“One Bank” Is So 2010, Customers Want The “My Bank” Experience – Ten Key “My Bank” Requirements

For the past ten years banks and financial services have been working to provide a one bankexperience. At its basic level this means providing all the offered products and services in one place. That could be a “portal”, or a single 1-800 number or a branch representative who is trained to and permitted to discuss basic banking, credit card, auto, student, mortgage, business, wealth and investment and other products. The best providers offer a portal where all of an individual consumers products are displayed in one place.

However banks and financial services companies exist in a world of customer experience expectations driven by a technology revolution (mobile devices, social media, wearables, touch, interactive voice etc), new market players (Square, Kickstarter etc), decreasing consumer time and capacity to research and develop understanding and, as importantly multiple influencing experiences provided by others outside the industry (Amazon, Expedia, Facebook etc).

Looked at from the bank perspective with all the infrastructure and line of business challenges “One Bank” is a massive achievement. Looked at from the consumers perspective, however, it is “table stakes” today. What today’s consumer wants is “My Bank”. A bank we can love.

15 years To Build Our “One Bank” Customer Experience

I have over 40 active “financial relationships” covering small business and personal, credit cards, checking and savings accounts, store cards, auto loans, home loans, working capital loans, investment accounts and insurance relationships  on and on. And these cover 11 different financial institutions.

I pay a nice healthy amount of service fees and interest across all these accounts. I may say so myself but I am a pretty good catch for a bank. You would think each of my providers would want to maximize their income from me while minimizing their expense by having fewer but more valuable customer relationships.

My “big four” relationships are with JP Morgan Chase, Bank Of America, Wells Fargo and Fidelity Investments. They have all done a great job of building “One Bank” or “One Broker” online access (and mobile apps) to provide most of what I need in one place. It gets better every day as they all add more products, more visibility, better mobile features, investment advisors to branches, preferred contact numbers and even waive a fee or two when I make a mistake and get myself into trouble.

Industry leaders like Bruce Temkin (http://www.temkingroup.com) and Forrester Research’s Megan Burns (Twitter @mbcxp) tell us that the experience that banks and financial services firms deliver have been improving over the past few years and I agree with that

The next 5 Years Will Be About The “My Bank” Experience

However I want more. My expectations are, like so many people, evolving faster than the banks execution. What I want is not One Bank (although that is better than the bunch of separate product centric relationships that I have now). What I want is “My Bank”.

For those looking to capture the opportunity this presents here are a few helpful hints about what My Bank might mean from various client discussions this year.

1. Let me customize and personalize my interface to display all the things I am interested in but just the things I am interested in. This includes =my consumer, credit card, business, banking, investment and other relationship, “My Bank” portal.
2. Let me add products from other financial institutions into my interface. That’s right, your competitors products right there, like Amazon does or Progressive insurance quotes.
3. Use the data you have about me to make be trust you and depend on you. Provide me analytics that show how I am doing and compare and offer me products or services that could help me do better. Tell me when you predict I should be doing something differently, ahead of time.
4. Make it worthwhile for me to stay with you for a long time so you can learn a lot about me. I don’t like using different financial providers but you force me to by not competing aggressively. Tell me what the benefits are of longevity and what I need to do to move up the loyalty levels to get more benefits. It may annoy me at first and you will lose some customers but we will appreciate you more in the long term.
5. Make it worthwhile for me to get more and more products from you to simplify and help my life, raise your income and reward me for being loyal. Make it really worthwhile.  I want simplicity. If I have 5 credit cards, 2 mortgage loans, 7 personal and small business accounts, a merchant payment account, two retirement investment accounts, a general investment account and have been with you for 20 years you why can’t I
   1. Get a reduced interest rate on my mortgage.
   2. Fast-track a working capital line of credit faster from you than from a random internet banker.
   3. Get a higher savings rate than a “regular customer off the street
   4. Enroll in a loyalty points program (like the one that American Express offers) so I can get rewarded for concentrating more and more business with you.
6. Act in my best interests. Make it clear that it is in my best interests. For example if you can notify me that I am about to incur a service charge and can avoid it then let me know. And maybe only if I have a certain level of relationship with you. Tell me what that level is and let me choose to get there.
7. Make recommendations that make sense for me. Finances are complex. I have other things to focus on.  You have lots of data about me including what I spend my money with my debit and credit cards, my cashflow and my business finances. Data driven analytics do a better job of driving recommendations than people do.
8. Offer me communities of interest I can trust. I remember this from my childhood. The local banker or insurance agent was always a good source of referrals and advice. You can be that again with social media. I am busy, busy, busy so help me.
9. Partnerships that benefit consumers – There are many alliances out there that you can use to deliver value for me as a customer, that’s as a regular customer. From increased data about me to complementary offers. Of course you have to be careful about how you handle to minimize conflicts it but Delta is with Amex, MSG is with Chase. How about a monthly drawing for two tickets to the Red Sox in the HSBC box. And more, maybe more local relationships.
10. Surprise me. Do something wild and innovative. OK you are  a bank so I don’t expect that wild and innovative BUT you have lots of information about me so why not, what do you have to lose.