Why Online Sales Are Not Meeting Expectations
In 2007, The Council surveyed members on “what channels will best serve customers for purchasing products end-to-end?” for both 2007 (“today”, then) and in 5 years time (2012). Responses were unambiguous: a sharp decline in branch sales – from well over 80%, to just over 40% – and a sharp incline in on-line sales, from […]
Using Social Media to Know Your Customers Better
Our data shows that customers that prefer to use technology for banking purposes are more likely to be younger and active on social media. They are less likely to visit a bank branch on a regular basis. One challenge many banks are facing is how to connect with these tech users and engage them outside […]
What Does the Branch Do in a Multichannel World?
Traditional transactions are on the decline for banks around the world–even though for most, the overall volume of transactions is increasing. As the role of the branch changes from the centerpiece of distribution strategies to a component part, what can banks predict about its future form and purpose? For the customer: Customer relationships are moving from […]
A Return of Revenue Growth in the Next 12 Months?
Our quarterly report on business conditions and expectations in Financial Services provides a network-enabled, 12-month outlook on key drivers of economic performance in financial services. Most in the industry expect continued mixed trends, as modest revenue growth returns but cost pressures increase and capital expenditures decline. Financial service (FS) executives’ sentiment: Executive sentiment regarding revenues in the […]
How Quickly Will Branch Traffic Decline?
The branch has begun its predicted slide from prominence as the center of the bank/customer relationship. The number of branches, the number of tellers, and the number of teller transactions will continue to decrease through 2015. This is not necessarily bad news as banks have attempted to migrate simple transactions to alternate channels for decades, beginning […]
Projecting Rapid Growth for Online and Mobile
While its growth has slowed as it has reached maturity, the functions available through online banking continue to increase, thus driving volumes upward. Although online sales remain at only 1% of total volume, they account for the biggest change; new accounts opened are expected to double between 2010 and 2015. Service and payments volumes through the […]
4 Principles for Successfully Selling Insurance in the Branch
Will new regulation lead to the demise of “totally free checking?” Most executives think so. As banks focus on re-pricing their portfolio of checking products, many will miss the opportunity to generate non-traditional fee income. In particular, bancassurance provides a unique opportunity to capitalize on customer risk adversity while increasing fee-based product sales in the […]
5 Key Takeaways from Retail Bankers
Across the first half of 2010, retail bankers in North America made the following five observations regarding trends in the industry: Observation #1: Customers significantly undervalue the transactional services that banks provide. A decade of “totally free checking” has taught customers that transactional services are worth $0. As free checking disappears, executives must train customers to […]
Embedding Advice into Sales
The Council recently surveyed over 20,000 frontline bankers from across 7,000 branches. Initial analysis shows that banks that have a sales process that is easy to remember and follow best equip staff to sell and are therefore have the most productive bankers (measured by deposit and loan balance growth and “widgets” sold). As executives seek […]
How to Teach Customers A Better Way to Bank
For years, banks have tried to migrate customers to low cost, electronic channels to reduce costs. Strategies range from “save the environment, go electronic” to cash incentives for paying bills online. Because most banks focus on migrating entire customer relationships online, they miss the opportunity to increase the profitability of specific transactional behaviors. For example, […]