Like most people, I frequent my bank less and less. There is just not that much need to queue up and wait your turn to see a teller anymore. When I do go, it is for something specific that has to be done by a human. So my purpose is generally completely transaction oriented, and not that different from going to a fast food restaurant and ordering by numbers. Yet, I have noticed that the tellers try harder to find ways to engage, with some level of mandate to cross-sell or up-sell. And just coincidently I spoke to a friend who works the other side of the counter who reaffirmed that there is indeed quite a bit of pressure to meet quotas. Quite surprising on the level of focus that occurs here.
There is certainly nothing wrong with the intent to engage and cross-sell. But what the bank does not seem to recognize is that behavior of those of us in the queue is changing. Just because I am standing there in front of a teller does not mean that I am in a shopping or browsing mode. My focus is on the transaction. Getting it done quickly, efficiently, and correctly. My view of the teller is as a customer service representative, not so much as a sales representative. And the proficiency with which those transactions are executed has quite an impact on my customer experience. Needing to pay attention to a bunch of impromptu offers just does not do anything for it.
I was pleased to learn about the next generation of super ATMs that are slowly beginning to be deployed in the US. As nicely presented in blog post by Research and Marketing Strategies, Inc, the super ATM will go beyond the capabilities of on-line banking and will take on an array of real teller transactions. Cashing checks, issuing money orders, printing checks, withdrawing funds in mixed denominations, to name a few. It all sounds so good. Just like regular ATMs, it will enable more hours of availability to teller-like transactions, and presumably more locations. And that is what steps it up a notch for the customer experience.
But what about that lost opportunity for engagement? That one where those avid human tellers are pressured to prey on. Well, it’s not much of a lost opportunity if those transaction-focused folks in the queue are not really, all that willing to give up their attention anyways. That teller trying to promote something new, just because it is the flavor of the month, is not that different than those website banner ads that we have learned to suppress so well.
As we have learned, the customer experience gets better when the banner ads get suppressed. We can just get on with what we are doing. Getting all of those routine things executed in a simple and efficient manner is what aggregates our overall customer experience into a positive one. It makes people happy to have all of those simple things executed, without any burdensome parts to the process. And as with any supplier-customer relationship, if the supplier can do the simple things well, it opens customers up to consider new services. But it’s not likely to happen in the equivalent of the teller line.
Cultivating that opportunity to engage more, means improving the customer experience across all those routine touch points. And since many of those are being digitally driven, it is here where the powers of demand generation could be better harnessed. With all of the regular digital interactions that take place, there is the real opportunity to build holistic views of customers; and to better determine how to seek engagement. And that digital tool set has to be deployed by a collaborative effort between both the IT and marketing departments. Only then can suppliers determine the preferred methods of engagement, and what has a chance of resonating.