One of our 2025 banking predictions was that banking customer experience (CX) would continue to decline, on average, across the globe. And indeed, the year hasn’t started well, after IT outages left the customers of UK’s largest banks, Barclays and Lloyds, unable to access their money or make payments. This is similar to what happened at Bank of America last October.

Dependability is one of the key levers of banking trust, but of course, IT resilience and availability is not something that CX professionals control. There are many other things, however, that they can do to improve customer experience and loyalty. To help banking executives identify what those things are, we’ve interviewed the top scorers in Forrester’s Customer Experience Index (CX Index™) to identify some best practices. Our two newly published reports highlight best practices from across both frontstage and backstage. So what are some of our key findings?

Focus On Creating Customer Value — Not Just Fixing Broken Experiences

There’s a number of reasons for the drop in banking CX quality, but chief among them is the poor performance of banks on emotion — which influences customer loyalty more than ease or effectiveness. The top emotions that drive loyalty in certain regions include feeling confident, valued, and respected. Yet most CX teams are too tactical to shift the dial on emotion, opting instead to monitor customer feedback to identify broken experiences rather than tackling big challenges, such as the lack of customer-obsessed culture, opaque products or customer communications, or complex cross-channel journeys. The shift of customers to digital channels, while convenient and cost-effective, is also failing to elicit a deep emotional connection between banks and their customers.

CX banking leaders look for opportunities to create new highs and connect with customers emotionally. According to Caroline Tucker, VP of CX transformation at Navy Federal Credit Union, “It’s not just about improving interactions. It’s about creating new interactions that don’t exist today to delight our members […] The art is thinking through the emotional arcs along that journey and inserting interactions that could be a nice delighter and make a lasting impression.” This requires blending methodologies to drive divergent and convergent thinking.

Hire Exceptional People — And Keep Training Them

As banks look to reduce the cost to serve and continue to boost digital self-service chatbot capabilities, it’s easy to forget that exceptional people are often behind exceptional experiences. Leading banks hire people with the right attitude, train them, and empower them to do what’s right for the customer. This applies particularly to customer-facing employees but not only.

For example, UK-based first direct focuses on recruiting exceptional people who aren’t necessarily bankers but who demonstrate empathy, kindness, and the willingness to go the extra mile. The bank invests significantly in training, focusing on developing skills related to connecting with the customer, listening, and creating trust. In the words of Lucinda Scott, customer service director at first direct: “You do not need a bank when things are good. We train our customer service agents to solve problems. The agent and the team leader listen to the call together to reflect on what went well and how they can go the extra mile. Were they listening to catch the true customer need? For example, if the customer doesn’t say they’re struggling, the agent must have the skills to identify vulnerable customers who are going through a difficult time.”

For other best practices, Forrester clients can read the frontstage and backstage reports or connect with me via inquiry or guidance session. We will also discuss these and other topics at our upcoming CX Summit EMEA this year, so please join us June 2–4 in London.