What do we mean by ‘customer experience’ in banking?
Kare Anderson titles her recent blog ‘Coddle and Keep Customers – Even in a Cold Economy’. She talks about a cafe near her home in Sausalito, California that now offers fresh-baked pastries and coffee to drive-by customers.
Now let’s transfer this image of ‘coddled customers’ to the experience people have with their banks. My Collins Concise English Dictionary defines ‘coddle’ as ‘to treat with indulgence’. Wouldn’t this kind of experience be the kind of thing that would drive you to a bank and keep you there long term?
Yes, we know that banks are designing comfortable, even luxurious environments where their customers can lounge over a fresh-brewed coffee. But while coffee and pastries are a cafe’s product, coffee and sofas are not a bank’s product. To coddle us, banks must treat us with indulgence, not just provide nice furniture.
It’s time that banks put aside their product innovations and selling tactics and get to know what the words ‘treat us with indulgence’ mean in their context. Here are just three suggestions:
Firstly, treat your customers like the intelligent people that they are. This means knowing your area of expertise backwards and only offering the highest quality, well-considered advice.
Secondly, be one hundred percent present in the presence of your customers. Pay attention to them and respond to what they are communicating instead of your own idea of what you want to say.
Thirdly, get your own attitude sorted out. Make sure that you have a strong purpose and are clear about what your personal values are, so that you come across as sincere, authentic and caring.
Treating bank customers with indulgence means taking them under your expert wing and looking after them. That’s all we really want. We can get the coffee round the corner.
James Irvine, Team Egyii, Singapore
Tags: Banking, Customer Experience, Marketing
June 8th, 2009 at 10:53 am
[...] things get done faster, the employees feel important, undue stress is relieved, the clients feel more comfortable in doing business with the company, stronger internal and external relationships are [...]
June 11th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
[...] organizations are ”talking” trust, customer experience, customer centricity, client relationships and loyalty as the key solutions for the client, and [...]
June 17th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Egyii
Great ideas. Coddling to me means taking care of my customers the ways they most value. Banks might start by asking customers what they most value and what they’d like changed. Two quick thoughts: opening on Saturday or one evening (convenience) + enabling people to fill out forms online or by online download and fax back so when they come in to open an account they just sign the papers (less time)… and what special services do we owners of small businesses want as signs of being coddled? My GREAT Bank of Marin’s CEO has offered public briefings on the economy, the troubles of banks and how/why “our” bank is secure because of how they have managed it. Packed turnouts for these candid Q & Q. sessions. The quality of personal service I’ve experiences is better than what i hear my much richer friends get from their big banks.
BTW I love the quality of the dialogue here at Open Forum.. thanks Marci & Anita
June 18th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Kare
Many thanks for your comments and ideas. I really like the way your bank’s CEO conducts briefings on the economy. Sharing information and educating our customers is the way to go.
James Irvine