At a time when banks can least afford to lose key customers, a growing field of non-bank financial service providers is redefining customer experience. What threat do disruptive innovators pose to banks—and more importantly, what can banks learn from new models?

In CFC’s recent customer channel preferences survey, a stark trend emerges: as customers move toward non-branch channels, engagement declines. Tech-focused customers perceive their bank as less able to provide product guidance, hard to communicate with, lacking knowledgeable staff, and not sufficiently concerned about customer well-being. In short, many banks are not connecting emotionally with tech-based customers.

Through tech-based offerings, new entrants into financial services are targeting disengaged customers by re-imagining core areas of customer experience. For an in-depth look at the following emerging models, please join our webinar next week (for U.S. and Europe) and February 1 (for Asia Pacific):

1) Superior transactional experience of highly-focused products. Banks focus on transactional products as the foundation of customer relationships—they are the bridge to share of wallet. Innovators like Simple, or Perkstreet, focus on pure play models, devoting their energy to superior experience on a highly-focused product.

2) Self-directed guidance. Bank credibility relies on in-house expertise and the ability to provide personal advice on complex products. Understanding that most tech-focused customers prefer self-service, innovators are creating sleek, easy to use platforms that combine product guidance for complex products—like long-term investments—with customer control.

3) Lifestyle as acquisition driver. Branch density has long been the main strategy for gaining new customers, but for tech-focused customers, financial lifestyle is an emerging draw. Innovators are betting that the “debanked segment”—customers who are unsatisfied with traditional banking relationships and want an alternative—will be attracted by transparent, easy to use, tech-only models that fit into their day to day activities.

4) The interchange of customer information. Payment instruments are designed for ease—whether a debit card or mobile wallet, banks treat ease of the payment itself as core to the customer experience (and thrive on the revenue they provide). Innovators, however, are trading on information, and betting that being able to provide important information to the customer about account balances or coupons just before a purchase, or recommended products just after a purchase, will create a powerful integration with the customer’s life.

For more on these trends and an in depth look at the lessons banks can learn about customer experience from new models, please join our upcoming webinar.