To change an industry is complex, yet simple.
It takes a lot of work. Hours upon hours of biting the bullet and getting things done. And all that complexity, the toiling, is for one thing – to give the customer what they want. How did Uber change the taxi industry? They made it easier for people to catch a ride. Don’t stand in the rain waiting for a taxi when you can order one from your couch, they said.
So ultimately, it’s simple: find out what pain point you can remove from a customer’s life, and then remove it.
The importance of the experience
It doesn’t stop at just coming up with a great idea that solves a problem. Continuously striving to make the customer experience more engaging, efficient and easy is what’s going to build brand love, and brand trust.
In the White Paper about payouts and refunds that Ozow developed (which you can download here), we share some interesting statistics about the impact the customer experience has on how a brand is perceived:
“84% of consumers would lose all loyalty to a retailer if they had a bad returns or refund experience.”
By their very nature, returns and refunds are customer service oriented. So, the dramatic amount of people who will lose trust in a brand just because they have a less-than-satisfactory refunds experience speaks volumes.
Necessity is the mother of invention
The refunds example paints a very clear picture: there is a need to ensure the refunds process is seamless – it needs to be a painless experience. Ozow saw the gap and took it by developing a payouts and refunds product that makes it easy for merchants to give their customers refunds quickly.
It’s that kind of thinking, where there is a customer need that has to be answered, that is going to drive the future of fintechs.
In with the new
Fintechs are the next in line to sit on the throne of financial services. The banks have reigned supreme for decades. But now, younger generations want and need something different.
That’s where fintechs have shown themselves to be innovative. By making banking more accessible, more geared towards the trends that younger generations follow, they have provided solutions that this audience prefer.
But it’s not only Gen Zs and Millennials who are asking for change. One of the biggest needs that South Africans have is to actually be allowed to be customers. There is a dire need to lower the unbanked portion of the population, and to give those without cards the ability to transact. Fintechs like Ozow are on a mission to do this by making cashless, cardless convenient payments available to every South African with a bank account.
This is something that requires a shift in mindset from the legacy financial institutions. It’s only with direct API access to banks that South Africa’s ever growing, and extremely exciting fintech scene will be able to make a true impact on the country’s economy.
It’s a simple solution, but a complex process to getting it right.
