Technology Innovation in the Branch—Pain or Gain?
BY DREW LAMPARELLO
While researching our special report on innovation in banking (see page 13), Banking Strategies spoke with Bart Narter, senior analyst in Celent LLC’s banking group. Narter cited S1’s new branch automation system for its innovative features, such as automatic credit checks on customers and the ability to integrate with other systems. But delivering technology with new capabilities is just one part of the innovator’s challenge as S1 comments on below.
Flexibility and efficiencies can help overcome initial employee resistance.
Technology implementation begins with preparing employees for change in order to minimize disruption and costs. Employees must also understand what the new system does for them.
One of the hottest issues facing banks today is how to improve their customer service across all channels, with particular attention being paid to the branch. As banks turn to technology innovations to help solve their branch challenges, they must pay close attention to the broader implications associated with effectively managing that change to minimize employee disruption and costs.
Most people are creatures of habit. They get up, go to work and expect things to be about the same as they were the day before at their offices and workstations. Bank tellers are no exception. They are not likely to welcome new technology at the teller station because it typically involves a new way of doing things.
To minimize resistance and help your staff understand and embrace the change, banks should:
• Evaluate and re-engineer their current processes to identify key points of inefficiencies and pain, which often include customer data entry, cumbersome teller transactions and limited views of customer relationships that impede cross-sell capabilities.
• Select a flexible, intuitive system that can actually help improve the way institutions operate their business and service their custom mple technology refresh.
• Communicate the business reasons and benefits for the change effectively and often throughout the rollout and training process.
Banks must first document, test and model business processes to ensure the new technology will support their desired state of an efficient and productive customer interaction environment. For example, the business goal of improving the life-time value of target customers may result in the assignment of customer portfolios to specific bankers who have the necessary skills.
The system can then be designed to help facilitate data capture and client activity management across the bank. It can also measure and monitor the desired employee behaviors. With this in place, managers and bankers can measure their progress against the goal of improving lifetime value, with the manager functioning as coach. By identifying the inefficiencies and desired processes first, banks get key stakeholders or “project champions” involved in the project. They also receive feedback that is critical in the technology implementation cycle.
The selection of a new teller system must support the desired state of the business by helping the bank carry out its defined processes in the most efficient manner, giving those who touch the system daily a user-friendly interface and an intuitive platform on which to operate.
For managers, poor cross-selling ratios, increasing customer churn rates or skyrocketing teller training costs can drive adoption of new technology. Mapping how the new solution can help minimize and in many cases eliminate the pain points will help ensure that staff embraces the new system and processes.
In S1’s more than 20 years of experience in implementing branch automation solutions, the most successful institutions have methodically followed the simple process discussed above. Banks that recognize that technology innovation alone cannot improve efficiencies and productivity are sure to be on the right path to success.
Mr. Lamparello is vice president, product management, full-service banking solutions at Atlanta-based S1 Corporation.