Bankers Need to Encourage, Even Compel Employees to Use Tech Tools

Chris Cox, the head of Regions Bank eBusiness unit, was quoted in Bank Technology News on how personal financial management (PFM) tools will soon be part of a customer's everyday interaction with their bank once they login. I believe him.

But will they do it through your financial institution? In a separate article, Jim Marous of The Financial Brand, opined that Mint, a PFM tool that "screen scrapes" financial information from various financial institutions and aggregates it into their tool, is a serious threat to banks, thrifts and credit unions. I believe him, too.

PFM tools have been dogged by low adoption rates. Woe to the retail banker or IT manager in convincing the CEO that PFM is a must-have . If it was so critical, why are so few people using it? I doubt this will surprise you, but I have my opinions.

First, the likely adopters of bank technology tools are probably younger customers. I'm 49 years old and I have not demanded that my bank have a PFM tool because I don't think I would invest the time to learn and use it. In fact, I don't know if my bank has a PFM tool. My daughter is more likely to want and use such a tool. And guess what? She doesn't have any money... yet. 

Bank profits are driven from balances, and expenses are driven by number of accounts and gizmos attached to those accounts. So effectively implementing a technology gizmo that is targeted to younger customers that currently generate little revenues does not make for a solid business case.

Secondly, I believe that PFM and other customer-facing technology tools have low adoption rates by your employees. Don't believe me? Why don't you poll them. Let me know how it turns out.

People sell what they know. When I was a branch banker, I sold the heck out of home equity loans and retail checking accounts. Why? I knew them much better than business checking or a commercial line of credit. So my branch had a lot of retail deposits and loans. It was what I knew and was most comfortable.

I read an industry article, and I apologize that I can't recall where I read it or I would link to it (although I suspect it was a Jim Marous piece again), that a bank required their employees to open accounts using the same online account opening tool that customers would use if they did it themselves in their pajamas. The employees didn't have to wear pajamas, but you get my point.

It forced the employees to know the tool that was available to customers. And why wouldn't you do it this way? You invest the money in developing or purchasing an intuitive online account opening tool and then saddle your employees with opening accounts using a clunky core processor user interface (UI) or tool? Why do we need both? 

And if choosing, you should choose the one available to customers so your employees are subject matter experts on it. Imagine a customer calling the nearby branch for help using an online tool and the branch employee guides them through it, instead of transferring them to your call center or eBanking unit.  

Don't stop at account opening. Transfer the logic to other customer tools, such as PFM. First, get your employees on it and using it via their own personal accounts. Only by repetition will they achieve the subject matter expertise to enroll their clients into it, train them on how to use it, and answer "how-to" questions about it. 

And don't stop at retail banking tools. Many if not most community banks are focused on the business segment, and there are plenty of available tools to help harried business owners make their financial lives simpler. Since employees are typically not business owners, this will take a little more diligence in giving them the needed training and repetition to be fluent in the available tools. Perhaps you can set up a "test account" at a "test bank" and require employees to use the tool a certain number of times prior to crowning them "cash flow management" qualified.

Mint, Yodlee, Moven, and other technology platforms are working hard to win the loyalty of your customers via their "cool" platforms. Many, such as Geezeo, focus on helping community financial institutions offer cool tech solutions and yet retain customer loyalty through the FIs own brand. To win the loyalty of those that demand such technologies now, and when they have the wealth to drive profits, financial institutions must develop front line staff to be fluent in what is available. Only then will they enthusiastically demonstrate the technology (go into an Apple store and have a "genius" demonstrate the Apple Watch and you'll know what I mean), describe features and benefits and their own experience with the tool, get customer adoption rates higher, and build greater loyalty to your brand.

Or you could let Mint do it.

~ Jeff

How I use Twitter

I am no social media expert. The media is so relatively new, I'm skeptical of those that make the claim. But I was making a half hour presentation to a bank board of directors regarding their strategic plan two weeks ago. The plan called for the bank to evolve its marketing capabilities to include social media. When I mentioned I had a Twitter account, half of my allotted time was spent in a Q&A on how I used it.

I was surprised by this turn, but impressed that a relatively older Board was so interested and had detailed questions about social media. In my mind, I thought "oh no, they must think I'm a social media expert". But I pressed on to tell them how I, not knowing the right way from the wrong way, used Twitter. Here is the gist of what I said.

I signed up for Twitter about two years ago (@jeffmarsico), and have tweeted nearly 3,500 times. That is about five per day. Probably light compared to some, and moderate compared to others. I have no target regarding how many times I tweet. The reason I signed up was two-fold: 1) curiosity about the hype, and 2) as a replacement for a journal.

