Try before you sell

Like many of you, I get public transport to work each morning. And each new morning, I find 2 interesting developments occuring, even increasing - the ride to work becomes more unpleasant on Melbourne's public transport system, which leads to me becoming more of a grumpy old man. This is not good in either scenario. I've moaned about Melbourne's public transport network on TheBankChannel.com before, but in reality, its not that bad, but it could be better.

The first suggestion I would have is to get ALL tram drivers as part of their induction to spend a WEEK riding trams, particularly in peak hour. Then, as they increase their days and months driving, continue to spend a day a month at least riding trams, again including during peak hour.

The feeling of being shunted, tossed about, and crammed into these trams will soon become apparent - its something you won't get to experience from the comfort of a padded, forward facing drivers chair, floating on hydraulic suspension.

Its like driving a car and anticipating the turns and movement, whilst your passengers play corners, and get car sick.

This of course is true for any business - at least the analogy is. All people who work in customer experience influencing roles must constantly expose themselves to the interactions they're customers have, and put themselves in the customers shoes. This is the only way to both consciously and subconsciously understand the emotions and reactions these experiences create.

Lets take for example a bank branch channel manager walking into a branch - what mindset would expect this person to take: whats wrong here, what systems have broken, where are the sales conversations, why isnt that brand signage up to date, etc?

In reality, he/she should be standing outside, taking a deep breath, closing their eyes, and imagining he/she is an average customer, with average banking needs, little time and understanding/care for banking products and services, but a care for good customer service.

And he/she should spend a day a month, walking the floor, asking customers about their experience, their emotional reaction (if they have one).

To get a true picture not necessarily of the specific issues of a channels performance, but of the emotional outcome of the the experience you deliver, you have to live it long enough and often enough to understand and remind yourself of whats it like.

It builds empathy and understanding of your customers interaction with your business.

Step away from the computer! Get out there into the world of your customers.

Innovation round up - June 09

So, my 2 cents worth ...

This month we see a mix of ideas and new features from banks, more so than say 6 months ago - my desk research is telling me that 2 clear trends are emerging this side of the GFC. Banks are beginning to innovate again; and 2 they're innovating for the new environment - a post bank-bloated environment that was first about the organisations shareholders and not the customers.

This was fast becoming a redundant and false economy in which to operate.

Thank god we now are beginning to operate in an environment where customers are empowered. It keeps us honest.

The era of 'command and control' as James Gardner puts it, is coming to an end. Command and control talks about the notion of a hierarchical structure delivering visions and plans down through its layers coming under intense pressure, as all the layers both inside and outside the organisation now have a voice (whether the organisation likes it or not) in what your bank should do.

Its a matter of when not if that our organisation and industry must confront the idea that fast, rapid, dense, real time development and innovation is required as well as or even rather than long term, linear planning. If you can tell me where your industry, channels and customers will definitely be in 18 months time let alone 5 years time, then you can plan for that - but I don't think that's particularly easy.

This is not to say you must be simply responsive and reactive rather than strategic, leading or innovative - its just the way we do it is more important than doing it all. Involving customers, reacting immediately to opportunities, evolving your business structure to allow for it, and challenging the way you've always done things is now imperative, rather than just disruptive..

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FINANCIAL SERVICES INNOVATION

AMPLIFY CONFERENCE FEEDBACK - AMPs recent festival of innovation wowed its audience and speakers.

THE WAY FORWARD - JP Morgan start straight talking about the future of their company to shareholders, customers and the community

BACK TO BASICS, BACK INTO THE COMMUNITY - Banks focusing on core banking, and local communities.

DESIGNER BANK BRANCH - New designs looking very sleek from Italian bank (Milan more specifically) CheBanca! (Translation - "What a Bank!"). See the design agency case study here. Will branches ever get close to the future of retail?

FAIRFEES - ING Canada launches a 'campaign' against unfair fees, using video content. Also interesting - feetweeter! Discuss and compare bankfee costs and information,

SMARTYPIG DEPOSITS UP TEN FOLD - And the company plans to continue its aggressive pricing and marketing, hoping to grow another five-fold to a half-billion by year-end or 50x what they started the year with.

