Digi Society

Digitalization – From service desk to eService

I was playing with my child on the other day and she asked me about how I watched cartoons as a child. She seemed to be puzzled on the thought that I couldn’t watch cartoons whenever I wanted. I got my first mobile phone when I was 11-year-old and my big sister thought that it was unfair because she didn’t got her first until she was in her twenties. In my opinion since then the digitalization has developed in big leaps and who knows how the world looks like in the future. Digitalization and digitization has changed the world drastically. Nowadays it is so much easier for example to search information and communicate with friends and colleagues all over the world.

I have worked in different positions in OP Group since 2012 and what a change banking has gone through even during that timeline without speaking a longer time. Quite long-time customers had to go to bank physically to pay bills and record account transactions to bankbook. OP launched its first online banking service to personal customers in 1996. It was first one in Europe and second in whole world and it has changed also the work in banks. Work in banks is increasingly expert work and manual work is done by computers. We do work more and more in self-regulating teams and customers are at the heart of the action. Because of the tightening competition, customer experience has become very important also in banks. In addition to offering better customer service big data can be used in banks for example in the fight against financial crime.

The COVID-19 pandemic reshaped banking preferences among US consumers and I would say also all over the world. Customers prefer to use digital channels to simple transactional activities but expert advice and human touch is still needed in more complex products and services. How banks can combine self-service channels with human touch in the future to elevate customer experience? (Valenti & Alderman 2021). In OP customers can already ask help from chatbot or start investing in funds with the virtual investment advisor, but I wonder if those add enough personal touch to the service. Customers can also have meeting with expert in Teams, but are they happy with available service times. Maybe in the future chatbot’s could learn more human touch from experts to service encounters and big data could be used more to design and innovate new services to customers. What if you could talk to virtual customer expert at any time and see her/him in 3D video coming up from your phone?

Risks of open digital society and general data protection regulation (GDPR)

Open digital society is a risk to financial services because trust and privacy is essential to it. You don’t want to read news about data security violations or system errors in your bank. Cyber security teams are constantly running and hopefully always running one step ahead of criminals. It still can’t be highlighted enough that customers also need to be careful with the use of digital services. I would say that it is better be too careful when it comes to security issues in banking. 

Banking is a “trust business” and it is already highly regulated. I would say that data protection reform (GDPR) didn’t change our work much because banker’s duty of secrecy is already clear to everyone who works in a bank. GDPR made data protection practices more visible also to customers and customer rights are stated more clearly in web site Data protection at OP. What comes to the storage of the data, there are statutory obligations which have an effect on it. Some of the data is stored the whole duration of customer relationship and for example data for marketing purposes only six months. I see the GDPR regulation only as a positive change because before customer rights were not so clear. It is easier for customer know what is right and what is wrong when it comes to data use and protection. It is still on the responsibility of the customer how he/she uses the rights.

Self-evaluation

This section was a good reminder why it is important to have different and enough complex password to every service and what kind of possibilities big data and AI offers us. It is true that big data can be used both for good and for bad.  To find new innovative solutions to use data and create new services, you need an open mind, but you have to take also the risks into consideration. I have known that our life is not so private anymore, but I haven’t really thought of the dark side of it. Don’t allow all cookies 😀 Everyone should consider what information they share online and everyone should know how the information can be used to some extent.

References:

Khomich, Aleksander 2020. Six Challenges Of Digital Transformation In Banking. Online article 31.7.2020. Forbes Business Development Council. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinessdevelopmentcouncil/2020/07/31/six-challenges-of-digital-transformation-in-banking/. Referred 10.3.2023.

Valenti, Jonathan and Alderman, Ryan 2021. Building on the digital banking momentum – How banks could influence customer channel preferences. Online article 07.09.2021. Deloitte Insights. https://www2.deloitte.com/xe/en/insights/industry/financial-services/digitalization-in-banking.html. Referred 10.3.2023.

I commented on Tiina’s and Vanesa’s blogs:

DIGI SOCIETY

Digi Society

You can see the comments also from here before the moderation is done:

Hi Tiina,

It was interesting to read your blog, thank you! Recently I was on a holiday with my family in Imatra and Lappeenranta area where I have never been before. When I was booking the holiday, I pumped into several platforms where to book it although I looked holidays to the same place as you said. Some of them had more information about the destination beforehand and some less. I appreciated the “extra” information about the area and it services where I was going, because it makes easier to plan the activities which I would like to experience. I feel that this more important especially now when we are travelling with 4-year-old child. Would it be a good idea to have activity ideas for different target groups on company’s website? Or what if traveller’s could filter search results according to company’s sustainability or activities which actually is already possible to some degree.

You asked also if a virtual tour could replace the real experience. For me, the  real experience is still more important, because travelling to the destination is also part of the experience and it is nice to go away from home sometimes. I acknowledge the benefits of virtual travelling in the sustainability point of view and hopefully there are more sustainable ways to travel in the future. Competition in the field is enormous! It is truly a challenge to stand out positively from the competitors. I believe that virtual travels have their own user base in the future, but it can take time.

I think GDPR is an improvement to our privacy, but I also feel that there is still room for improvement. People should be more aware of their rights and get more education about cyber security issues. I hope that Digi native ‘s already get more information in school about these issues, because big data and internet has both benefits and threats.

Hi Vanesa,

Thank you for interesting blog! It seemed that you really are familiar with the topic and face both good and bad side of digitalization in your work. I can imagine that Big data plays a huge role in marketing. It would be interesting to examine all the data available and design new ways to reach customers. I work at financial services and as you said it is quite regulated and I believe that the amount of different regulations is going to grow in the future. I see also GDPR as a positive in general and also because financial services is a “trust business”. I haven’t thought before that the war in Ukraine has had impact also in digital marketing. But it makes sense that businesses wants to be more safe. 

It was amazing to notice that, although the videos in study materials were already quite old, the topics were still on point.  I believe that there are still professionals wondering how to make Internet safer and more private. I admit that my passwords to some platforms could be more complex… Digitalization brings us many benefits but it can also bring worries to our holidays as you said 😀