Banks as Coaches, not Scolds

Soccer season is starting in New England, and I’m resuming my duties as an assistant coach for my daughter’s team. Just as our players strive to improve, so do I try to improve my coaching, and one of my key functions is to try to change player behavior. I do that through a variety of ways: through explaining, through modeling, and through feedback. It’s the last point that I want to focus on, because the way in which a coach gives feedback is critical, not only for the specific point in time, but for future interactions. Very simply, there are two types of feedback: positive and negative. The coach can say, “Great pass to space, Jane,” or, alternatively, “You missed Sarah on her run down the sideline, Jane.” Guess which one Jane reacts better to (and which one her teammates notice)? What does this have to do with banking? Celent (together with many banks) has been talking a lot about the need to improve and solidify the customer relationship. One way to do this is to help the customer be more in control of their finances. This can happen when the bank gives feedback. Personal financial feedback, just like soccer coaching, can be positive or negative, and just like soccer, guess which one is more effective? And yet, most banks focus on providing unpleasant or negative news: “Your account is below the limit you set” is a relatively benign example, while “Your check has been returned for insufficient funds” is a more substantial one. It’s much more rare to see positive reinforcement: “Congratulations, you’re on track for the savings goal you set.” Simple, for one, is on to this, and it, together with a host of other features, led BBVA to buy it. Monitise, too, is touting “cuddle” alerts that seeks positive occasions for bank touchpoints. A bad outcome for banks is that their customers start to ignore them because they simply don’t want to hear more bad news. “Oh, it’s my bank telling me that I’ve done something wrong. I won’t pick up / open the envelope / check the email.” Then the bank has lost almost any opportunity for enhancing the customer relationship. As a quick aside, TD Bank recently hit a home run with a campaign that went viral as it thanked customers in the most personal way possible. 4 minutes, 11.1 million views as of September 1; check it out on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUkN7g_bEAI What can your bank do to be a coach instead of a scold?