional
– “Social service does not replace
traditional customer service channels.
15
 In fact, if you have poor phone service
levels and unanswered customer email,
viewing social service as a substitute
would be sorely misguided. Rather, it will
become an increasingly important part
of your organization’s overall approach
to communicating with and serving
customers.”

4. Allow Millennials to use customer

self-service
A study by Aspect Software reports that
69 percent of Millennials feel good about
themselves and the company if they’re able
to resolve an issue without talking to support.
According to Brad Cleveland, self-service
designed for Millennials should fit in with a
broader customer access strategy:
• Use self-service to reshape your
access strategy – “Contact centers are,
in fits and starts, increasingly becoming
the engine organizations use to listen
to, interact with and capture insight
from social channels. Reshaping your
customer access strategy goes beyond
social media to other potential access
points, such as self-service.”
• Self-service is part of an alternative
access plan – “Identify traditional
communication channels (e.g. telephone,
email, chat) as well as new alternatives
you want to join or create, for listening
to and engaging with customers, such
as blogs, rating sites, peer-to-peer
communities, and key social sites (e.g.
Facebook, Twitter).”
• The benefits of self-service – “Consider
the impact when your contact center The main challenge both fintech and
enables the organization to improve traditional financial institutions face is building
self-service capabilities. This lowers the trust with a generation that’s skeptical of
costs of providing customer service, and financial services. By internalizing these four
can also boost customer satisfaction and keys to retaining Millennial customers, fintech
ensure that the center has the capacity companies will be well positioned to take
to focus on issues that really require or advantage of a unique generational market
benefit from agent involvement.” opportunity.

TELUS International - Fintech and the customer experience 16

 Part 5
As more countries
go cashless,
customer care still
reigns supreme
Standalone ATMs are among some of the
only evidence that brick-and-mortar bank
branches once stood in Northern Europe,
as the countries of Denmark, Finland,
Iceland, Norway and Sweden are becoming
increasingly cashless societies.
In these locations, it’s perfectly acceptable
to use a bank card to pay for a pack of
gum at the convenience store or a meal at
McDonald’s, and pizza delivery people gladly
accept tips via mobile-to-mobile transfers.
Why are these countries so far ahead
TELUS International - Fintech and the customer experience
of North America when it comes to going
cashless? The Nordic cashless movement
accelerated, at least in part, due to the
greater security and traceability enabled by
government efforts to move away from paper
in issuing bank statements and confidential
correspondence.
Also supporting this trend is a unified
system of personal identification applied
to financial transactions called NemID, a
log-in solution common in many financial
transactions that combines an individual’s
17
social security number with a private
password and an expiring code of numbers.
Government-funded telecom infrastructure
also enabled Nordic countries to digitize
personal IDs.
But even in countries where cash has gone
the way of the dinosaurs, the human-to-
human interaction of traditional customer care
remains critical in fostering the confidence
people need to move money from traditional
institutions over to financial technology
companies.

