Don’t automate the relationship…automate the process.
In a recent article by the St Louis Magazine, they highlight community bank president Buzz Eckelkamp and his take on tech in community banking.
One of his key points was: “We didn’t automate the relationship away; we used technology to make more room for it.”
This is what many community banks find themselves doing in reverse or in excess. The two camps are: We don’t need tech, that is never how we have done business and that is never how we will do business. The second camp is, let’s grab up every possible third party and become the tech gurus of community banking.
In reality, all your customers want are the basics. They want to have the flexibility of managing their money on their phone at any time, while at the same time, being able to reach out to their friend at the bank who knows them well.
Don’t Automate The Relationship… Automate The Process
They want the freedom of having a real person that knows them they can talk to when the going gets tough, or when the cash is flowing and they want to make some moves. But they also want the flexibility and transparency to see their money and use it at any time.
To Eckelkamp’s point: “A business owner’s time is their scarcest resource,” he says. “So we use technology to give it back to them: handle the day-to-day banking digitally, automate the cash-flow tools, and then have a real person ready the moment something needs a conversation.” So, when it comes to tech, your job is to determine how we can use it to free us up to work with customers – commercial and personal. How can we use it to cut out all the extra fluff to get to the important relationship building conversations.
Your business is people and their money – make it simple, make it grow, make it work.
Banker Report 
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