The Associate

When you ask a room full of bankers at a breakfast session what keeps them up at night you better order in lunch.

At a recent symposium I attended, the usual stresses reared their ugly heads; cost of compliance, loan growth, technology and the unknown of the political environment.

The elephant in the room though was the issue of relevancy. “How do I reach out to customers when they don’t come into the bank?”

In last week’s blog, I discussed that we may be focusing on the wrong things when it comes to reaching this new genre of customers; the heard but not seen. I believe that to truly see your customers, whether in the branch or remotely, we need to not just listen for what they want but hear why they want it. To pinpoint why they want the products they do and why they make the decisions they make is the key to how to reach them. And reaching them is the key to relevancy.

 Connecting One on One

As community bankers, we have always had the advantage of being able to connect with customers on a one-on-one basis. Yet, when it comes to operating in a virtual banking space we tend to think we have to give up those connections and deal strictly from a product perspective. No matter what space we operate in, relevancy is about making connections with the reasons behind the desire for those products.

But how do we take our one-on-one customer relationships and translate them into relationships with customers we can’t see? First, we must stop thinking of this group as homogenous. We see within our very branches how different our customer base is. It is no different for the customers we don’t see. They all want checking accounts, debit cards, loans and savings vehicles. The difference is why some want physical in-branch contact while others prefer remote relationships. This is not solely a generational gap.

Second, we must stop assuming we want all of these customers. When we uncover who makes up this group, we can determine which ones we really want. As with any good marketing or advertising campaign, you reach out to specific segments of the customer base – you do not go after the segments that don’t match your core competencies. This group should be no different. Just because they are out there doesn’t mean they are meant to be our customers.

Go Get Them

Third, you must physically go get them. If you want to connect with these identified customers who don’t come into the branch, why are you still selling from within your branches? Just as you send loan officers out on sales calls, you must also send people out to get in front of this group. Where you go will be uncovered when you segment your current and desired customer base.

This segmentation is critical. Even with online banking and debit cards, you still have people who will always write checks. Even with free checking and direct deposit, you still see people who cash their checks each week. Even with mobile banking and apps, you will still have people who will never use their phone for banking. There will always be something else coming down the pike that challenges how we find and serve our customers.

This is not meant to suggest that there couldn’t be a time where bricks and mortar are a thing of the past. What I am suggesting is that with anything you have to offer, that there will be people who will never use it, people who can’t live without it and those who are already on the next big thing.

 Relevancy is an Adaptation

One of my first presentations was to a group in Pittsburgh. I was 24. The premise was that I at that time was the customer they needed to get in front of. I represented a group of people who may never come into a bank; “The customer of the future.” The question of relevancy was just as critical back then as now.

Since then you adapted to a customer segment such as me. The web sites were built, e-statements were created and online banking was conceived. I use all of these. But something did fundamentally change in my banking behavior. I went from remote transactions only to a solid mix of both. The difference was money. The more money you make, the more financial commitments you have. This in turn involves a young person more in their banking choices. Being relevant to me throughout this 15-year period meant having both physical and remote offerings as I aged.

I believe that will remain true as we battle through changing technology. But I do not represent the whole of your customer base. Everyone has a trigger to making their banking choices. All the information we need can be found right in front of us if we take the time to approach the remote customer base individually under our core competency – one-on-one relationships. Customers are gained one at a time in our industry and this time period is no different.

At its core it is not your products that will lead how relevant you remain…it is you. Uncover your relevancy.

-Michelle Rae

m.rae associates provides one-on-one relationship building programs from the board room to the front line in addition to strategic planning facilitation and succession planning. 

We know that a new generation of bankers is upon us. We have research that clearly points to the fact of what they want; fast transactions, flashy apps and mobile banking.  In my experience, a lot of time and effort is exhausted trying to answer “what” when it should instead be focused on “why.”

What Drives Their Decisions?

Chances are that they want the same products their parents have, but do they want the same exact relationship? Probably not. Do they want mobile banking? Yes, probably. But does that represent the full body of their desired banking relationship? Again, probably not. Mobile banking is an add on; it is part and parcel. It alone cannot be extrapolated to the point of being a relationship; it does not embody any one individual’s full mentality. Nor is it a singular approach to grabbing an entire generation’s worth of deposits.

What drives their decisions? It could be the bank that their parents go to, it could be the bank closest to work. If they’re in that not-yet-thirtysomething-bracket, it could be the bank that their spouse uses, it could be where their mortgage is, a credit union attached to their field or where they had their first account in college.

These are the answers that will reveal how to reach them beyond fulfilling their tech needs.  And now all you have to do is ask.

We’re Good. We’re on Facebook.

For example, a bank may have a Facebook page. This is one giant leap in the direction of locking step with that future audience, right? Facebook is what teenagers want, right? Perhaps, but why do they want it? They do not use it the same way their parents do. Adults use Facebook to make connections with those that have strayed out of their lives. For them, it is a means of sharing updates and pictures. Teenagers, alternatively, say they use it to talk about themselves – not to glean information from or about others.

The same line of questioning must apply to mobile banking. Yes, it may be what they want, but why? The best questions aim to arrive at why they choose one phone over another, certain apps versus others, and most importantly, whey they choose to bank where they do.

Why is What Shapes Your Marketing

They, not their parents, are the only individuals with these answers. In a series of focus groups I performed for a bank it was uncovered that, yes, mobile banking is important to them along with social media and quick access to their money. But this was not news; that bank knew that. The most useful part of the conversation was a discussion on how they can be reached to become customers. The answers they gleaned are not industry-wide representations. They are the “whys” of their specific customer base within their specific communities in regards to their specific offerings. This, ultimately, is what determined the bank’s marketing plan and delivery choices.

Front Line Communication

More often than not, banks tap the front line for their thoughts on the younger audience.  This is good in concept, but if they themselves are not under 30, your institution may be at a disadvantage from the get go when it comes to securing this much needed intelligence. Now don’t get me wrong; I think the front line is one of the most pivotal positions in your sales process. It is a group that gets ignored too often is underappreciated and underpaid. But just as your tenured employees bring strength to the front line that cannot be found in the “newbies” – the newbies bring strengths that can often not be found in the tenured.

However, no matter what age or position, a misstep I stumble across all too often is that the front line isn’t a user of the bank’s products. If that’s the case, why are they even client facing?

To open the door to how we reach them in the coming years, to close the all-too-wide industry gap between today and the customers community banks need to be courting now for tomorrow, the answers is “why” not “what.”

Michelle Rae