...and Drive them to the Competition!

1.       Let us entertain you: Post large graphics or Flash animations on your home page. On banking home pages, we firmly believe less is more. The eye candy might be acceptable if you were providing entertainment, but you are not, it’s banking. Prospective users want to see that you are serious about their money and aren’t wasting their time with a lot of fluff. (Note: This doesn’t mean you can’t use lighthearted copy, an approach we recommend because it speaks directly to the Web user on their terms.)

2.       Gotcha! Take a new account application and neglect to confirm its receipt. Since it costs virtually nothing to send an email, why are many banks so stingy with outbound messaging? If a prospective customer takes the time to fill out a form to buy something, you must thank them via email and provide an estimated time to fulfill their request.

3.       We’ll get back to you on that: Answer customer email questions when it’s most convenient for your, not when the customer is ready to buy. Sure it’s efficient to have CSRs answer emails during off-hours, but is that what your customers expect or deserve? You’ve invested millions to handle telephone calls and branch inquiries within minutes, if not seconds. So why does it still take 24 hours or more to answer email questions?

4.       What was that account number again? When customers call, make them key in their account number and last four digits of their social security number, then as soon as a human rep gets on the line, make your customer repeat everything, plus their home phone number for good measure.  And do it even for the most routine question. This drives us batty on the phone, and the same happens online, although to a lesser extent.

5.       Don’t call us, we’ll call you: Hide your customer service phone numbers many clicks away from where customers look at their account information.

6.       Jump through that hoop one more time: Force long-time customers to reenter all their personal information every time they complete an online product application.

7.       You naughty boy you: Send collection and dunning letters to good customers when they are late on a $20 payment even though you know they have thousands on deposit.

8.       How about a Ginzu knife with that CD? Post non-financial advertising on your Web site (also applies to those cheesy inserts usually found in credit card statements).

9.       Play hard to get: Post interest rates and other prices in hard-to-find places.

10.    Let’s see if you are our type: Make customers feel like they must grovel for your products. Why should customers have to complete an “application” even when they are sending you money? Instead, make prospects feel welcome; that you’d be honored to provide financial services. We know there are thousands of people looking to defraud or otherwise take your bank for a ride. But don’t penalize the 99% of genuine law-abiding prospects with onerous language and procedures.

11.    You still use that old thing! Require users to upgrade their browser before doing business with you. This is ridiculous. We doubt a dollar has been lost because users logged in with 40-bit encryption; but countless users have been turned away by banks requiring a new browser installation. Browser encryption is not your weakest link.