You’ve got a new digital banking product ready to go.
You’ve spent months developing it. The design is 🔥. You’re ready to launch.
Only problem? Neither your clients or your staff know how to use it.
Client support requests come pouring in, and your staff have no idea how to help.
Yikes.
Before you hit that figurative launch button, you need to develop some onboarding tools for both staff and clients.
And that (should) mean investing in technology walkthroughs.
The Importance of Technology Walkthroughs
Tech walkthroughs are critical because they let staff and clients practice using your technology in a risk-free environment. Instead of reading instructions or watching a video, people get first-hand experience with your tech — without the stress of using a live environment.
Walkthroughs are especially important for banking technology. There is a heightened concern around making mistakes with new banking technology. People don’t want to accidentally lose their money or miss a bill payment because they can’t figure out your app.
Walkthroughs are also useful tools for employees. You can’t assume your employees know how to use your tech. Especially for banks/credit unions where employees don’t necessarily bank with the institution they work for, there’s a high chance your employees have never used your products. Walkthroughs give them a first-hand experience so they can confidently promote digital options to consumers.
The #1 Technology Walkthrough Mistake
One of the biggest mistakes people make when building technology walkthroughs is using the “blinking light” model. You know the ones I mean — there’s a blinking light that shows you where to click and you follow along blindly. The problem with this is it’s a bit like a GPS. You know where you going when it’s on, but without it you’re lost.
To build confidence, your walkthroughs need to include aspects of challenge and repetition. One way to do this is by including different modes or levels to your walkthroughs. You could start with a standard blinking light round — then challenge users to complete the same simulation without the helping hand. This forces users to apply what they’ve learned, and let’s them test how completely they understand the process before heading to a live environment.
4 Ways Technology Walkthroughs Can Be Used
Once you’ve built a tech walkthrough, you can use it across a variety of instances to educate different stakeholders — both internally and externally.
1. Client Facing Academy
The most obvious use case for tech walkthroughs is to create a client-facing academy. You can host all of your walkthroughs in a searchable site that helps educate clients on how to use each of your products or services.
2. On Tablets for Branch Staff
A great way to encourage digital adoption is for staff to approach clients who are at the branch to complete transactions that can also be accomplished digitally. Having technology walkthroughs available on tablets lets staff pull those clients out of line and walk them through how to complete their transaction digitally. This gives clients first-hand experience with the technology — as well as a clear understanding of the time-saving benefits of switching to digital.
3. Sendable Versions for Phone Channel Staff
When phone channel staff are dealing with client support requests around digital products or services, it’s useful to be able to send walkthroughs to clients. This way staff can walk clients through a process visually while on the phone.
4. In Training Courses
Another great place to include tech walkthroughs is in your new technology training courses. Afterall, employees need to understand how to use products (as well as the benefits and features) in order to support and promote your tech to clients.
Getting Started: Should You Build or Buy?
So far we’ve covered why you need technology walkthroughs, what a good walkthrough looks like, and who would benefit from tech walkthroughs. Now you might be wondering, how do I actually go about getting walkthroughs for my institution?
There are a couple of options: build it internally, hire an agency, or use a tool.
For most institutions, the most cost effective option is going to be to use a tool. Custom building walkthroughs in-house can be very time consuming, which often slows down your launch (or leaves you without onboarding tools for months after launching). And while hiring an agency can speed up the process, it also becomes cost prohibitive as you build more products or services — and update the technology you already have.
A tool lets you build technology walkthroughs internally, usually without involving your IT team. This lets you build (and update) walkthroughs a lot faster. Plus you don’t need to engage a vendor for every update. You can simply update in your tool and push out revisions.
Features you should be on the lookout for in a tool include:
Content management system, so you can easily update your tours when new versions of your products and services are released
Ways to publish your tours without engaging your IT team
Don’t forget about your employees! Look for tools that let you link individual digital technology walkthroughs to your online new tech training courses
Categorization. This is especially important for financial institutions as you want to be able to categorize your demo by mobile/desktop, ios/android, client persona, and in some cases, regions.
The Bottom Line
Technology walkthroughs are an important part of releasing new digital banking technology. You need to build confidence using your tools in order to increase digital adoption — and walkthroughs are a great way to do that.
Walkthroughs also benefit a variety of stakeholders — including your clients, branch staff and phone channel employees. Plus you can (and should) include them in your new technology training, so staff understand how to use products and can support/recommend them effectively.
Finally, to get started with tech walkthroughs, consider using a tool that lets you quickly build walkthroughs, publish without engaging your IT team, and easily push out revisions.
