We caught up with Greg Gopal, Regional Manager over at Wings Financial to talk about his experience with branch transformation, elephants and what has his attention these days over at Wings.
"The elephant in the room is sitting in the middle of hi-tech with hi-touch!" - Greg Gopal, Wings Financial.
15 years ago, the ATM Machine showed up to provide a convenience and the landscape as we knew it, morphed 100 fold.
15 years later, we're keen to add further convenience while taking [perceived convenience] away.
There's your elephant.... how do I add convenience when I am taking away [perceived] convenience?
And the answer to that question will be different pending the member segments being considered. We can all appreciate that members aged 55+ have a different value system than members under 55 more often than not.
Innovation with Acceptance is a process that requires a plan for; back lash, closed accounts and grumpy members during the soft launch, with an expectation for things to stabilise in month 3-ish.
So we did! That plan also included:
1. Education: "We're not taking your teller away. We're relocating them. You can still see them at the teller machines." And this wasn't an iPad on steroids... this is a Video Teller - Dianne, in fact.
2. Trained Member Service Reps: A sea of them that our members would need to pass through in order to reach the Assisted Self Serve Kiosks.
3. Expectation: that the transition phase would need 60-days post noise.
What we discovered?
1. Not one account was closed.
2. Branch transaction levels increased.
3. Number of people we are serving on a daily basis has increased.
4. Productivity has increased across all 5 of our KPIS in the second half of the year.
5. Profitability without affecting the profitability of the branch went up 60-days post installation.
6. Privacy was the biggest concern. "Everybody can see what I'm doing."
7. Machine was considered to be too loud. We have headsets and the ability to reduce the volume... we're taking steps to remedy this now.
Our goal going in?
That the teller interaction is no longer the primary interaction. We wanted the primary interaction to be with the platform and sales team.
We specifically targeted two types of branches to receive the technology to get two sets of analytics to monitor in order to assess the success of achieving our goal. We chose a smaller branch performing under par and a Medium sized branch also performing under par.
Early days yet, but I'll leave you with this...
When it comes to making change... you gotta be able to take a beating...
Innovation will work.... but not before you pay the piper.
ELEPHANT IN BRANCH! A SPECIAL REPORT. COMING SOON!
Click the picture below to get your copy, coming soon.