SCRED - Manage budgets and money across groups of people

WHY BANKS MUST BE ALLOWED TO DIE - The Bank Of England seems to encourage natural selection amongst banks that pump themselves full of fat based on risky practice

IPHONE ACCOUNT AGGREGATOR IN BETA - 'Some guy' on whirlpool is building an iPhone account aggregator app - check out the screenshots

CUSTOMERS DEPOSITING THEIR ANGER ONLINE MORE THAN EVER BEFORE - Twitter etc becoming the new place to complain - then compare and discuss

A SUPERMARKET MIGHT BUY A BANK - Tesco in the running to buy (and add to its massive Fin Services offering) Northern Rock

A GOLD BULLION ATM MACHINE - An online precious metals trading company is planning to install 500 gold-dispensing ATMs in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

THE REALITY OF THE FINANCIAL CONSUMER - 39% say the economy is getting better. 35% say the worst is yet to come.... see more

NETBANK CUSTOMERS VENT - When your IB goes down, customers let you - and others - know about it.

23 WAYS TO USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO TARGET YOUTH CUSTOMERS - In the last couple of years, financial institutions have started to leverage social media to engage with the youth market.

ATM VENDOR HALTS PRESENTATION WITH THREAT - An ATM vendor has succeeded in getting a security talk pulled from the upcoming Black Hat conference after a researcher announced he would demonstrate a vulnerability in the system.

SPANISH BANK LAUNCHES PEER TO PEER LENDING - Rather than ignoring these new business models, CAN have created a hybrid where the bank provides a secure social lending platform and manages the relationships between those who fund and those who need funds. Read more about Caja Navaro (CAN) bank here.

ONLINE IDENTITY INTEROPERABILITY INITIATIVE LAUNCHED - A new initiative has been launched by a group of tech firms, including Oracle and PayPal, to promote interoperability among identity verification applications and services for Internet users. We need to do this now in Aus before the Gov't does it for us.

WHAT CAN YOU BUY FOR FIVE DOLLARS? - People all over the world making submissions ... I bet a bank wished they'd thought of this - or not.

THE IMPORTANCE OF MOBILE TO A RETAIL BANK - Roy Vella, Director of Group Mobile at RBS, explains more. Read here why mobile banking is a must have.

BARCAMPBANK EVENT IN MELBOURNE - Join us September 4, 2-6pm for an unconference ... organised by yours truly

THE MAGSTRIP FINISHED? - Security and other issues spelling its end this author reckons

MICROSOFT MONEY IS FINISHED AT LEAST - MS kill of declining business model with Quicken, banks and independents like Mint.com taking over

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INNOVATION

WHY AREN'T PLANE SEATS MORE LIKE AERON CHAIRS? - look at the average airline chair. It's a mess of moulded plastic parts and metal fixings, with stiff cushions that always seem to dig into your legs in the wrong place, hard armrests that are rarely comfortable, and a distinct lack of posture adjustments.

OBJECTIFIED - New movie chronicles the back story of the people and processes that create the vast array of designed objects that surround us every day

REINVENTING INTERACTION - How interaction designers are challenging and improving some traditional ways of doing things. Like ordering a glass of wine.

KARAOKE VIA WEBCAM - Campaign for Coca Cola - submit yours, or watch others sing songs online live!

FORRESTER TELLS COMPANIES TO STOP IGNORING CUSTOMERS - Read notes from the latest Customer Experience Forum

ACTIVATE 09 - Keep across The Guardians summit on Politics, economics, technology and society: Building a better future through the internet

IDEAS PROJECT - Listen to great minds with great ideas - and submit your own. Pretty simple.

CLAY SHIRKY AT TED - How Social Media can make history - brilliant presentation.

TOMS SHOES - For every pair you buy, they donate a pair to charity or provide themselves to children in need. This one-for-one model is going to boom.

DISNEY CROWDSOURCES ITS OWN COMPANY - If you have 12k employees, they might have some good ideas or feedback.

WHEN CONSUMERS HELP, ADS ARE FREE - Getting customers, or just people, involved in your campaigns gives it so much more meaning, and cut through

BUYOLOGY - The latest book from Martin Lindstrom, marketing and brand guru, on why we buy the things we do

FUTURE OF JOURNALISM - According to John Hartigan, News Ltd - hanging onto that revenue and print future! ... Oh John. The future is free!

