Well, it looks like the bankers in the WaMu commercials have prevailed. Chase is in the process of dismantling WaMu’s distinctive branches (including the groundbreaking Occasio branches) and converting them to standard Chase branches. There’s no word on the whereabouts of WaMu’s spokesman, Bill, but has anyone checked that unusual lump in the end zone at Giants Stadium?
You can get the full story at the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) or here. Also, Jeffry Pilcher has a thorough opinion piece at The Financial Brand.
One could take this story a number of ways, but it’s probably best to accept that for better or worse many financial institutions are in a period of retrenchment, where the appetite for experimentation is temporarily suppressed. However, as anyone who’s been in business for more than a decade will tell you, the pendulum eventually swings back. It may be a ways off, but we will eventually return to a period of unabashed innovation in retail banking.
Meanwhile, banks still need to retain customers and generate cross-sales. Our survey of European and South African banks we learned that cross-sales was the number-one concern of retail marketers. Anecdotal evidence tells us that North American bank marketers have the same sense of urgency about strengthening and deepening relationships with customers.
So, how can banks like Chase, who remain committed to traditional branches, innovate within their four walls? I expect that if we see any innovation, it will be in the areas of in-branch marketing and in the sales process itself. We’re already seeing an explosion of interest in digital signage, which has great potential for cross-sales and adds a dynamic element to otherwise staid branches. We’re also seeing renewed interest in sales training. And so-called “educational marketing” seems to be a growing trend.
What these methodologies all have in common is that they can be highly localized. Digital messaging, for instance, can be customized down to the branch and screen level. It can be designed to change according to local events, market conditions and sales data. So, until the pendulum swings back in the other direction and banks once again tinker with the fundamentals of retail delivery, localization may be the only way that bank marketers can work within the traditional branch and offer an antidote to large-scale one-branch-fits-all banking.
[...] Reading: John Ryan, one of the world’s leading financial architectural firms, published a blog post about Chase’s decision to kill WaMu’s branches just [...]
Just my two cents, but I find it hard to call WaMu’s Occasio concept “groundbreaking.” The reality is that it was a failed experiment. The innovation in queue management proved disasterous: if you’ve ever been in a WaMu at lunch hour you’ll know that lines form for the tellers AND the cash machines, with confusion abounding. In addition, WaMu’s cross-sell rates (and sales rates in general) in Occasio markets were among the lowest in the industry; hard to say that constitutes a “favorable opportunity”…
While I disagree with Charlie Scharf’s comment that traditional branches are “superior in every way,” I think the reality is that the industry over-emphasized the retail-ification of its branches, without regard to what actual works in a banking environment…
Staid Banker (great handle, by the way): Thanks for your comments. I agree that we need to avoid “retailification” for its own sake. The point in undertaking any retail marketing effort is to move the needle on tangible business goals. Some of those goals are going to be sales and profit oriented, in which case we will expect short-term results, measured in sales conversations, product inquiries and, ultimately, sales. But it’s also valid to use retailing in service of longer term branding and PR goals (so long as they’re tied to tangible business goals).
Haven’t seen the chaos you described, but it makes me wonder how the branches were piloted and tested prior to rollout. It would be great to hear from someone involved in the design and deployment process — I’ll bet they’d have plenty of stories to tell!