Consumers still aren’t comfortable receiving notifications like late payment reminders through social media channels, a study released today by FICO found.
While more and more consumers are growing used to conducting their daily financial needs via digital channels, things like mobile or chat apps or social media remain an “inappropriate place” to send notifications for things like late payments, the study of 3,600 consumers found.
Only eight percent of consumers surveyed indicated that they would be comfortable getting late payment reminders via a chat app or through social media, said the study, which looked at consumers across nine countries.
This could be because, despite the growing amount of time consumers spend on social media apps, financial tasks still aren’t seen as a particularly social activity. (This unsociability may to be blame for the difficulty fintech startups face in scaling.)
Additionally, only 12% of consumers agreed that they would prefer to make late payments via a mobile app, though more lenders should look at sending reminders through text, FICO said in comments accompanying the survey results.
Tim VanTassel, vice president for FICO’S credit lifecycle business line, said in a press release:
Today’s mobile-first, digitally savvy borrowers expect friendly and helpful services from lenders on every channel.
US lenders have to strike a fine balance between automating their customer communications effectively without losing sight of the importance of live contacts for select borrowers to take action in order to boost repayments.
Take a look at the rest of the survey here.