Digital consumer behavior in financial services: 5 actionable insights 

The financial services industry is undergoing a digital overhaul. Not only has the industry been disrupted by the pandemic, but also by new technology and the rising expectations of tech-savvy customers.

Mike Zarif, Product Lead at Afterpay says it best:

“Today’s customers are used to intuitive experiences like Uber, Uber Eats, Facebook and Apple which have become the benchmark for customer experience. The key to building a successful digital product or experience is keeping up with and exceeding these expectations.” —Mike Zarif, Product Lead at Afterpay

So, the pressure is on financial services businesses to deliver exceptional digital experiences that stand out from the competition. To help you see how your website performance stacks up against others in your industry, we analyzed over 2.7 billion user sessions across 502 financial services websites in our 2022 FinServ Digital Experience Benchmark Report.

In this blog, we dive into 5 key insights from the report on digital consumer behavior and share our top CX tips to help you best respond to your FinServ customer’s needs.

1. 60% of online traffic comes from desktop

Although mobile banking is trending, it seems customers still prefer to browse financial services on bigger screens. In fact, the share of traffic from mobile devices surprisingly decreased from 40% in 2020 to 37% in 2021.

How to optimize your customer experience (CX) accordingly…

Instead of thinking mobile-only, financial services brands should prioritize optimizing both desktop and mobile experiences by creating a multi-device strategy. This means having a responsive site or a mobile version of your site.

Using CX data from every touchpoint, you can build a dynamic and personalized experience across multiple devices. We share more ways to optimize your site and three mobile UX tips in our FinServ Digital Experience Benchmark Report. Download it now! 

2. 59% of visits to financial services sites are from returning users

With 59% of returning visitors and 41% of new visitors, it’s clear that many customers remain loyal to the banking and insurance brands they know and love.

Although bringing in new customers is important, according to Forrester it costs 5X more than retaining them. Banks that focus on returning customers and higher loyalty scores tend to achieve a greater net increase in current accounts.

How to optimize your CX accordingly…

To build a hoard of lifelong customers, you need to personalize your CX for both new and returning customers.

Customers often have a different intention or goal in mind each time they visit your site or app. By offering tailored customer journeys relevant for both new and returning customers, you can personalize their experience with your brand. You could, for example, offer a chatbot or more guidance to your resource section for new customers to educate them on your products and services. Take a look at how Leeds Building Society used Customer Journey Analysis to understand and optimize its digital sales journey.

3. Visitors only scroll 54% of content on financial services sites

A user’s scroll behavior helps you understand whether your content is engaging your audience or not. With scroll rates in financial services decreasing from 64% in 2020 to 54% in 2021, it’s clear that more time should be invested in optimizing page content and structure.

How to optimize your CX accordingly…

Here’s some expert advice from Katie Leask, Contentsquare’s Global Head of Content:

“Analyze your content and check that it’s well structured, uses plenty of headings and white space, and isn’t fluffy. More is often less to keep the user engaged. And if your website structure favors CTAs at the end of content, you might want to rethink because it’s likely around half of your customers aren’t seeing them.” —Katie Leask, Global Head of Content at Contentsquare

4. 58% of visitors bounce after viewing one page

Over half of website visitors in the financial services industry abandon their journey after viewing just one page. And it’s not getting any better either—bounce rates increased by 23% year over year (going from 47% in 2020 to 58% in 2021).

How to optimize your CX accordingly…

To combat high bounce rates, financial services brands should spend more time understanding the intent of their customers to reduce the likelihood of them leaving the site. A good place to start is your homepage.

Over-complicated and cluttered home pages can overwhelm visitors and lead to high bounce rates. Take a no-nonsense approach to your homepage. Build an intuitive, visual experience that allows users to find and explore relevant categories without resorting to the menu or scrolling.

5. Average completion rates are low at 0.2%

The financial services industry has a low average completion rate of just 0.2%, which is significantly under the average conversion rate across all industries (2.3%).

This suggests that more time should be spent optimizing customer journeys to increase the number of people taking the desired action online—whether they’re applying for a loan, opening a new checking account or scheduling a call with a financial advisor.

How to optimize your CX accordingly…

Without understanding why users aren’t completing your forms, it’s almost impossible to make the required changes and improvements needed.

Digital experience analytics tools like Contentsquare’s Session Replay can help you understand customer behavior on your site. Reconstructing an individual visitor session on your website helps to quickly troubleshoot why a certain metric, such as a low completion rate is happening.

To find out how an International insurance company improved completion rates to increase potential revenue by €203k, check out our 2022 FinServ Digital Experience Benchmark Report. 

Want more insights?

If you’re looking for more content on consumer behavior and statistics about the FinServ industry, our 2022 FinServ Digital Experience Benchmark Report offers plenty more analysis and industry trend data to inform your digital strategy, empowering you to build human-first, data-driven online experiences. Download it today.