CANNES CYBERLIONS AWARDED - Advertising industry's biggest junket awards show hands out online and digital gongs

NEW BOAGS DRAUGHT TVC - Nice, charming little ad. About magic water. And light sabers.

TELECOMMUTING MUST BE ON THE HORIZON? - If it saved Cisco $277m then surely banks can do the same...

THEN, CISCO TAKES IT EVER FURTHER - THE FUTURE OF INTERCONNECTIVITY - Another future video worth watching

BarCampBank Melbourne on Sept 4th

Following last weeks BarCampBank Sydney, we've decided to add a Melbourne event:

http://barcamp.org/BarCampBankMelbourne

Friday September 4th from 2pm to 6pm at a location to be confirmed.

Looking forward to you all attending and discussing new technology, banking innovation, and other issues we face. Its of course an 'unconference', so all attendees must participate, talk, question, etc.

More details soon!

Hiatus

You'll no doubt have seen my lack of posts recently. A work deadline has meant its been quiet on the blog front. But hopefully you're following The Bank Channel on twitter - twitter.com/thebankchannel, or in twitter speak, @thebankchannel. Many links and items being posted there as they come to hand.

Make sure you can make it to Sydney for

Customer Experience in Financial Services conference on Thursday June 25
BarCampBank on the afternoon of Friday June 26 (register here)

Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to this.

NAB launches banks into the world of biometrics

Despite the fact I'm closer to this than most, its still big enough to share the entry into biometrics that NAB has announced this week.

From Finextra:

"National Australia Bank (NAB) has introduced biometric voice verification for its telephone banking customers.

Following an internal pilot involving 2000 branch staff in May, the speech security function is now available to NAB's 3.3 million personal banking customers.

Customers calling the bank's contact centre can now register their voice pattern, which NAB says is harder to steal than a password or PIN, improving authentication.

In addition, the system is more convenient for customers because it does not require them to remember passwords and PINs."

This is a big point in time for Australian (and other?) banks, but more so for customers - using biometrics is something that consumers are on the whole not used to seeing, using or accepting in their banking or any other corporate interaction.

I think the takeup will be incremental, but the perception will be immediately embraced. Whilst having a bank have my voice recording on record is perhaps a little eery, the fact that it protects my banking and money more than (almost) any other method is reassuring. And the fact that all I have to do is register once, remember information I already know, and not need a PIN number again is pretty attractive.

Call 136622 and give it a go if you're a NAB customer. Let me know what you think. And if you're not a NAB customer, ask your bank what they're doing to enhance their security on the voice channel - I know they're watching NAB with interest.

FST Media Future of Banking & Financial Services Conference

Everyone get along to the Future of Banking & Financial Services Conference, June 17 in Melbourne. "Secure your place at this annual forum for the banking and financial services industry. Engage with industry leaders who will share their forward-thinking insight about the trends, disruptions and threats facing the future of banking and financial services. "

Speakers include leaders from ANZ, Westpac, BOQ, UBank, JP Morgan, CBA, Suncorp, BT, NAB, and others.

Topics include

• How to Innovate During the Tough Times
• Innovative Technology in Customer Centric Banks
• Operational Efficiencies
• The Evolving Role of the CIO
• Capturing Relationships When Money—and Customers—Are on the Move
• Technology Innovations in the Next Three Years
• Strategic Innovation as a Positive Business Enabler
• Lean and Agile: Techniques to Deliver More with Less

Have a look at the agenda - free entry to Fin Services executives.

Innovation round up - May 09

Recently we had Google in to discuss financial services, information, data, search and other things, and of course the sheer size of Google and the scale they can create. In Australia, Google accounts for over 90% of the search market, which makes as equally worrying a monopoly as Microsoft in the operating system space. Thank god they're not one and the same .... yet.

And we discussed the idea of search being a declaration of intent, you're not searching for words, your trying to solve a problem, or answer a question. Searching, when you go back up the chain, is also linked to the life stage events. A search for interest rates might reveal a savings or mortgage need, which reveals a life stage event, or an aspiration of a potential customers. Google insights helps you understand the relationship between different terms and intents.

