The customer experience is often at the heart of business strategies. Even marketing – something that many might think of as distinct from this consideration – is where the journey of the customer begins. Discovering your business, making a first impression, and deciding whether or not to continue that engagement further – these are arguably all dependent on your marketing. 

From then on, you need to make sure that your service is constantly as effective as it can possibly be. With the use of modern tools like open banking API platforms, you can even tailor this service more specifically to individual audience members. 

Beginning with Marketing 

So, why not, first of all, think of how you can market this inclusion? It depends on how integral open banking API platforms are to what you provide – if you’re in finance, for instance, it might be more central than if the use of them is more incidental. 

This matters because leaning too heavily on them in your marketing when it might come across as irrelevant to your customers might damage your message. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t mention them at all, but it might mean that you have to be considered in how you bring it up – emphasizing the fact that the inclusion of these gateways can lead to a streamlined experience, for example, might help you to establish APIs as one piece of a larger picture. This larger picture might be one that depicts your brand as being the most forward-thinking and technologically capable of those in your field. 

All Comfort, No Difficulty 

The actual engagement itself – enlisting your services and using what you have available for the customer – is always going to be what they remember. This is why customer service is often touted as being so central to a business, it represents the point of interaction between you and them. Implementing open banking API management into this process doesn’t change that central goal of creating a smooth experience, but when the whole purpose of their use is to streamline it, you need that to be the case. Long loading times, difficulty with processing information, or any indication that the gateway hasn’t worked as intended will all negatively impact the customer’s impression of your service. It could severely decrease the chance that they’ll come back. 

Therefore, while you might be keen to start integrating these new tools into your operations, thinking about every possible hitch and working with your relevant team members to ensure as smooth a debut as possible can make all the difference when it comes to getting the most out of open banking platforms. 

What Comes Next? 

After that initial transaction, you’re now in a position to use the data that you gained from the interaction to improve the next one. That’s not all. You can also use targeted marketing to appeal to the same customers that you’ve already had more directly. This can help you with ensuring that they continue to engage with your brand, but the data that you get from open banking API platforms can also help that second interaction to be even better than the first. 

After that initial encounter, you can understand this individual customer to a greater degree, putting you in a position to provide a more tailored experience that allows them to get exactly what they want from your brand efficiently and easily. This might relate to their marketing preferences, their financial details, or some other aspect that makes them unique from another customer – but no matter what it is, it’ll all be done invisibly and seamlessly, making the process feel entirely natural to them. 

A Secure Process 

Of course, throughout this entire process, your customer needs to know that they’re being taken care of. This is an absolutely essential aspect of the customer experience – knowing that they’re in professional hands and that they have taken every precaution possible to ensure their security. This is going to apply even when they’re just thinking about the data you store relating to their usernames, when it comes to sensitive financial information, appropriate considerations need to be made. 

What this might mean for you is that on top of all the regular security precautions that you normally take (perhaps by incorporating the most up-to-date cloud security systems possible with the help of a dedicated IT department), you also understand what precautions these API gateways require. As with ensuring a smooth and streamlined process, it’s all about correctly implementing open banking APIs as to get the most out of their use. 

Conclusion