The relationship model for individual customers needs to be renewed, as the customer-advisor bond that underpins it is weakening. Customers are visiting branches less often, and bypassing them via digital channels. There are fewer advisors for the mass market, and their high staff turnover is preventing the formation of the bond desired by the customer.
For Professionals and smaller businesses, the close relationship with Pro advisors remains strong, but the new Pros are less dependent on cash and cheques, and therefore on branches, and are more comfortable with the remote relationship with their bank. The relationship model will therefore have to evolve to meet these needs, and to cope with the arrival of online banks among Pros.
For individual customers, there are a number of possible relationship models, depending on whether, from the customer's point of view, the emphasis is on human contact, expertise or immediacy. These models must be consistent with the bank's raison d'être and culture. They also need to be tested.
A cultural diagnosis to show which relationship model is best suited to the bank concerned (giving priority to people or expertise, for example), experimentation with models in the field involving staff and customers (beta testers), the use of data (voice and verbatim analysis) to detect irritants or customer satisfaction, are all hybrid levers for inventing a winning relationship model.
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