For those of you who stuck with my last long post, promise not to be so long-winded this time. Let’s just jump right in.
So how can a bank transform itself to a cashless branch without scaring away the customers that still want and need to come to the branch? Any hardware manufacturer will be happy to tell you how as it relates to the layout and functionality. But the key question is how to do it in such a way that the branch is more profitable and the customers are not alienated. This, of course, requires a complete project plan but here are a few key components:
- Using a concierge/ambassador to engage customers – Just think of the possibilities of that direct contact!
- Staff training – Happy employees = happy customers, right?
- Customer incentives such as a $5 check to be deposited in the new image ATM or a movie pass to the first 50 customers that use the new deposit only kiosk.
- Signage/brochures – Clear, simple and attention-grabbing.
- Online messaging – Tutorials on how to use a new kiosk or ATM a la Bank of America: ATM tutorial.
- Screen flow – Make it simple, then build on it when customers get used to it.
- Be sure the technology is reliable.
- Placement – Don’t be afraid to put your ATM or kiosk between the door and the teller line.
I love that last one. If you hide your new ATMs, bill payment kiosks, etc. in a corner of the branch, you are destined to be saying “Our customers don’t use that thing.”
A successful deployment of self-service has to work for both the bank and the bank’s customers. It takes some serious thought, planning, design and follow-through, but it can be done as we have evidenced at PSCU, Dexia and whatever that bank was in Italy (sorry – the bank name was not the most important part of my trip 
).
P.S. I’ll be doing a webcast on exactly this subject on Tuesday, October 13 at 2pm ET. If you’re interested and have the time, please follow this link to sign up. I would love to “see” you there!
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Thought I would drop you a line to point out that there is at least one successful cashless Canadian bank branch that has been doing well for many years — BMO (University of New Brunswick Campus) in Fredericton, NB.
No doubt the success of cashless banking probably hinges on the issue of acceptance and early adoption of new technology. And, it’s usually the hip younger folks who are keen to use such things as solar-powered light sabres, anti-gravity spandex body suits, or robotic vacuum cleaners, (while the rest of us humble folk fumble around in the dark, wear formless-fitting togas, or rejoice about the fact that carpet sweepers don’t come with two-inch thick operating manuals). Of course that begs the next question, when can I use my cell phone as a debit card and, more importantly, when will it give me directions for the fastest route to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe not to mention allow me to “function as a coherent consciousness in an epistemologically ambiguous physical universe”? (courtesy of Douglas Adams)
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