Media: Cooper critiques Online Bank Policy and Design

"Learning from the mistakes of Internet banks" by Chris Weeldreyer of Cooper reveals the problems that are now assailing banks in converting customers to online banking: lack of understanding of their perspective and goals.

Adoption rates are low, and customer interest is flagging says this article. 'Online banking is a good example of how bricks-and-mortar institutions can stumble when they try to solve new economy problems with old world approaches.'

Weeldreyer argues that traditionally banks have defined themselves in terms of assets and the products they provide. 'Taking this thinking to the Internet, the strategy has been to deploy new technologies in order to present and sell financial products online. At first, the focus was on providing account information. The latest trends include account aggregation, wireless access, and electronic bill presentment and payment.'

The piece goes on to look at what customers are actually interested in doing with online accounts and concludes that banks would serve them better if they paid more attention to goals than technologies. 'Among many other customer service gaffes, many of these banks have failed largely because they didn't provide a good way to accept deposits or dispense cash.'

He suggests:
* To design successful customer experiences, you must start by understanding the people you are trying to serve.
* Use ethnographic research methods to uncover key motivations and needs. By doing this, you will begin to decipher your customers' goals, like "not worry about the future," "educate my children," or "understand what is happening with my money."
* Once you have this data, you need to collect it into actionable information. Creating personas is a good way to do this. This approach can reveal other unserved customer goals as well.

Associated Link: Cooper: Learning from the mistakes of Internet banks

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