We’ve seen a shift in traffic in our stores (what we call our branches). Customers have realized there is another way to bank, and that actually it’s good to have a fall-back option in case that store’s closed, as happened a lot during the pandemic. 

In terms of our current digital structure, we want to solve the pain points customers have. We have hundreds of thousands of customers who are digitally active but still often calling the contact center or going into the store because they have pain points in that channel. We need to solve those pain points, eradicate the need for them to go offline, and really focus on making them happier in that channel.

We need to focus on customer confidence, both for our colleagues — because they have to be the evangelists and the champions of the benefit of digital banking — and making it simple for customers to understand, and holding their hand along the way.

“Frankly, Digital Demos are an intrinsic part of our colleague training material. They will support that growth and colleague confidence, as well as customer confidence.”

If you have those one-on-one conversations, you can grow that confidence and address the concerns at the same time. Frankly, Digital Demos are an intrinsic part of our colleague training material. They will support that growth and colleague confidence, as well as customer confidence. 

We’re at the start of our journey with Horizn in terms of our plans to promote and use what we’re calling “How To App” Digital Demos. The demos are housed on the website — we have eight there, and we’ll grow that number over time. We’ve then embedded them into specific FAQs for customers searching for a query so the customers can see how to undertake that transaction. We will link to them from specific pages — we have a lot of pages on supporting customers who are registering for digital services — and we’ll be running promotions and social media and linking directly to a specific app demo. We will also be using them in emails to customers. We back up a lot of our conversations with emails to customers. Putting useful links to the app demos in those emails so customers don’t have to do the hard work and find them.

“A lot of people are visual learners, and I think [Digital Demos] will grow confidence and make life much easier for the customer at the end of the phone. That will be a game changer, I think, for us.”

Phase two of our plans are around the contact center in stores. Whether a customer is just exploring ideas or in the middle of a journey and they’re stuck, we’ll be able to either email or text a link to a customer of that Digital Demo and then talk them through the journey in real time. A lot of people are visual learners, and I think that will grow confidence and make life much easier for the customer at the end of the phone. That will be a game changer for us. Apart from that, we use live chat a lot to support our customers. Again, we can embed specific links to specific journeys in the live chats for customers. 

One of the things that really excites me is our rewards and loyalty program. Virgin Money has the fabulous benefit of being a part of a big ecosystem of Virgin Group companies, and the power of the brand is there for us to benefit from and share the values and benefits with customers. It gives us license to be different and to champion the customer and really reward loyalty, and that’s a really important part of our proposition.

This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. Watch the video above to see the full version.