Video makes the naked bank

Last night, I was part of a panel debate on whether "video will be the next channel revolution in banks", at the Financial Services Club. As usual, it was conducted under Chatham House Rules, so I'm not going to name names here.

I think it was probably amusing to everyone to have the innovation guy take the negative view. I actually don't think video will be that much of a big deal.

But there were a couple of very good point from those who think it is a big deal.

The one that caught my attention was "video makes the naked bank".

The basic premise is this. If you can see into a call centre, getting a view of what goes on behind the scenes, might it make banks more responsive to customers? Might it encourage a level of transparency that presently doesn't exist? Ultimately, wouldn't video make the customer experience better because of the increased fidelity of the communication?

There were plenty of video and network vendors there who thought these were killer arguments.

But I have a different view. Firstly, I don't think the largest part of our new customer demographic - the ones who do Internet as main channel, for example - are all that fussed about having a two way visual communication. Their channel choice is as self service as it comes. They go out of their way to avoid any face to face contact with their branch.

What about the people who presently do go to the branch? These, presumably, are the ones who would benefit from greater access to expertise that comes from the "on demand" features of video: the idea that you can call in an expert over the video link from anywhere if no one local is available. Now, if a customer makes a channel choice to have personal contact, what are the chances there will be delight when we put him or her in front of a video screen? I think not much.

Anyway, just what is the business case for video? Does it result in new product sales? Does all this on-demand expertise reduce customer churn? Who can know, because there just aren't all that many banks doing it at the moment. There is all this anecdotal evidence, apparently, that customer satisfaction is up, that product sales are up, that every metric of interest to a banker is up. But no-one has shown me any evidence that really stands up.

Here's my thinking on this. If the business case for remote video advice stood up, a similar case for remote voice advice would also have stood up. Yet, so many banks, who are fully equipped with telephones, don't do remote voice advice. Why?

And here is my last point. It would hardly be all that simple to make the bank end of the video link represent a bank's brand values perfectly all the time. Consider this: it is a call centre, and it is two AM. The staff have worked maybe six hours of an 8 hour shift. They are tired, and they probably don't look perfect. They most certainly aren't all starch, shine and makeup.

Do I think customers would care? Of course they would. They are the same people who changed banks because they didn't like accents on telephones.

Comments

[Neil Robinson]

The end of your post summed this up perfectly, James!

Both you and I know what call centres are like - how they're designed, what they look like and how they are to work in.

The job is sh*t. Absolutely. The people are rarely there by choice. They work there because they need the money, the flexibility of hours (usually shifts) or as a stop gap before their real career or future kicks in.

I know that a bad call is dealt with by face pulling, naughty hand signals and things you really, really wouldn't want customers to see. It's usually casual dress, jokey, flirty, too and an opportunity for staff whose appearance may not be the most attractive to customers - yes, I'm sorry to say - that does make a difference!

With a video link, you'd add far to much extra pressure to a steam-cooker environment. It would be no good at all!

Imagine this scene. "all our customer advisers are busy at the moment. Your call is important to us, please hold... please hold..., please hold"

Video shows an empty office, or a guy picking his nose while he's on a break. A guy scoots across the office on a mini-scooter. All real stuff, I assure you!

However, when a call goes wrong and you ask to talk to a supervisor, then maybe a video link would be good. So maybe in that situation, yes.

[Chris Skinner]

Yes, but on the other hand ... face-to-face is what banks want to use to sell products. The loss of face-to-face means that high-margin products such as mortgages, insurances, investments, savings, pensions and more are lost to advisors who are available in the home (IFAs and other brokers).

The idea of making a human connection in branch with an advisor who is in the flesh (I also think remote advisor in branches is a challenging concept, as I want real advisors in branches) and then being able to maintain that connections remotely is a killer for me.

One thing that didn't come up yesterday for example, is that 80% of calls will be handled by video avatars in the future. Like IVR, you'll now have Integrated Video Response Centres.

Then the question is whether there's a place for mass consumer video call centres?

I do agree with your points James about staff being tired, etc, and so I don't think today - until video comms as a technology becomes ubiquitous and natural (if it ever does) that this will happen.

Far more likely, in the near term, is for banks to use video as a high margin advisory channel into the home to sell.

[Rob]

I'm split on this one.

I'm against it - Retail call centre folk prob dont want to have to REALLY think about what they're going to wear to work where customers can see them - they'd work in a branch if they wanted that. And customers dont want that eye to eye contact because the conversation becomes more personal than it already is. However as Chris says, if I'm buying a mortgage, I'll always want to speak to someone, even see their face directly, but if I'm fishing for a new credit card, I want in and out and no obligation.

I'm for it - Imagine you live in remote Australia, you run a large, profitable and wealthy business growing grain across thousands of hectares. And you need advice on a $1m line of credit to buy water, grain, equipment, services, etc. Speaking to either your business banker, or an expert in grain crops and agribusiness would be useful, and at that amount of $, seeing the whites in their eyes would also create comfort.

Human (more specifically customer) behaviour will dictate this new medium, and it will be hard to business case it.

[sonny]

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[sonny]

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