Mobile apps and usability put Apple’s iPad at the helm of the innovative tablet market. Competing tablets are playing catch up by tapping the Android operating system and app store, and RIM’s PlayBook is trying to lure corporate users. A native combination of touch, video, and other personal multitasking features will extend the interactive might of handy tablet devices beyond the recent glories of smart phones, electronic readers, and laptops. Augmenting the capabilities of these single-user predecessors, tablets will open a new dimension: The psychology of shared touch and audiovisual interactions.
1. Shared solutions: Both the customer and the financial representative (rep) may build up interactively a conjoined view of selected product features and parameters in an incremental and participative manner.
--> Opportunity: We find that shared tablet interactions will create a perception of joint ownership. Tablets will allow firms to put financial tools and transactions (literally) in the hands of the customer, and break down usage barriers for financial instruments, sophisticated analytics, and new technologies.
2. Interaction dynamics: When customers sit next to a financial rep, tablets may allow for a comfortable, relaxed, and socially acceptable sharing of the device, as it blends in the conversation.
-->Opportunity: We see tablets as a rich multifaceted channel. Instant access to live information, use of interactive sliders and dynamic charts will help envision the value of customized choices. Shared visuals will give reps a sense of the customer’s non-verbal clues in response to changing on-screen contents.
3. Ask a friend: While customers and financial reps navigate multimedia on-tablet information, real-time access to social networks may unleash the influence of peers in a most convincing manner.
-->Opportunity: Mobile apps may allow customers to authenticate the identity of the rep and establish a trusted rapport. The known customer’s profile, or trusted access to social media sites, will bring up relevant buzz from friends and peers and reaffirm a worthy approach to the financial decision at hand.
4. Customer analytics: Financial firms must glean actionable knowledge from evolving needs and preferences through the internal and external interactions of a customer over multiple channels.
-->Opportunity: Shared use of tablets will enable reps to showcase comparable profiles and use cases that are based on similar multichannel patterns and probe the perspective of the customer. Real-time analytics based on live customer reactions may refine the comparisons and suggested solutions.
5. Sales automation: Rich visual apps on the tablet will encapsulate the firm’s sales acumen and business process, so reps may guide the dialogue with the customer with a proven and personalized workflow.
-->Opportunity: Sales apps should provide on-the-spot qualification of tablet interaction leads and empower reps with real-time relationship pricing to win the deal. Image capture of original customer documents verified by the rep may avail transactions and streamline subsequent processing.
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