I have always thought of keeping a journal to remember things that occurred in my life. But I'm not one to sit down at night and jot down events and certainly not my feelings. So, at only 140 characters per tweet, I thought Twitter a decent substitute. So off I went with no strategy other than that.

I searched for people to follow using three themes: 1) local to my hometown; 2) banking-related; and 3) sports-related. Most that I follow have followed me back, either as a courtesy or judging that my tweets may interest them. I hope the latter, but am not foolish to believe this is always true. If you looked at the lists I have compiled on Twitter, you will note these three themes.

I am somewhat bipolar in how I use Twitter. Right or wrong, I typically tweet banking by day, and Yankees by night. This is an oversimplification, as I also like interacting with those that I have never met via Twitter, tweeting things happening in my personal life, and other sports teams that I follow.

Some may criticize how I use Twitter because while some tweets may be interesting to a segment of my followers, they may be irrelevant to others. For example, tweeting an interesting statistic I heard at a banking conference may interest @bankmarketing, but be a snore to @lennysyankees.

Although I still use Twitter with similar objectives to when I started, I have evolved in my thinking. Since joining, I started this blog. I use Twitter to update my tweeps (slang for your Twitter followers) that I just put up a new post. This week, the second-highest traffic source into the blog was from Twitter.

I now use Twitter as an education source. There is a whole universe of blogs and news sources that were unknown to me (see below for a couple good examples of very fine banking blogs). For example, my banking tweeps keep me updated via news links of what is happening in our universe. If I am working in the office, I read Twitter-fed articles that are of interest to me, in addition to my regular reading. When traveling and I see an interesting article or blog post in my Twitter stream, I "favorite" it for later reading.

I also follow sports via Twitter. For example, yesterday I kept apprised of how my favorite MLS soccer club, @philaunion was doing in their match as I was unable to watch it. Watching a Yankees game while following an #yankees hashtag stream and interacting with my tweeps is a whole different experience than watching alone. I would miss the snarky comments from @huntforringsnyy when AJ Burnett bumbles through a start.

I have made my Tweets private, which seems to be counter-intuitive to expanding a tweep-base. But I noticed that Twitter receives a pretty high ranking in search engines. For example, when searching "Jeff Marsico", my Twitter account appeared fifth on Bing and third on Google. If somebody Googles me, I'm not sure I want their first impression to be "The barber chopped off my sideburns, again" (actual tweet that showed up in a Google search). To follow me, a potential tweep need only send a follower request, 95% of which I accept (unless you are a porn site or serial marketer). Most of those I follow back. But I suppose I probably lose potential followers and therefore relationships by making tweets private. I accept the trade off.

I don't know much about establishing brand. For evidence look no further than my Twitter avatar (thumbnail picture, logo, or animation that comes up next to your tweets). I first started with a cartoon (see pictures), then moved to an image of myself after reading some blog posts on the subject, and I now use a simple photo. I suppose the evolution is because I would like to be viewed as a human being like everybody else, and not Shaggy from Scooby-Doo. See the @inking_media link below regarding avatars. Inkling Media is local to Central PA and I would not have known the owner, Ken, other than through Twitter.

This segways to the most important benefit I received from Twitter: meeting people I otherwise would have never met. I'm not saying that I know my tweeps in any material way (although some I do because @shannon_marsico is a tweep). But I never would have known @sharistorm, a credit union marketing executive, mom, blogger, and author from Washington state if I did not follow her. Just this past week I spoke on the phone with @mbartoo about possibly putting on an industry event. I first met Mike via Twitter.

Could Twitter be a short-term fad that goes the way of the Betamax? Possibly. Is it the answer to our industry challenges? Doubtful. But an industry marketing consultant told me last week that financial institutions must learn how to leverage the spheres of influence of their business development officers. If you believe what he said to be true, then social media, and yes Twitter, can be part of that conversation. See Susquehanna Bank link below to a well-done bank blog positioning BDOs as experts. But I do not know many other FIs that are doing this well or have received material benefit from their Twitter or social media efforts yet. We are still in the experimental phase.

But my experimental efforts have given me things that were unknown to me when I first signed up for Twitter... i.e. knowledge, interactions during sporting events, and relationships (if only limited relationships). Perhaps your experimentation can result in lessons learned, brand advancement, and relationship building success. I don't know, but in my experience it's worth a try.

How do you use Twitter?

~ Jeff

Banking blog links:

Marketing Tea Party by Ron Shevlin

http://marketingteaparty.com/

The Financial Brand

http://www.financialbrand.com/

Blog post on Twitter Avatars by Inkling Media:

http://inklingmedia.net/2010/10/25/branding-engagement-pt-1-whats-in-a-name-or-face/

Susquehanna Bank blog:

http://blog.susquehanna.net/