Omni-Channel Customer Engagement Article

Face time. There’s a good chance that when you first see the word, you now think about Apple’s (News - Alert) video chat service instead of the human-to-human contact on which the name of the service is based.

Increasingly, we’re moving toward impersonal interactions, or at minimum interactions that have digital intermediaries. This is not good for banks.

While banking is increasingly moving toward web and mobile interactions with customers, and these are far more cost-effective than brick-and-mortar bank branches, something very important is lost: the ability to connect and cross-sell.

Bank branches are not sexy. Nor are they as efficient as online operations. That could be why roughly 1,500 bank branches were closed in 2014, the highest decline ever recorded according to Deloitte (News - Alert) Consulting. But when it comes to face time, bank branches still are important; they play an important role in omni-channel customer engagement, because bank branches complement the digital ways that consumers interact with their banks.

Here’s an example. A customer, we’ll call her Martha, sees a Facebook (News - Alert) ad for the bank and visits the company’s web site. She starts an application, then is called by an agent at her nearest bank branch. The agent has Martha come in to complete her application at the branch, where she puts a human face to the company. While there to complete the application, Martha also is cross-sold by this branch banker. Whereas Martha may not have looked around the bank’s web site to discover this other opportunity, the agent in front of her was able both to uncover another appropriate service and also persuade her to try it.

Bank branches certainly are not the best method for some types of information, such as looking at a bank balance. The web and other communication channels are still important. But the branch also plays its role as part of a larger omni-channel customer experience.

So the slow demise of the bank branch is short-sighted. While Apple’s FaceTime (News - Alert) has its place, it doesn’t entirely replace face time. Omni-channel customer service requires the integration and use of all channels, not just the digital ones.