A Lovely Experience with the Bank Teller

There is a way for banks to retake their central role in the lives of clients: increase their ability to listen to consumer signals, which are many and varied. Most of them point toward a profound transformation of banking, revolving around the centrality of customer experience.

Whether in manufacturing or services, customer relations have become strategic, due to the market scenarios and business environments that have emerged worldwide. Thus the imperative is to deal with demand expectations, which are ever more selective in determining consumer choice.

Interesting findings are derived from a recent study on customer experience conducted by ISPO Ricerche and Customer Management Insights. First of all, customer experience is a multi-dimensional concept, which even brand managers in large companies find hard to pinpoint precisely. There are however common traits in their answers to the researchers' interviews, namely market complexity and customer orientation. Secondly, customer experience is crucial for brand image and is thought to have a major impact on sales. Thirdly, within positive consumer experiences, the ability to listen, and provide assistance and advice are valued even more than convenience and efficiency. In other words, the human touch is the asset that warrants a felicitous interaction with a business company.

Both for banks' managment and clients, customer experience has yet to attain a satisfactory level, despite the fact that bank managers consider it a strategic factor to develop their clientele. In order to make this leap forward, not only the model of service delivery needs to be changed, but the whole business model and the overall strategy must be overhauled, for such change to be sustainable in the medium-to-long run. In fact, consumers are more and more dynamic in dealing with their banking counterparts, and quickly realize the gap existing between what the bank states it does and what it actually delivers to clients, thus frustrating the expectations it raised.

Banks have trouble dealing correctly with the issue, due to internal organizational factors, and especially because it's not yet clear who has ownership of the customer relations process, which cuts across corporate functions and communication channels. A customer experience strategy requires mastering business strategy, communication and marketing skills, and technological know-how.

Bank tellers can become either high-tech shops or meeting places, but their transformation is useful if it serves a strategic purpose, which needs to be well understood and communicated inside and outside the bank, to employees and clients alike. Otherwise precious organizational energies and monetary resources end up being dissipated.