Small Businesses Expect FIs to Offer Exceptional Digital Experiences

The Battle for the Small Business Customer blog series.

UX matters to small businesses, and winning relationships with small businesses in 2021 and onward will depend on serving up digital capabilities and experiences that align with the people working in these businesses. The digital experiences from their personal lives are influencing their professional expectations; they increasingly expect the same sleek interfaces, ease-of-use, and mobile accessibility in their banking activities.

As pointed out in Blog 1 and Blog 2 of this series, small business owners are turning to digital payments and third-party tech platforms for point-of-sale and e-commerce solutions, financial management, and credit. As Cornerstone Advisors points out in The $370 Billion Small Business Opportunity for Banks, the “average spend on third-party support for accounting and payments functions” is $21,600 for businesses with less than $250,000 in revenue.

Modern experiences are the must-haves for small businesses in 2021

More often than should be the case these days, FI product design lacks a real understanding of small businesses’ requisites or how small businesses prefer to engage when banking online or mobile. Just 48 percent of institutions have a well-designed user journey that facilitates clear communication and seamless interaction, according to Decibel’s Digital Experience & Conversion: Industry Benchmarks for 2021.

Take a customer-centric approach to small business UX

By taking a customer-centric approach that aligns capabilities and solutions to specific business needs, small companies will feel appreciated and loyalty will increase. Modern design features that will retain and gain business customers include:

• Awareness alerts such as when cash flow is low or a tax will need to be paid.
• Dashboards that allow access to other accounts including other partners.
• A unified view into spending patterns to better manage a business.

Also important to UX success: Focus on design thinking that provides useful, easily understandable information by moving from banking context and terminology to more business-friendly context and terminology. In other words, make banking decipherable and less overwhelming to micro, mom and pop, or other small organizations by speaking their language, not the language of your FI.

Download our new eBook, "The Battle for the Small Business Customer" to learn more about the factors shaping small business banking today and the ways your FI can produce the user experiences now sought by small businesses. Find out why digital technology has unrealized potential to help better segment, target, sell, and serve small businesses.

Download our eBook "The Battle for the Small Business Customer."