Treasury Management CX Insights | Business Banking Customer Experience Report

Treasury Management Customer Experience: Insights from OvationCXM’s Business Banking CX Report

Treasury management customers are among a bank’s most valuable clients, and they expect onboarding and support experiences that are as efficient and connected as the products themselves.

Yet, according to OvationCXM’s Business Banking Customer Experience Report, onboarding and servicing for treasury management remain among the most fragmented and effort-intensive processes in business banking. Here’s what business customers told us—and what banks can do to improve satisfaction, reduce abandonment, and protect high-value relationships.

Why Treasury Management CX Matters

According to Deloitte, treasury management products contribute more than 27% to a bank’s total revenue and help cement corporate client relationships. But as the analyst observes, new iterations of treasury management solutions have become more technical and complex, making seamless implementation increasingly difficult. The analyst concludes: “The dated approaches and tools used to support treasury management clients, particularly for new product onboarding, remain noticeably unchanged.”

These inefficiencies slow time to value and undermine trust and retention.

Treasury Management Onboarding: The Need for Simplification

Onboarding is the first real interaction a business has with the bank they’ve chosen for treasury management solutions. Once they’ve decided to buy, onboarding is where the rubber hits the road—and too often, where friction begins.

While just over half of Treasury Management (TM) customers described onboarding as mostly easy, 37% said it required high effort. Their top frustrations, extracted from our research, include:

• Lack of timely updates (26%)
  
• Too many people and organizations involved (19%)
  
• Confusing instructions (19%)
  

Notably, price or capability gaps were not the main frustration. Instead, issues centered on experience breakdowns—disconnection, unclear communication, and repetitive steps that drove high support volume.

In fact, 92% of TM customers said they needed help from their banking provider to use the product or service. And more than half—56%—say they’ve abandoned onboarding due to frustration. That’s nearly double the abandonment rate of the next product category, merchant services (31%).

As West Monroe notes: “Treasury management clients value processes that are easy and avoid ones that are difficult, so much so that they will expand business with easy banks and pay a premium for their services.”

This presents a significant opportunity for banks to simplify onboarding journeys and win more business in the process.

“Today, most treasury onboarding processes are aligned to serve internal bank departments rather than the client itself, forcing clients to navigate repetitive, disjointed activities across client onboarding, deposit account opening, loan origination, and treasury onboarding. Providing a singular treasury management onboarding and servicing experience, or one that is siloed from other commercial functions, does not generally result in high client satisfaction or maximize bank resources.” — Deloitte

Treasury Management Support: Complex Journeys Lack Cohesion

Treasury clients need significant support after onboarding, with nine in ten requesting help. But post–go-live servicing remains just as fragmented.

• 56% interact with multiple departments or companies for a single issue
  
• 48% say they have little visibility into issue status
  
• 37% report long wait times or repeated requests for the same information
  

The takeaway: Speed alone isn’t enough. Treasury support must also deliver clarity so customers understand where their issue stands and how it’s being coordinated across teams and partners. As Deloitte found, one-third of corporate executives from billion-dollar firms maintain relationships with 10 or more financial institutions. That underscores just how competitive and fragile these relationships can be. Business leaders are willing to divide or move their relationships when experiences fall short.

What Treasury Management Customers Value Most

When we asked in our CX research report what matters most in their banking experience, TM customers prioritized:

• Self-service options (41%)
  
• High-quality resolution (41%)
  
• Clarity and speed of information (37%)
  
• Access to multiple support channels—phone, chat, SMS, and email (33%)
  

Encouragingly, 63% said their bank could win more business from them if it proactively recommended relevant products or services. This reinforces the opportunity for banks to use data and journey analytics to anticipate client needs.

Fintechs Raise the Bar for Treasury Management CX

While banks grapple with legacy processes, fintechs are setting new expectations.According to Fiserv, 58% of companies already use a fintech for core cash management or treasury services, and another 25% plan to in the future. For banking executives, that statistic underscores the urgency of matching fintechs’ speed and ease while maintaining the scale, security, and trust that define traditional banks.

CX Implications for Bank Leaders

Our Business Banking CX data makes the case for specific, high-impact actions:

1. Simplify treasury onboarding to reduce effort and abandonment.
   
2. Unify support across departments and external partners to provide transparency for both customers and internal teams.
   
3. Embed AI automation and analytics to proactively resolve friction, surface insights, and recommend next-best actions that expand relationships.
   

As McKinsey & Company notes, “High-fidelity data sources and advanced analytics are becoming a must-have capability—not only for revenue growth but for anticipating and preventing client attrition and improving customer service.”

With churn across banking averaging 15.3%, these improvements are about more than efficiency. They’re essential for retaining high-value relationships.

From Fragmented Processes to Orchestrated Journeys

The solution isn’t patching up isolated pain points. It’s designing orchestrated, end-to-end journeys that connect onboarding, support, and ecosystem partners in one unified flow. By orchestrating these journeys, using platforms like OvationCXM, banks can ensure that every stakeholder, whether inside or outside the institution, operates from the same playbook.The result: fewer handoffs, faster resolutions, and customer experiences that feel connected, not chaotic.

Conclusion

Treasury management customers want efficient onboarding, transparent servicing, and proactive guidance from their banking provider. Banks and credit unions that deliver on these expectations will reduce churn, expand relationships, and strengthen profitability in an increasingly competitive market.

If you want to see how OvationCXM transforms treasury management journeys, watch our clickable, on-demand demo below or reach out to discuss your specific use case.