But don't just think that Google is the only way to search for information. Despite there really being a desperate need, a new generation of search engines has appeared that categorise or tag information, images, video in different ways - it may be by colour, location, origination; it may by diverse information relationships or connections; it may be by a community.

Have a look at the few below and find your favourite. You must visit Vark and Wolfram Alpha. I of course like the shop by celebrity styles on Like.com.

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FINANCIAL SERVICES INNOVATION

PAY STUDENTS TO GET GOOD GRADES - GradeFund lets students recruit sponsors—usually friends and family—who donate money for each good grade. Participating students upload their transcripts at the end of each term and GradeFund verifies them and then collects funds from the sponsors

VIRGIN PLANNING AN ONLINE BANK IN UK - Richard Branson is to launch an internet bank in a move designed to exploit public disgust with Britain's big banks in the wake of the credit crunch and following Tesco

MY INSURANCE IDEA - IAG wants you to enter your ideas, comment, and vote for those you like (or not!) in Your Ideas. Join the Blog. Or, take a Quick Poll or a short, fun Survey to express your opinions and see what others think. Out of this has come THE BUZZ - New car insurance brand, with a simple - yet complex - site.

THE FUTURE OF BRANCHES - Interesting presentation from Jeff on branch evolution

AB+F AWARDS - Held last night, HSBC took out website of the year over UBank. Westpac named Bank of the Year. CBAs Michael Harte named CIO of the Year.

COMMBANK TAKES NETBANK TO THE NEXT LEVEL - Single sign on, enhanced internet banking, personalisation, security enhancements, the lot. Big move.

WELLS FARGO LAUNCHES IPHONE APP - Ho Hum ...

THREE BIG TRENDS THAT DEFINE EVOLUTION IN BANKING - From Jeff Carter, Founder of MIT Future of Banking Lab.

MOBANK FOUNDER TALKS TO CHARIS - Hear from this new mobile only bank startup

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SEARCH ENGINES

BING - Microsoft's new attempt at better search - click on the more button and watch video - I like the bit where he says "We don't rank results by popularity, we categorise them ... " Is that wise?

TWITTER - The ultimate in real time search, twitter comments reflect real time information and opinion

WOLFRAM ALPHA - You enter your question or calculation, and WolframAlpha uses its built-in algorithms and growing collection of data to compute the answer.

LIKE - Find that product you've always wanted by visual search by colour, shape, object, pattern - or which celebrity wears it!

ETSY - Search handmade products by location, editor picks, bought/sold, recommendation - do the colour search - beautiful!

GOOGLE VOICE SEARCH - Speak into your iPhone app

DOGPILE - Searches Google, Yahoo, Live Search and Ask.com all at once

VARK - Ask it a question, it goes and finds a PERSON who sends you an answer back - even by click to chat. Interesting review here.

GOOGLE INSIGHT - Track search terms over time, in a certain location, - real intent search

SPEZIFY - Interesting page layout approach with some visual treatment of different objects as newspaper clippings, images as polaroids etc

VIEWZI - See your results in a 'powergrid' as text or screenshots, in a tag cloud, timeline, whatever

BLACKLE - The famous black version of Google that claimed to save monitor power use by having a black background

GOOGLE OPTIONS - Filter results by date, mentions in forums, reviews, video, images etc

BAIDU, QQ - Outside Google the most popular search engines in the east - character overload!

CIUL - Excellent categorisation of results in a crafted interface

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INNOVATION

BBC BLAST - Digital and experiential site from Fallon and BBC

INCREDIBLE TOKYO FASHION MAP - Watch the parka being passed along, click on Index Map and have a look around

GOOGLE WAVE - a new tool for communication and collaboration on the web - kinda of like Gmail. plus Flickr, plus Chat, plus other stuff

CHANEL NO.5 - New beautiful microsite for the famous fragrance

BUY A PIECE OF MOVIE HISTORY - Remember in Ferris Bueller, the cool house with the Ferraris ... its for sale. And its brilliant.

