Banking on process mining for a better customer experience

Challenge

Complex processes and long wait times

This global finance company is a trailblazer because of its unwavering focus on the customer experience. However, long wait times in the personal banking onboarding process were leading to low new customer conversion rates. In fact, 30% of applications were never fully submitted, and only 36% of applicants actually opened an account.

The company turned to Genpact for help understanding the extent of the problem.

We saw that when customers sign up for a bank account, they must submit electronic identification (EID). Ideally, EID is approved within one minute, and the customer is onboarded within eight hours. However, cases that required no extra review, known as straight-through processing (STP) applications, made up only 43% of applications. Then, even before reaching the EID step, 20% of applications were declined at the underwriting stage. And if any EID is rejected, account creation can take 120 hours or more.

We identified a similar issue in mortgage applications. STP mortgage applicants enjoyed a 12-day turnaround – but that was only 26% of applicants. And 38% of applications required rework that could leave customers waiting over a month to hear back.

When we took a closer look, we found discrepancies in passing customers through the pending, accepted, or declined stages. Our aim was to standardize, automate, and improve processes for faster yet responsible responses.

Solution

Fix the process, fix the problem

Genpact was chosen to work with the company because of our extensive banking industry expertise and powerful technology partnerships. As the company had a very mature technological infrastructure, it could not support a "rip-and-replace" operation. They trusted us to analyze the root causes of issues and prioritize improvements to maximize business impact.

While some transformation partners would come in and immediately apply more technology in the hope of fixing a broken process, at Genpact, we look for the root cause of problems. First, we examined process data to make informed decisions about what could be improved. We used process mining tools from our platinum partner, Celonis, and a Lean Six Sigma mindset – a leading process improvement methodology – to create a digital twin of the company's systems.

A digital twin allows you to examine and experiment with processes without disrupting the original operation. Below are the three steps we followed to fully examine the company's enterprise management system (EMS) using the digital twin:

1. Identify inefficiencies: We revealed the reasons behind abandoned and incomplete personal banking applications and why rework was required in certain mortgage applications
2. Create solutions: We tested possible process improvements, such as the proactive tracking and flagging of incomplete applications and sample-based manual checks
3. Prioritize improvements: Once we knew what needed to be done, we built out a thorough and prioritized process improvement plan focused on delivering the greatest impact in the least amount of time

We then submitted a full report to the company covering our data-driven findings, our recommendations, and the suggested next steps.

Impact

Better for business, better for customers

Using our report, the company has implemented many changes to improve the personal banking and mortgage processes. These are just some of the results it has seen:

Personal banking

• Account opening rates improved by 5%–10%
• STP jumped from 43% to 60%–80%
• Rework reduced from 45% to 10%–30%
• The team realized $267K–$557K in cost savings

Mortgages

• Lead time to offer was reduced by 3–6 days
• STP improved from 26% to 32%–40%
• The team realized $1.1 million–$2.7 million in cost savings

Today, employees feel empowered to serve customers more effectively. And customers get faster responses and feel more valued, thanks to a direct correlation between employee and customer experience.

Lastly, thanks to the digital twin we created, the bank has greater visibility and real-time insight into its EMS to predict and fix issues before they become big problems. Now, it's ready to face whatever process challenges the future holds.