The Real State of Business Banking Support: Why Good Interactions Aren’t Enough

Last updated on: May 9, 2025

Banks often promise seamless, transparent, and efficient business banking experiences. But are they delivering?

According to OvationCXM’s 2025 Business Banking Customer Experience Report, most business clients say no. Terms like “ transparent” and “ seamless” are notably low on the list when businesses describe their customer support interactions. Despite customer experience (CX) being a top priority for financial institutions, the gap between expectations and reality is widening.

In this article, we’ll explore the challenges business banking clients face—from fragmented workflows to support friction—and how customer journey orchestration can bridge this divide to transform CX across financial services.

What Business Clients Expect from Banking Support

Business banking clients typically reach out to customer support for various reasons, including:

• Assistance with account management
• Resolution of transactional issues
• Guidance on complex financial products
• Troubleshooting technology or service disruptions
• Clarification on processes or fees

Support interactions often span multiple channels—phone, email, digital chat platforms—and involve several internal teams. Despite structured workflows, these interactions are frequently manual and fragmented, leading to longer response times and inconsistent experiences.

These shortcomings are evident to clients. PwC reports that 73% of customers cite customer experience as a key purchasing factor, yet many feel their actual experiences fall short. Gartner further underscores this gap, noting only 8% of customers feel they receive excellent service, despite 89% of companies claiming to compete primarily on customer experience.

Identifying the Gaps: Insights from OvationCXM’s Research

OvationCXM’s latest research reveals clear discrepancies between the customer support experience banks aim to provide and what business banking clients actually experience.

Key findings include:

• Positive interactions but poor overall experiences: While more than half of businesses describe complex journeys like onboarding as " easy" and " smooth," the overall CX data shows it lacks cohesion, visibility and requires effort.
• Lack of transparency and seamlessness: Terms like " transparent" and " seamless," commonly used in bank marketing, were chosen only by a third of the respondents to describe their customer experience.
• Efficiency is not the rule: Although " efficient" was among the most chosen descriptors, only 53% of respondents selected it, indicating significant improvements are still needed.

Operational Challenges Facing Bank Support Teams

Even well-designed support models can falter due to internal friction. Bank support teams often grapple with:

• Siloed information systems: Hindering access to a complete customer view.
• Rigid legacy platforms: Limiting adaptability to dynamic service journeys.
• Manual processes: Slowing responsiveness and increasing error rates.
• Fragmented workflows: Especially when servicing involves multiple internal teams or external vendors.

These challenges impede the delivery of proactive, connected experiences that customers expect, particularly in high-stakes business banking relationships.

The Role of Customer Journey Orchestration in Enhancing Business Banking Support

Addressing these gaps necessitates a focused and proactive approach. Banks must scrutinize their business banking customer journeys, emphasizing transparency and seamless integration at every touchpoint.

Customer journey orchestration involves designing and managing the entire customer experience across all teams, systems, and external partners. Unlike traditional methods that focus on individual interactions, journey orchestration ensures:

• Real-time visibility into journey status
• Contextual history for every interaction
• Proactive notifications and updates
• Seamless transitions between departments and partners

This holistic approach reduces friction, minimizes repetitive tasks, and enhances overall customer satisfaction.

Journey Orchestration in Action

Consider a mid-sized business applying for a commercial treasury product. According to McKinsey, long account opening journeys are caused by the need to manually input customer information and that banking systems are not interconnected. Once the account is opened, then onboarding takes over and that's complicated too, involving:

• A relationship manager
• A digital banking setup team
• A third-party payments provider
• A compliance review group ‍

According to OvationCXM research, these disparate systems ensure no one is updated on the entire journey or the customer's progress or the obstacles stalling progress. Without orchestration, each team operates in isolation, leading to repeated information requests, conflicting or missing updates and customer confusion. With journey orchestration:

• The entire process is mapped from end to end, and the journey can be shared with the customer.
• All teams access a journey have real-time visibility, even to interactions with external partners.
• AI is leveraged to automate journey steps when possible and then identify friction points and suggest next actions.
• Customers receive proactive updates and assistance and the journey steps are obvious to everyone, which helps set proper expectations.

The result is faster activation of banking products, fewer errors and higher satisfaction for both customers and internal teams.

Conclusion

A unified approach to journey management breaks down silos between teams and platforms, connecting internal departments, external partners, and AI-powered workflows to support the customer journey holistically.

With real-time visibility, banks can proactively manage and adjust processes, share context across all channels, and consistently deliver on their brand promise.