AMP AMPLIFY 09 CONFERENCE - Thought leadership and innovation, with speakers from all different countries and industries

OSREMOTOS - See how LG is helping Brazilians transition to Digital TV through this immersive site and film

GOOGLE MAP ALPHABET - My mate Rhett has made an alphabet of geographical objects from Google Maps - got massive press

QUIRKY - Earn money for your ideas

BEAUTIFUL INFORMATION VISUALISED BY INFOSTHETICS - Twitter data, obama stats, etc

STAYING HUMBLE - Listen to this podcast about what customers want - and its the basics!

TIME FOR GEN Ys TO SUFFER, SAYS MITCHELL - The big bloke whose eMitch has made a killing from Gen Ys now has the nerve to revel in their current employment crisis. Read the comments from Campaign Brief readers.

RENT REMINDERS (SMS, EMAIL, TWITTER) VIA TENANTTXT - Landlords can send txts to tenants to remind them of payments, etc. Possible in IB?

GOOGLE NEXT GEN PHONE RELEASED - The second-generation Google phone will go on sale in Australia from the middle of next month, with a sleeker design and updated features aimed squarely at the iPhone's youth market.

DESIGN YOUR OWN GARMENT AND SELL IT VIA EXUVE - Community votes on your designs, which can be sold online. Not new - see Threadless and others.

Get your house in order, then tell people about it

Heres a good example (from Mumbrella) of how your brand and your actual business need to be in perfect harmony:

"our valued Bank business relationship manager (whom we met once) left last week and sent us the attached.

• No name


• No replacement


• But its ok call this number “someone will answer”. How nice.


• I’m leaving on 8th May - Day letter sent.


• Received on 12th May though (sent 2nd class).


• And a typo here or there.Aren’t banks brilliant at servicing?”
  

This in the shadows of Westpacs current campaign pitching themselves as the 'bank you can bank on'.

This is great stuff for a bank to see, because it reminds us that when we go to market with brand led launches (which btw I've never really believed in), your company must either be in the process of or totally geared already to deliver on.

If you're the convenient bank, you better be everywhere and easy to access.

If you're the simple bank, you better be streamlined and easy to use.

If you're the local bank, I better walk in feeling like you get me and my community

If you're the smart bank, you better have the expertise and the track record to prove it.

Of course many banks spend too much time on making themselves different to what they were and who they compete with, when often customers just want the same, consistent, GOOD service they've always expected and you've sometimes delivered.

As you can tell from the previous blog entry, I see this as an untapped opportunity in the market - complete delivery of basic experiences where you do what you say you're going to do. In this market can you afford not to? Sadly, many do.

Brand values, often maligned as hard to apply, vague, not frontline enough, not accessible to customers and staff, present the opportunity to differentiate from your competitors, but more importantly tell your customers and staff who you are and what you do well.

Don't waste it.

Basics vs Differentiators

Its POLL time, on the left hand side you can see the current question:

Do you want your bank to get the basics right or be different and innovative?

Whilst of course you'd prob end up saying both, which one of those 2 is more important to you? It'd be interesting to compare the results against other industries like automotive, computers, sports, mobile, etc.

Please vote - let me know! Add any comments to this post if you can.

CBA makes another big move, in IB

CBA yesterday launched an impressive ugrade to their Netbank platform with the following features, from ITNews:

Personalisation / Customisation

The Commonwealth Bank has launched a new feature on its NetBank online banking site that allows users to choose how their financial data is presented to them.

As of tomorrow, the free "My Home" feature will allow CBA's 2.6 million NetBank customers to choose what information and functions they wish to appear upon first logging in.

"More and more, customers want to personalise according to what transactions or information they access regularly," said Commonwealth Bank CIO Michael Harte.

The feature has already been trialled with 10,000 customers, with positive results. Less than one per cent of customers made complaints about the new option being available.

Security

The CBA offers a "100 per cent security guarantee" on their transactions. Some 1.8 million NetBank customers have taken to two-factor authentication since the CBA introduced the technology earlier this year, he said.

But Harte said the bank has seen a "drop-off" in the use of physical hardware tokens since the CBA launched SMS codes as an alternative to the second factor to authenticate with. "The mobile phone is preferred," he said.

