Have we all heard too much about the nuts and bolts of today’s banking technology, and too little about its effect on customers? I think so.
It’s time to expand our view of technology and acknowledge that customers are less interested in any one banking channel – including the almighty mobile – than they are in having all their banking channels work together. In fact, the more channels banks introduce to the market, the more customers want those channels to access and update a common pool of information in real time.
Yet access to the same information and functionality across channels is a challenge for most banks today. Why? Because the banks’ technology wasn’t originally designed to support cross-channel banking.
For many years, the branch, ATM, debit, call center and Internet channels were powered by separate systems. These systems communicate by passing batch updates – many of them at the end of the day – which creates discrepancies between the balances and other information available via different channels.
Is it any wonder that bank customers are confused and that bank call centers are busy beyond belief?
The good news is that technologies are now available to unify the customer’s experience across these channels. The better news is that these technologies are poised to usher in a new age of banking for our cross-channel customers.
All Information In Real Time
The time-honored approach of using a separate system for each banking channel and batch updates to connect them is becoming obsolete. In its place, we have real-time updates with uniform information across all channels. That means information changed in one banking channel is automatically changed in all the others.
Just imagine the improvement in the customer’s experience. The balance on his ATM receipt matches the balance he receives on his mobile phone, Internet screen – really wherever the customer touches the bank. This level of information also opens new service opportunities, such as real time alerts.
A bank customer on a shopping trip can receive an alert message telling him whenever his purchase will take his balance negative and/or generate a fee. A business customer can review her pending ACH items as they enter her ACH warehouse. A business’s wire request can be reviewed by the bank as soon as the request is made, reducing the opportunity for fraud and moving legitimate wire requests faster.
If you were a customer about to choose between a bank with real-time updates and a bank that updates in batch, you would almost certainly choose real time. The reduced opportunities for fraud, fees, ill-informed decisions, and frustration will win every time. Real time costs less to support, too, because of the reduced call volume.
If bank customers conduct 80 percent or more of their business outside of the branch, why should banks maintain their most comprehensive customer experience inside the branch?
Answers to that question are creating a revolution in banking experiences across all channels. They are also leveling the playing field between functions available on the Internet, in the branch, through the call center, and on mobile devices.
Internet and mobile banking are rapidly evolving into the customer’s “front end” to all their banking needs. Their personal finance pages – updated in real time – no longer need to pull information from the bank’s core system. Instead, the information is displayed in the order and categories that the customer has specified – automatically.
The ultimate vision for banking channels is that each should reflect the rest, enabling customers to perform the same functions on any channel they choose. Business accounts, consumer accounts, even external accounts are becoming visible on the bank’s modular page, displayed in dashboard form the way the customer wants. All the passwords that the customer had to remember – they’re being consolidated into one. That’s where next generation banks are heading.
The third component in today’s game-changing technologies is custom functionality. Instead of the one-size-fits-all approach to banking capabilities that has held our industry so tightly, banks now have the ability to select functions for their customers and have them running overnight.
Today’s technology enables bankers to customize their customers’ experiences by shopping for plug-in enhancements – called core processing apps – in an online store. Core processing apps are game-changer for two reasons: They enable bankers to “de-commoditize,” or differentiate their capabilities from the competition. Better yet, apps enable banks to respond to customer demands at market speed.
The Secret To Changing The Game
Behind every successful technology advance is training and best practices. Integration, customized displays, and rapid implementation of in-demand functionality – all of these improvements represent major changes to bank operations.
Having experienced people who know what works and how to encourage employees to try the new instead of clinging to the old absolutely makes the difference in delivering true productivity gains.
As mobile customers increasingly expect to run their financial lives through every channel at their disposal, they will continue to expect their banks to provide information that will help them do that at the speed of now.
The question is – are you ready to serve the new cross-channel marketplace? If not, how long are you willing to wait?
Joe Trafton is senior vice president and chief strategy officer for Avon, Conn.-based COCC Inc.
