How Suncorp Bank created and actioned a digital-first CX strategy

Like all modern banks, Australia’s Suncorp Bank has invested heavily in digital channels, including online and app-based banking; not only to move with the times and meet customers on the channel of their choice, but to improve internal processes by shifting some of the simpler customer queries its banking consultants deal with to more convenient and faster self-service digital channels.

Suncorp Bank’s digital app originally launched in 2013 and is now actively used by 75 percent of it’s retail customers. Still, call volumes remained high, so a cross-department team set out to answer the million-dollar-question: how do we get our customers to confidently and comfortably default to using digital as their first-choice channel? 

Of course, there is no easy answer. Some scenarios require an expedited or in-depth response from a trained banking consultant: product inquiries, fraud and scam activity on accounts, or instances where vulnerable customers simply do not have access to the digital self-service options on offer or need to speak to us immediately. The aim was not to deflect these queries, however, the bank knew that around 50 percent of all calls to its contact center were related to a digital service or question – from changing contact details to updating a tax file number – and could be addressed in its app. 

Reducing inquiries and increasing digital engagement 

A simple target was set: reduce these inquiry types by one third in 12 months and drive 15,000 more digitally active customers in FY2025. Not only would this bring scalability to the work force and free up the bank’s banking consultants to give more in-depth support to more complex calls, but it was also intended to increase net promoter scores (NPS) on digital channels. 

Simon Clarke, the bank’s digital strategy and CX lead, says: “The key objectives were how do we reduce those calls in our contact center that are related to a simple interaction that we could digitalize? The other goal was how do we uplift the digital interactions we enable but better leverage the people who work in our [branch] network? From a workforce planning perspective, one team is frantically busy and then there's a branch that gets lower customers visiting each day, and that really allows the team to flex up and down based on demand.”

After researching the situation with mystery shoppers and customer data, six themes were identified to anchor the project: 

1. Findability: Can customers complete the task they set out to in the app without support? Does the navigation and UX work as intended? Is the approach to findability consistent and cohesive across web, app, and chatbot?
2. Availability: Which functions are available and what are the gaps in functionality within the digital channels on offer?
3. Usability: What patterns need to be established from a design perspective? For example, UX or accessibility, and making sure the journey and information is consistent in navigation across web platforms, app platforms, chat platforms, etc.
4. Reliability: Ensure digital operations, change and incident processes run through all customer enhancements. 
5. Awareness: Although the bank builds a lot of digital solutions and functionality, promoting those features requires additional attention. Are customers aware they can now complete this task on the app? Should they be educated via email, SMS or a “nudge” notification on the app?
6. People enablement: Does the contact center promote digital self-service? Are banking consultants encouraging customers to use the app to answer their queries? In branch, are staff equipped to show customers how to complete tasks on their phones and tablets? 

Designing modern digital journeys 

With the project anchored in measurable targets and six clear themes set, the cross-department team started work “to unpack the hypotheses”.

Clarke explains: “Using usual design thinking methodologies, we set ourselves a goal of two weeks per theme and over that time we would look at what best in class looks like when it came to tackling each theme.”

Next, a cross-functional team of CX designers, product designers, researchers, product owners, and content strategists embarked on a design sprint. 

“For findability, we looked at the principles and ideas we wanted to build out to make sure all of our content is findable. Then we found a way to stress test that across the more than 90 tasks that anyone can do online. Off the back of that design sprint, we coined the findability architecture, and we built it out a testing framework where we effectively reviewed those 90 plus tasks.”

Truly putting themselves in the customer’s shoes, the team’s work to iron out potential  discrepancies in a customer’s journey was meticulous: could the information be found on Google? How would findability work if a customer is on the bank’s website, using the chatbot, or in the app or web banking portal?

If a task didn’t exist it was built from scratch, improving the app as a digital product with each iteration, and building in empathetic design. 

“We built a framework to go through and identify and test, and we then handed that framework over to all the teams who were responsible for those various tasks,” Clarke explains. “That way, as a bigger conglomerate, we could delegate to the team that looks after our sales journeys or Digital Wallets, for example, to review their content and tasks to make sure they were cohesive. That standardization became a very big value piece.”

Much like a round of golf, success was measured in the number of taps it took to reach a service, the fewer the better. The resulting “findability score” then became a benchmark for best practice. 

“In any situation, if a website has confusing copy or a chatbot is giving silly answers, it all amounts to customer frustration and then the customer either picks up the phone or worse case, you lose them,” Clarke says.

From digitally enabled to digital-first 

The benefits of the digital-first ambitions weren’t isolated to the Suncorp Bank app. Clarke says the work to better integrate digital CX options within the overall customer experience has taken the bank from having a digital product to operating a digital-first strategy, where offline, in branch, and on-the-phone support all work in tandem to help customers understand how and how much they can self-serve.

Clarke says the six project themes were applied to future work on the digital channel and “ultimately led to us to having a digital first strategy, but with a bit of substance to it, as opposed to, ‘we've got these functionalities in the app and hope it works’,” Clarke says.

In the world of banking, excellent service delivered by human employees is paramount, whether those team members are in a branch or contact center. However, in the last “two to three” years, Clarke says a growing number of customers have shifted to favor digital channels, predominantly via self-service options that are available around the clock. Even in marketing, the preference for email as a communication channel “has increased reasonably heavily over the last two years”, Clarke says.

Suncorp Bank fully leverages the opportunity for further engagement. The bank also now produces blogs and short-form videos on personal financial management, wellbeing topics, or app functionality, and nudges customers with personalized in-app content that is relevant to the tasks they have used, the transactions they are completing, or even their location.

“In banking, your lead channel effectively is your app,” Clarke says. “Email is quite a powerful medium, but for us, getting customers in the right time and the right moment is paramount. The customer’s time is very precious – customers’ time is precious, 98 percent of the time they’re using that app to get a job done – however, if you can provide the right experience, provide that nudge mentality through micro copy, clean calls to action, and content and give them bite-sized pieces of value, you probably have far more cut through than more traditional broadcast mediums,” he adds.

Suncorp Bank certainly appears to be getting it right: the bank’s digital NPS score has improved 25 percent and sits in the late teens,  up to three points higher than the industry average. 18 months on, 76 percent of the bank’s retail customers now actively bank online, growing by 16,000 customers throughout FY2025.

Banking consultants are happier, too.

“Our banking consultants appreciated the training because they knew as branch consultants and contact center banking consultants, there is an end game for them to upskill themselves in digital,” Clarke says.

“It really empowered them to have that confidence and know how to support, sell, and promote our digital tools and from a productivity perspective, the fact that we're exposing them to more high-value tasks, they also now have the ability to help 800,000 customers on a digital channel. It was a great productivity boost for them, and it allowed them to develop a much broader appreciation of their skills when leveraged across our broader customer service ecosystem, whether being on the phone or in the branch, or extending into digital,” he adds. 

What’s Next?

On the next steps for the bank, Clarke says: “As Suncorp Bank continues to optimize its channels using our 6-themes to drive customer experience, we're also focusing our energies on uplifting our chat experience to assist our customers with enquiries and direct them to a task, an answer or a banking expert where needed.”

With new real-time tasks and a search engine recently added to the app, Suncorp Bank customers can seek information and help at any time within a few seconds.

Quick links 

• How Simon Clarke tells the story in CX
• How Chelsea Football Club uses a CDP to personalize the fan experience
• There’s no point in great CX if it doesn’t create revenue