Once fraud has been detected and a customer’s usual payment mechanism is broken, what happens next to ensure that customer remains happy and loyal?
By way of example, my son’s debit card was recently compromised. His bank contacted him immediately, and only one fraud charge made it through before they closed the account. However, that was where the exceptional service stopped.
As a young millennial with one debit card, he had no access to his funds without going into a branch to withdraw cash. After five days, he called only to find out the bank hadn’t yet mailed him his new card. When it still hadn’t arrived days later, he called again and was told by the customer service rep (CSR) that he should have it “any day now.” Upon asking to speak to a manager, my son was told he would get a call back between one and three days. Getting a new card became an inexplicable logistical nightmare.
Being without access to a payment method for more than 10 days is difficult, and playing the waiting game is extremely frustrating. Why hadn’t the card been sent out to begin with? Why hadn’t the card delivery been expedited on the second call? My son’s banking service system was in pieces. Like the old Mother Goose rhyme, Humpty Dumpty was broken, and this bank was unable to put him back together again.
If you’re using disparate systems and traditional training models for CSRs, this is what’s going to happen. There are human elements and processes that have to be taken care of in order to keep your customers happy and glue their lives back together again after a negative fraud experience. Card fraud isn’t over until the customer has a piece of plastic in his or her hands and can use the account as before. Otherwise, your card gets moved to the back of the wallet or you can lose customers altogether. The good news is, there are ways to ensure you retain and recapture your customer’s attention after fraud.
Poor service and delays during the fraud resolution process can alienate customers, who can quickly defect to a new card. Ultimately, banks need to create the best, most frictionless experience possible when something as damaging and traumatic as card fraud happens.
While the best banks have shielded customers from the complexity of fraud resolution, in some instances achieving resolution within one phone call, too many aren’t there yet. Both the right technology and processes must be in place to ensure optimal end-to-end customer experiences. Otherwise customers will feel stranded like my son was, with no immediate access to his account and believing the bank didn’t care.
According to a recent
While banks are investing heavily in fraud detection technology, many forget about what’s needed afterward to fully resolve the issue – this includes setting up new accounts, chargebacks, reporting to the credit bureau, and other loose ends. A staggering number of back office operations are still manual/paper-based, with handoffs and inefficiencies throughout the process. Banks still commonly route and assign work manually several times over when fraud happens, and appropriate context can get lost in the shuffle, further delaying resolution and causing hiccups along the way – such as my son not receiving his debit card for more than 10 days after the initial detection.
Banks need digital end-to-end processes with industry-compliant case management technology that automates fraud claims as much as possible to expedite resolution. Case management technology must also be omnichannel, connecting back and front office operations to ensure CSRs have access to all relevant customer information across channels to ensure that all parties – banks and customers alike – are well-informed and cognizant of every step. As a result, employees are more productive and CSRs can deliver more satisfying customer engagement, while customers have transparent, personalized experiences during the post-fraud detection resolution process.
Ultimately, a customer’s experience doesn’t end with “the detection,” it’s about the entire lifecycle and making the customer feel whole again. Every point of engagement with customers serves as a “moment of truth” that puts the banks’ relationship with the customer to the ultimate test. By taking a holistic approach to fixing these pain points simultaneously, banks can achieve something truly transformational. With the right technology, these unfortunate situations can be handled with less frustration and result in speedy resolutions, lower operational costs, higher customer satisfaction, and an improved customer experience. Credit card fraud happens, but with the right technology your bank can always put a broken customer experience back together again.
Scott Andrick is the retail banking and consumer products head at Pegasystems
