Self-service in the cloud

Brand loyalty is essential for building business in all industries. This is especially true in the financial services industry, where your brand's strength indicates your credibility as an institution.

When customers feel as though they aren't getting the options or personalized experience they want, they take their business elsewhere. Providing an excellent customer experience is critical for success. Cloud self-service applications can help financial services institutions retain customers and embrace digital transformation. 

The future of finance is self-service

Simply defined, self-service means offering your customers the ability to complete specific tasks and actions themselves without having to consult a representative or specialist.

The concept is nothing new. In fact, it first caught on in the early 1900s, when small grocery chain Piggly Wiggly became the first self-service grocery store. In those days, it was typical to hand your grocery list to a clerk behind a counter, who would pull items off the shelf for you. Piggly Wiggly was the first grocery brand to allow shoppers to roam the store, browsing shelves and pulling items into their baskets.

Self-service shopping is still the expectation of consumers over a century later. But in the world of consumer finance, the old bank model has stayed in place for a long time, where a teller completes tasks for customers inside a branch.

Today's technology has finally expanded the norm of self-service into the financial services sector. Self-service financial applications — suites of customer-centered features and solutions — allow people to manage their accounts without human assistance. 

Although people have been shifting toward self-serv digital solutions for some time now, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated this trend significantly. Even as restrictions on face-to-face businesses eased up, customers got used to the high responsiveness, real-time support, and unprecedented levels of personalization that self-serve financial apps bring. 

Self-service banking is an excellent example. Unless they're making major transactions, most customers don't want to visit their local branch office in person. If they do, it's typically only to visit a self-serve ATM.

Providing well-developed self-service applications is quickly becoming a necessity for all varieties of financial services businesses.

The key to growth

Convenience is at the top of every customer's mind these days. To survive and stay competitive in the increasingly digital fintech landscape, companies are quickly implementing self-service solutions into their tech stacks. 

Some banks and credit unions, for example, have gone beyond basic ATMs and implemented onsite self-service kiosks to allow customers to skip the line and take care of their finances quickly and efficiently. While ATM services are typically limited to withdrawals and deposits, these new kiosks, called personal teller machines (PTMs), can complete significantly more transaction types, like paying off loans or cashing checks.

Other examples of popular customer-facing self-service financial applications include:

• Mobile banking: At this point, most banks and federal credit unions have created mobile apps to allow customers to deposit checks, transfer money, and view their account balances, all from their mobile phones
• Stock trading platforms: Apps like Robinhood, Vanguard, and J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing allow customers to manage their investment portfolios without going through a stock broker
• Peer-to-peer digital payment: Virtual wallet applications like Venmo, Cash App, and PayPal allow customers to send and receive direct payments directly
• Tax payments: Online tax platforms allow customers to fill out their tax forms and make payments quickly and securely so they can ensure timely submission

It's important to remember that, although self-service is quickly becoming commonplace in the financial services industry, there are still certain tasks that customers will always need human assistance to complete. 

Take banking, for example. Customers can easily cash checks, deposit and withdraw money, and check account balances through self-service ATMs and mobile apps. But it's impossible to access a safe deposit box or get a money order without in-person assistance from a bank teller.

How the cloud can help

Cloud computing services offer infinite possibilities for building self-service applications. Self-service cloud portals enable you to provide frictionless, 24/7 service. Some of the primary benefits of cloud-based self-service financial applications include:

1. Accessibility

As long as customers have the proper credentials, they can access whatever financial data they need, whenever they need it. People don't need to wait for someone else to pull up their information for them. 

2. Scalability

Cloud technology makes it easy and cost-effective to scale your tech as your organization grows, takes on more clients, or expands its services. 

3. High security

Technological innovations like zero-trust architecture and data encryption have helped increase cloud security over the years. 

4. Integrations

A cloud-based self-service portal that seamlessly integrates with your customer relationship management platform (CRM) can be an invaluable source of data. With that information, you can improve other aspects of your business, like marketing and customer retention. 

5. Storage

Cloud storage capabilities enable you to gather and store vast amounts of customer data, which is beneficial for onboarding new people and providing a streamlined experience.

Cloud-hosted tools are widely available, so building and managing self-service applications is achievable for financial services companies of all sizes, from startups to well-established organizations.

Building a cloud-based self-service portal

Using application programming interfaces, or APIs, you can build a comprehensive self-service cloud portal that allows customers to seamlessly manage their finances.

Creating an in-depth plan for your self-service portal helps prevent costly mistakes later on. Consider every aspect of the project from the top down, including:

• Your organization's goals, including how you will measure success
• Customer experience and information design 
• Portal content
• Source of the portal content
• A maintenance strategy to ensure 24/7 availability
• How the portal will affect roles and responsibilities within your organization

Some important self-service application features to consider include:

• Data analytics: Visualization capabilities and analytics are helpful because they empower customers to gain valuable financial insights at a glance 
• Searchable knowledge base: An organized, searchable knowledge base helps people find the information they need quickly so they can get back to their business 
• Notifications and alerts: Automated notifications — for example, overdraft alerts — can help customers more easily be aware of their financial situation

Personalization is an especially powerful tool in customer and employee retention, and a self-service portal offers many different ways to provide a highly personalized experience. For example, many self-service applications allow customers to choose their avatar and customize their homepage to include the features and information they access most often.

Discover the power of the Content Cloud

With a single secure platform for all your content, Box enables you to manage the entire content lifecycle: file creation, co-editing, sharing, e-signature, classification, retention, and so much more. We make it easy for you to collaborate on content with anyone, both inside and outside your organization. Frictionless, enterprise-grade security and compliance are built into our DNA, so you get total peace of mind that your content is protected. And with 1,500+ seamless integrations — as well as a range of native capabilities, like Box Sign — the Content Cloud provides a single content layer that ensures your teams can work the way they want.

The Content Cloud is a game changer for the entire organization, streamlining workflows and boosting productivity across every team. Contact us today, and explore what you can do with Box.

**While we maintain our steadfast commitment to offering products and services with best-in-class privacy, security, and compliance, the information provided in this blog post is not intended to constitute legal advice. We strongly encourage prospective and current customers to perform their own due diligence when assessing compliance with applicable laws.