The bank also offers discounts for PC security products to its users. Further, the CBA subscribes to the Hawk-i monitoring service.

Single Sign On

The CBA also offers single sign-on access to its internet banking site (NetBank), its financial management site (CommBiz), its share and securities trading site (CommSec), its insurance product site (CommInsure) and the sites of the recently acquired Colonial First State Bank.

Harte said that the single sign-on has boosted sales of simple non-banking products, as it allows "users to easily see what is available in other parts of the bank, and instantly apply for new products and services."

"It otherwise would have taken hours of effort and research," he said. "You can top up your home loan today in a matter of minutes. One year ago, that would have taken 22 days."

Other - Product Configuration, Channel Consent, Widgets

Next on the list for CBA's customer experience team is to develop a self-service application that allows users to switch between various fixed and variable home loan options online, and further self-service functionality allowing users to choose how often and by what channels users wish to be notified by the bank (via email, SMS or phone).

CBA staff are also currently trialling NetBank widgets on Windows Vista machines, which allows key financial data such as bank balance and incoming transactions to expose themselves on a user's desktop. No details were available as to whether and when this service might be made available to customers.

Stats

• The CBA boasts 2.6 million active online banking users, out of 4 million registered users and between 9 to10 million total CBA customers. McEwan said this is a good figure considering the number of elderly, school-age and low income earner customers.


• The CBA is getting 60,000 new applicants for online banking every month.
  Some 70 per cent of NetBank's 60,000 mobile banking users access services on an Apple iPhone device, despite 14 handheld devices being supported.


• Close to 80 per cent of Australian internet users do some of their banking online.


• NetBank handles $20 billion of transactions per month and is the seventh most popular web site in Australia in terms of daily visitors, ahead of Westpac and ANZ.


• NetBank's front-end is an integrated mix of .Net, Java and Ajax. At the back-end is an Oracle 10G 8-node RAC cluster supporting 1800 transactions per second.

Article continues ...

Three key trends that define the future evolution of the banking industry

From Jeff Carter via Amplify 09:

"Consumers expect to use new channels and have access to new solutions that leverage these powerful technologies

This consumer-led transformation joins three key trends that define the future evolution of the banking industry:

• Demographic: Increasing US diversity, aging baby boomers, rise of “digital natives”
• Technology evolution: Multi-channel integration, emerging digital distribution/mobile, non-traditional banking competitors, cloud computing evolution
• Macro-economic changes: Increased wealth concentration, regulatory pressure, economic uncertainty, the rise of the rest (previously economically disadvantaged), globalization

These trends bring challenges and significant opportunities. The companies that harness these shifts will capture portions of the two largest profit pools in the world: Banking, with its financial services; and Payments of all forms. "

Article continues ...

Customer Experience in Financial Services Conference

Get along to the Banking Review Media 'Customer Experience in Financial Services' conference in Sydney, on June 25, where you can hear innovative leaders of our industry (and me) speak on issues on customer experience, voice of the customer, innovation, social networking and other hot topics.

Have a look at the agenda, and see you there.

Work on the stuff that matters

From the sage, Tim O'Reilly:

"I spent a lot of last year urging people to work on stuff that matters. This led to many questions about what that "stuff" might be. I've been a bit reluctant to answer those questions, because the list is different for everyone. I thought I'd do better to start the new year with some ideas about how to think about this for yourself.

First off, though, I want to make clear that "work on stuff that matters" does not mean focusing on non-profit work, "causes, or any other form of "do-goodism." Non-profit projects often do matter a great deal, and people with tech skills can make important contributions, but it's essential to get beyond that narrow box. I'm a strong believer in the social value of business done right. We need to build an economy in which the important things are paid for in self-sustaining ways rather than as charities to be funded out of the goodness of our hearts. "

His three key points:

• Work on something that matters to you more than money.
• Create more value than you capture
• Take the long view

Have a read here.

Whilt these are more individual objectives or goals, they can of course be applied to your organisation.

• Are you doing something that matters to your customers or people, or that you believe is right?
• Are you creating more value than you capure? Not just about revenue generation at the expense of customer experience?
• Are you creating long term value, not just a series of quick wins and bandaids?