Is the branch the newest digital channel?

The branch is an important channel is every bank, but the rise of digital raises two questions: what’s its role in with a digital engagement model, and how should banks think about its value? First, consider some of the challenges of the traditional branch for the modern, digital consumer:

• Branches suffer from lack of talent availability. The best person for the job is not always going to be in the right location at right time. Yet mobile is driving “right time, right place, instant” contextual interactions, and consumers are increasingly expecting this level of service.
• Many of the frontline staff are underpaid and undertrained, yet are the face of the institution. They often aren´t trained properly or paid enough to care about delivering the kind of customer service banks are trying to deliver through digital.
• It’s difficult to distribute foot traffic across locations. Some branches suffer from massive queues, while employees at other locations are killing time on Facebook. This adds cost, lowers efficiency, and is incompatible with demand for instant service from consumers as well as modern IT delivery.

Digital has allowed industries to overcome some of the barriers facing other customer experiences. The challenges facing branches are no different. Virtualizing the workforce, aggregating talent, and allowing customers to access them remotely, either in a branch environment or from a personal device, is at least one path forward. Banks need to start thinking about the branch as a digital channel. Some institutions like Garanti Bank in Turkey, ICICI in India, and Umpqua Bank in the US are already starting to think in terms of remote delivery. As video service becomes more mature (i.e. video advisory through tablets), user experiences across devices will begin to blur, and the branch of the future will look even more like a digital experience. In the new environment, the branch becomes another presentation layer. Vendors like Cisco are already starting to move in this direction, combining telepresence, remote signature, displays, and other infrastructure to allow banks to facilitate remote interactions using context information. Others in the market are beginning to follow suite. The branch of the future has been a topic of discussion since the advent of online banking and mobile. While some meaningful progress has been made in branch transformation, some large institutions have launched numerous pilot ideas and concept branches that have amounted to little more than PR stunts. The role of the branch is changing, but it’s obvious that many aren't exactly clear what that role is going to be. By talking about the branch as a digital channel, institutions may be better able to craft a true omnichannel strategy for customer experience.