Ask me a question about being a Bank Manager

[hobo]

Chalk up another ex CBA employee here (1985-1990)

I have enjoyed reading through this thread The moment I read the title I thought this thread would have a fair bit of bank bashing and true to my expectations it does.......and not necessarily without justification. I believe we need our Australian owned banks and all top companies to be strong for the greater good however this should not come at the expense of social justice.

.......Question I hate being asked the most "Can you activate my card" "Can you print me a statement." We do both of these things for free and are able to do it quickly. However, both can be done from the comfort of your own home. Activating your card can be done with your smartphone.

Every time someone comes in to do these things, I feel like we've let them down explaining the features of Internet Banking.

This to me is an interesting line of thinking, the belief / hope from your head office is that this is a cross selling opportunity, not an inconvenience and a chance to convert the customer into a "Raving Fan".

Warning: Boring Retail Banking blurb to follow:

Retail Banking goes in cycles, pre my days the Banks invested heavily in bricks and mortar to reach their customers base. Early to mid 80's the Banks were pushing customers out the doors to ATMs and with the Keycard hoping for the death of the passbook as it is expensive to staff branches and the per transaction costs were so much cheap electronically. This push enabled them to reduce their retail footprint and rightfully so because as a public company they didn't need these massive assets stagnant on the P/L, for growth, liquidity was key. Through time the Banks did this so well it had a consequence in a serious decline in the average number of products held by each customer, without face to face contact upselling was limited. 2000 on there seems much debate on how best to balance the need between physical presence, customer experience, customer convenience, cost of delivery and profit but I'm sure whenever a customer speaks to an employee the first directive should be "smile and nod".

The current thinking with many in the industry is a "Hub and Spoke" model with a large central branch surrounded by touch points, via 24hr self service walls, staffed by 1 person during business hours................this will be followed by a need to expand branch presence, followed by a need to save costs via branch closures followed by a recognition they cut to close to the bone so a push to expand etc etc etc

Hey lunch time, there's a good mornings work (well I looked busy typing ayway )

Cheers
Ross

 

[package]

Brett that's a terrible thing to hear.

How long ago was this incident? Did you log a complaint? Someone says no to something I get my team to let it go. It sounds ruthless, but their are plenty of other people who would be interested.

Sounds like someone was trying to be a hero in their last week or something.

Chalk up another ex CBA employee here (1985-1990)

I have enjoyed reading through this thread The moment I read the title I thought this thread would have a fair bit of bank bashing and true to my expectations it does.......and not necessarily without justification. I believe we need our Australian owned banks and all top companies to be strong for the greater good however this should not come at the expense of social justice.



This to me is an interesting line of thinking, the belief / hope from your head office is that this is a cross selling opportunity, not an inconvenience and a chance to convert the customer into a "Raving Fan".

Warning: Boring Retail Banking blurb to follow:

Retail Banking goes in cycles, pre my days the Banks invested heavily in bricks and mortar to reach their customers base. Early to mid 80's the Banks were pushing customers out the doors to ATMs and with the Keycard hoping for the death of the passbook as it is expensive to staff branches and the per transaction costs were so much cheap electronically. This push enabled them to reduce their retail footprint and rightfully so because as a public company they didn't need these massive assets stagnant on the P/L, for growth, liquidity was key. Through time the Banks did this so well it had a consequence in a serious decline in the average number of products held by each customer, without face to face contact upselling was limited. 2000 on there seems much debate on how best to balance the need between physical presence, customer experience, customer convenience, cost of delivery and profit but I'm sure whenever a customer speaks to an employee the first directive should be "smile and nod".

The current thinking with many in the industry is a "Hub and Spoke" model with a large central branch surrounded by touch points, via 24hr self service walls, staffed by 1 person during business hours................this will be followed by a need to expand branch presence, followed by a need to save costs via branch closures followed by a recognition they cut to close to the bone so a push to expand etc etc etc

Hey lunch time, there's a good mornings work (well I looked busy typing ayway )

Cheers
Ross

Hi Ross. Well thought out and all valid points.

The word on high, is that clients should be doing their own basic maintenance through netbank/self service. Deposits/Withdrawals/Pins/Activation/Transfers self serve. Come into the branch when you actually need to talk to someone to get a result. Loans/CCs/Insurance/Superannuation. Technology has progressed fast enough and become so common place that plenty of (as I call them) "oldies" are more than comfortable doing all the basic stuff by themselves through the internet.

The future will have less cash based transactions. Holes in the wall can handle this. It is about service and making sure that clients get amazing service and everything they need to make banking simple and easy.