Innovation in customer service

Excellent customer service allows financial
institutions, both fintechs and traditional
banks, to expand their business with less
infrastructure, says Kristian Gjerding, CEO of
CellPoint Mobile, a global fintech firm from
Denmark. “I can be a bank of 10 people
or 100 people. If a bank provides excellent
customer service and the best technology,
Each customer who
customers will find it,” Gjerding says.
calls in to make an
By responding quickly and personally
inquiry related to
to customer calls, established institutions
their accounts is
like Denmark’s Danske Bank ensure that
identified immediately
customers still feel cared for as they did in
by their caller ID.
the days that branches were the primary
This eliminates
point of contact. Each customer who calls in
the need for
to make an inquiry related to their accounts
individuals to reveal
is identified immediately by caller ID. This
sensitive details for
eliminates the need for individuals to reveal
authentication and
sensitive details for authentication and makes
makes the caller feel
the caller feel recognized.
recognized.
Account managers correspond via
email with their clients, and digital banking
platforms include query forms which make
it easier for bank representatives to answer
customer questions without forcing the
customer to explain their needs each time.
“Financial institutions really need to improve
their game and have a 24/7 presence
where customers can conduct banking and
payment business electronically and through
call centers,” says Gjerding.
Building trust
Though technology has improved personal
identification, issues of trust remain when
it comes to money-management. That’s
why old-fashioned voice-based customer
care can offer a critical boost to customers’
confidence.
While mobile applications are expected to
rise in prominence over the next five years,
customers still expect personalized service
when problems arise. According to a recent
study by PwC, call center support is still in
demand around the world, with 46 percent
of respondents saying they prefer person-
to-person interaction when reaching out for
customer service.
The same PwC study reports that four out
of 10 participants said they believe fintech
will increase customer interactions because
of the greater number of possible customer
touch points. A majority feel that the most
important impact of fintech is how it will
“affect the ability to meet changing customer
needs with new offers.”
Through simplifying money management,
transactions and financial services, these
young banking firms are generating greater

TELUS International - Fintech and the customer experience 18

consumer engagement. This has impacted
the margins and market share of traditional
financial institutions enough to make them
take notice and, in some cases, consider
collaborations.
A report on fintech published by KPMG
suggests that a need to build customer
confidence is an important motivator for
collaboration between fintech firms and
traditional banking institutions. “Part of the
competitive advantage banks have over new
market entrants is trust. But to fully become
the real-time, innovative and modern trusted
adviser, they have to be willing and able
to plug and play with fintech companies
to provide customers with an amazing,
personalized, secure, easy and inexpensive
experience to better manage their financial
lives,” the KPMG report states.
Many paths to cashlessness in the
U.S.
At the industry level, major companies
operating in North America look as though
they’re ready to play ball. Android Pay,
Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Amex Express
TELUS International - Fintech and the customer experience
Checkout are all major-league offerings
available to Americans looking to go cashless.
But despite the popularity of online
shopping, peer-to-peer payments via
platforms like PayPal and Venmo and the
general societal push, Gjerding suggests that
the U.S. will need added infrastructure to
support a cash-free economy. Among these
are smarter customer service systems which
help authenticate identity to avoid delays on
the phone.
The benefits of a cashless society —
reducing fraud risks to retailers and individuals
alike, ensuring better government oversight of
financial transactions and simply making life
more convenient for the individual consumer
— will push the digitization of cash and
innovative approaches to customer service far
beyond the Nordics’ borders in the future.
In areas where older infrastructure
threatens to slow the adoption of such
technology, customer service may make all
the difference in boosting consumers’ trust.
And in the business of money management,
whether it’s cash or cashless, people put their
money where their trust is.
19
 Conclusion
Customer service can often be overlooked in new and emerging
industries, and it’s easy to understand why. Building, launching and
shipping new products are paramount in the quest to acquire new
customers. And customer acquisition remains a priority until demand
outstrips an organization’s ability to serve them. In other words,
companies tend to deprioritize customer support until they start losing
customers due to poor service.

The key to long-term success, however, is creating a customer

experience that elevates the brand throughout the customer lifecycle.
As outsourcing relationships have become more strategic in recent
years, the right partner can actually sustain and improve your brand
experience, building your top line, in addition to cutting costs. But the
key is finding a partner adept at working with fast-growing, innovative
companies, and with experience navigating the complexities of the
financial industry, including PCI certification.

If you’re interested in discussing how to launch or improve your

own customer support programs, please reach out:
https://telusinternational.com/contact

TELUS International - Fintech and the customer experience 20

 About TELUS International
TELUS International is a global BPO and ITO company with service
delivery centers around the world, including in Canada, the United
States, Central America, Europe and Asia. TELUS International is the
global arm of TELUS, one of Canada’s largest telecom companies
serving almost 13 million subscriber connections.

Connect with us at: telusinternational.com | @TELUSInt