Chris Skinner of TowerGroup, and Balatro introduces a concept here, straight out of the Jetsons.  Video calls with your friendly banker – in fact he goes further suggesting the demise of the keyboard.

Finextra: comment – video-servicing

Why is this critical to banks? Because it brings back face-to-face communications. It finally gives bankers what they lost when the technology revolution moved us all out of branch and onto ATMs, phones and keyboards.

Add onto this the fact that you can talk with someone, see them, touch the screen and be animated, and you might get the idea that this is not just cool, but it gets us back to what ‘services’ is all about, as in human contact.

Services are not about products, things you can manufacture or kick.  Services are about ephemeral promises, dialogues, relationships and human interaction. That is why ‘Financial Services’ cannot be marketed like a box of cookies or a car. You have to focus upon the human elements to differentiate and win.

As far out as this sounds, here are some facts:

• blogging is old news;  vlogging is the new cool  (video blogging) – witness one of the top A’list bloggers Robert Scoble leaving Microsoft for a video outfit
• the rise of youtube.com replacing MySpace as the top internet site
• podcasting is everywhere

All this is encouraging the use of video as a medium.  Layer in the prevalence of broadband, and you have a recipe for growth in video expertise, and consumer acceptance.  Then you factor in the natural need to see who you are talking to, and you have a recipe for video becoming prevalent. 

This goes to the core of the original argument for email, as an asyncronous communication medium (“The Road Ahead“, Bill Gates,1995).  I can write to you, and you can respond on your schedule.  That argument may be an old one now.  One thing internet also introduced, is incredibly high expectations.  What is your reaction, when you see an automated response to email, saying the firm will answer in 24 or 48 hours?  Maybe, that I will try someone else who gets it!

Chris talks about the implications for call centres.

This then leads to the seminal moment when you accept that video bank servicing is here and now. What does that mean?

The call centre – whether on or offshore – will be your key alternative virtual channel to your physical branch. The imperative will be to have culturally and visually acceptable staff on those centres, which already leads into arguments over diversity and globalisation.

Here is where I think the logic may go astray.  I think we have to re-think call centres, but for different reasons, then I will come back to video.

Reasons to rethink (Bank) call centres:

• calls are dropping now
• emails are increasing
• new requirements for call centres are coming:

• blog commenting on behalf of the bank
• push to talk / calls emanating from web sites (eg eStara, LivePerson)
• internet chat (same vendors)

The result will be that in 5 years, bank call centre skill sets will be very different.  Walk into a call centre operation where they are doing chat, and its noisy and a totally different atmosphere than a telephone group.  They are interacting, and talking to each other which a normal telephone call centre group cannot do.  So the chat people have to be separate from the telephone people.

Customers will be talking in blogs, and social sites about their bank, giving opinions, and validating/ criticisng banks’ choices.  So banks must participate in the blogoshpere (I hate that word) and the best way to co-ordinate that response is in the call centre.

Teens prefer chat over email. They regard email as being for old people.  So its a natural that chat will be prevalent  in the near future as they mature.

But chat, push to talk, and video won’t just be in the call centre, although it will be there.  Call centre’s exist because of economies of scale, managing calls, and staff in a centralised location.  But relationship management requires the personal touch, and that (today) exists in the branch. 

So I think we have to start thinking about the entire bank as a call centre.  Some are located widely in branches, and some centrally in call centres. The common element is the technology support for all the above.  The differentiator is the need to centrally manage for efficiency, or locally maange for the personal touch.  That comes from your business strategy.

Technorati Tags: banking+strategy, vlogging, video+calling