Old style values the key to customer success
(23 March 2004 – Australia) Banks have strayed too far from the customer and need to get back to the values of the old style branch manager who knew his clients and their businesses if they are ever to fully excel in customer service.
That’s the view of Commonwealth Bank executive general manager, Retail, Sales and Service, David Marshall, who said increasingly centralised operations had led to data leaving the branches.
Although it was unrealistic to expect that banks would reintroduce managers in all branches, Marshall said effective use of technology could go a long way to providing customers with a similar experience.
Speaking at an Australasian Institute of Banking and Finance forum on the role of technology in financial services, he said the bank’s CommSee product – so far introduced in Tasmania – allowed a "single view of the customer and their product holdings" with CBA.
"That’s going to have a profound impact on the customer experience; it’ll give staff more confidence that when a customer comes into the branch they will know as much about the customer’s relationship with the bank as the customer does," Marshall said.
"We’ve got over 1000 branches and our challenge is quite simple: how do we leverage that to provide customer choice so we can take any customer into any branch? And how do we link that with the other channels?"
Marshall said banks and finance companies had moved away from their customers over the past 10 to 15 years, preferring instead to "shoehorn" them into channels, such as the internet and call centres.
"In many cases that was against the customer’s will, and secondly, it has had quite an impact on the relationship with those customers and the performance of the organisation," Marshall said.
"Banks have seen a lot of attrition, and a lot of customers moving to other providers as a result."
However, if technology was the key to bringing banks and customers closer together, it had to be introduced in a way that was consistent with the systems and ecology of an organisation.
"Technology in isolation and not linked to all the systems within an organisation can be extremely disruptive and unfruitful," Marshall said.
Similarly, if the bank wished to encourage customers to buy more products electronically, the technology had to be designed with the customer in mind.
Marshall cited the boss of Dutch electronic goods company Phillips, who said research showed that 30 percent of all home networking products sold in the US are returned, as purchasers were unable to fathom how to make them work.
"Research also shows that 48 percent of people keen to buy a digital camera are delaying buying them, as they can’t understand the products and think they’re too complicated," Marshall said.
"The message there is that customers are striving for a new frontier of simplicity and not complexity. The days of overcomplicating customer offerings in any market are well and truly behind us.
"Simplicity is the key and has to be borne in mind all the time when thinking about the customer," he said.
Although it was unrealistic to expect that banks would reintroduce managers in all branches, Marshall said effective use of technology could go a long way to providing customers with a similar experience.
Speaking at an Australasian Institute of Banking and Finance forum on the role of technology in financial services, he said the bank’s CommSee product – so far introduced in Tasmania – allowed a "single view of the customer and their product holdings" with CBA.
"That’s going to have a profound impact on the customer experience; it’ll give staff more confidence that when a customer comes into the branch they will know as much about the customer’s relationship with the bank as the customer does," Marshall said.
"We’ve got over 1000 branches and our challenge is quite simple: how do we leverage that to provide customer choice so we can take any customer into any branch? And how do we link that with the other channels?"
Marshall said banks and finance companies had moved away from their customers over the past 10 to 15 years, preferring instead to "shoehorn" them into channels, such as the internet and call centres.
"In many cases that was against the customer’s will, and secondly, it has had quite an impact on the relationship with those customers and the performance of the organisation," Marshall said.
"Banks have seen a lot of attrition, and a lot of customers moving to other providers as a result."
However, if technology was the key to bringing banks and customers closer together, it had to be introduced in a way that was consistent with the systems and ecology of an organisation.
"Technology in isolation and not linked to all the systems within an organisation can be extremely disruptive and unfruitful," Marshall said.
Similarly, if the bank wished to encourage customers to buy more products electronically, the technology had to be designed with the customer in mind.
Marshall cited the boss of Dutch electronic goods company Phillips, who said research showed that 30 percent of all home networking products sold in the US are returned, as purchasers were unable to fathom how to make them work.
"Research also shows that 48 percent of people keen to buy a digital camera are delaying buying them, as they can’t understand the products and think they’re too complicated," Marshall said.
"The message there is that customers are striving for a new frontier of simplicity and not complexity. The days of overcomplicating customer offerings in any market are well and truly behind us.
"Simplicity is the key and has to be borne in mind all the time when thinking about the customer," he said.
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