Omni-channel customer delivery systems consist of numerous interactions across multiple touch points between a customer (or prospective customer) and a financial institution. Today's tech-savvy consumers expect seamless interactions, regardless of the various channels or devices they choose, which is why technology infrastructure is so important in order for banks and credit unions to be successful in meeting consumer expectations.

For a system to truly be comprehensive, it must include technology support for transactional elements, data management, multiple channels and devices, omni‑channel workflow, analytics, and full digital capability. From an operational perspective, it must scale, have performance capability, include longer term maintainability, and support mission‑critical operational reliability. All of this requires a strong technology backbone in the form of infrastructure components to achieve these objectives.

To get a better idea, let’s look at just deposit and lending fulfillment in an omni-delivery channel. This requires electronic workflow, which means paperless and e-signatures are mandatory for appropriate document management. It also requires that compliance checklists can be executed and that evidentiary proof is appropriately recorded. Because loan origination depends on quick decisions while at the same time mitigating risk, detailed decisioning frameworks for underwriting and fraud work tasks are essential. With the ability for automated routing in an omni‑channel world requires a greater degree of flexibility and capability.

In addition to electronic workflow, infrastructure that is driven by customer-defined engagement patterns supports customer interactions along every stage of the customer journey. This supports timely delivery of education, offers, referrals, branch and contact center appointments, follow-ups, influence notices, and alert notifications to an end customer. To execute this properly, this capability must be configurable, sensitive to customer events, and able to gather data from multiple sources to achieve optimal results. For example, it must be able to manage email and direct mail campaigns and record customer response KPIs. Electronic workflow and customer-driven engagement patterns provide support for applications such as omni-channel collaborated fulfillment, digital marketing, and customer service functionality.

With financial services product offerings essentially commoditized in today’s market, it’s difficult to achieve sustained competitiveness based solely on your banking product. Having the best customer experience is now the primary way to sustain competitiveness, especially in a digital world. From an IT and capital investment perspective, solid infrastructure offers greater longevity of capital utilization and lowers cost of maintainability over time.

For more information, view ARGO Connects, Technology Infrastructure Supporting Our Omni-Channel Solution.