Many role-players are experimenting with virtual reality technologies, particularly in the fields of brand & marketing which target customers in mass.
When I consider Virtual Reality I’m not just thinking about Virtual Reality or Augmented Reality Headsets. I’m looking at Projection Mapping , Second-screen experiences, 360 degree immersive content (capture, authoring and display) and other technologies that offer a great number of opportunities.
These technologies can be used to benefit customers in many ways, e.g.:
Helping customers make better decisions through Data Visualisation
- Wealth Management – To demonstrate complex products (e.g. derivatives) and wealth portfolios to clients
- Stockbroking – Gamifying and creating a more realistic world for customers to trade in
- Financial Planning – Allow customers to visualize themselves in the future with their available wealth for retirement under different scenarios
- Budgeting – See where money is going; not on pie charts but realistic products and services around you.
- Goal Setting – forget portals with bar charts and %’s. In their living space, customers see that goal that they’re saving for (e.g new car in the parking garage) slowly growing and taking shape.
- Financial Results reporting to shareholders – PowerPoint and Keynote are yesterday’s mediums. Tomorrow, your shareholders will be able to see exactly what’s happening on the floor of your company, and be able to easily make sense of what is going on.
Connecting financial institutions with customers
- Rather than having customers visit physical or virtual branches, use the technology to allow the advisor / banker to become immersed in the customer’s environment (real-time 360 streaming from the customer’s boardroom or factory floor).
Educating customers
- Product training and education is more effective if the material can be tailored to customer’s preferences
- Leveraging Augmented and Virtual Reality marketing solutions to reach out to the customer base in innovative and exciting ways.
The big picture
Financial institutions need to remember what their customer’s primary needs are and look for opportunities to leverage VR where appropriate to improve the sales and service delivery process.
Virtual Reality technologies in isolation won’t be a success. The technology needs to be integrated with the latest developments in Big Data, Social Media and Artificial Intelligence in a high-speed interconnected world in order deliver maximum benefit.
And, the financial institutions need to rid themselves of archaic and inefficient processes (e.g. dual capture of customer data, require physical signatures and printouts when digital alternatives will suffice, etc) if it’s going to add value to the lives of customers. Just being a cool technology isn’t enough.