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Optical character recognition (OCR) has been around for decades, and it is still a technology that banks routinely use to scan and process paper or PDF forms, such as loan applications or account servicing requests. Although OCR is a well-established tool for data capture, it has a number of inherent problems that make it less than ideal when you’re thinking about true digital transformation.
We believe OCR keeps your business trapped by thinking of forms inside the old “PDF paradigm” – viewing a form as a static and fillable document. Asking a customer to fill out a blank form by hand, or even complete a fillable PDF online that needs to be scanned via OCR, isn’t exactly a digital or mobile-friendly experience Is. Not to mention, OCR systems are notorious for data errors, resulting in high NIGO (not in good order) scores, which lead to more work to fix downstream.
Here’s how you can think differently about data collection and forms in the context of triggering and automating banking processes.
How does optical character recognition work
Here’s how organizations typically use OCR solutions to manage form data:
- A customer, employee or business partner downloads a PDF form or prints a paper one.
- They go through the form, collect information and fill in each field by hand.
- They send the form along with the required documents back to the business, where it gets queued.
- Someone on staff has to scan the form and OCR technology parses the information to turn it into usable data.
- That data is sent to back office systems for customer management purposes – with no human need to QA that data either before or after.
How OCR Scanning Prevents Digital Transformation
While this process sounds simple and straightforward, it can go wrong in a number of ways.
Customer has to find the correct form
The modern customer journey means making things as fast, easy and convenient as possible. Placing the burden of finding and downloading or printing the right forms in the right language on your client or financial advisor seems like friction. Even if that form is a fillable PDF on your website, it’s not really a personalized experience.
Form filling is cumbersome and awkward
No one likes to fill out forms, especially when they are long and require a lot of data. Bank form questions can appear complicated at times, especially for processes like trade credit. Unfortunately, for OCR scanning, this is a necessary evil. The scanner and OCR software expects to see specific data in each field, and completing it incorrectly or with missing data can result in errors.
Form receiving and scanning take too long
In the digital age, consumers want to interact quickly and efficiently. Unfortunately, posting a form back and then waiting for it to be scanned before processing can add several days to the processing lead time. Meanwhile, your potential customer gets tired of waiting and may choose a competitor.
OCR scanning can introduce data errors
No matter how well the form is filled out, or how good the OCR scanning hardware and software is, accurate scanning is not possible. This creates inefficiency and duplication of efforts in your business. Not to mention compliance errors. Going back to the customer to make corrections or gather more information takes longer.
Data Capture and Digital Transformation: Rethinking Form
Instead of relying on traditional forms to collect customer data in one process, many banks are moving towards creating intelligent, guided digital interviews, prepackaged and personalized to the customer, state or jurisdiction and business process – essentially two Digital world designed to enable one-way conversation. What does this look like?
- Ask customers “what do you want to do today” and guide them instead of asking them to find and complete the right form
- Personalize the interview experience with information you already know in your system, and allow clients to confirm known data instead of re-keying it
- Enable customers to use more of their mobile phone capabilities, such as geolocation and cameras to add photos
- Eliminate the need for customers to figure out confusing if/then statements and simplify the journey with business rules that control which queries are relevant
- Enabled customers can start the process on one device and switch to another without starting – and securely add supporting documentation as needed
- Automatically sync data back to core banking and CRM systems without the need for intermediate steps like OCR
- Automatically generate personalized document correspondence, agreements or loan packages – e-signed for faster closures and automatically archived as needed
- Incorporate workflows to update the right people and systems at the right time
It is actually a digital way of collecting information from the customers. Everything is provided online seamlessly, you only ask the questions you really need, and because of the verification process, the error rate is reduced to almost zero.
OCR is a one trick pony – it can only bring data into your core system. But most banking processes require information to flow back and forth from the customer and back to them again in the form of agreements and correspondence. Speeding up this process can result in both revenue and cost savings.
Don’t get caught in the scanning cycle – jump right into digital transformation, starting at the point of customer need. If you have dozens or hundreds of existing forms, and you need to move them to digital, Smart Communications can help. Read our white paper explaining why form should not be a four letter wordAnd then learn more about how our SmartIQ solution can help Helps you turn your PDF forms into a truly interactive customer experience,
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