When did we start using the idioms of today? You know the one’s. In this article I’ll use italics to signify some of the idiotic expressions that have replaced the core values of doing business.
You read about disruption of one industry or another these days as if it were the fourth horseman of the apocalypse. Effectively it means the introduction of a new technology or process to upset the incumbents in an industry. When did this become a thing?
Our experience with clients indicates that they don’t want a better user interface with our website they want one with us. With all of the technology around today people and companies (in our case lenders) appear to be forgetting about the end user (the customer) and their ability to keep up.
Last week I read about a new brokerless hub that allows a potential borrower to input all of their details online and provide all forms of documentation in the same manner. After about three seconds of panic, I realised that’s not why people engage us. They engage us because they want independent advice from experienced people.
They want to have a conversation about the process, price and decision making involved in the largest financial commitment in their lives. They want to read our body language and hear the inflections in our voices when we provide that advice. They want us to ask questions on their behalf and engage with their lawyers to arrange a settlement date for their loan or transfer of title to their wives or children. They want to know why the lenders don’t care enough to return their calls or indeed in most cases our clients simply don’t know whom to contact at their banks.
They don’t want to speak to a call centre that may or may not be in Australia. They want us to explain why we’re (sometimes) recommending a product with a higher interest rate and why they will save by using that product. Or sometimes they just want to have a chat about important decisions in their lives that may or may not involve finances. Sometimes they want to catch up for a coffee and talk about nothing.
When banks had adequate and well trained relationship managers this used to happen. That’s not a gotcha moment. I realise that banks still have relationship managers it’s just that most of them are now unleashed on a client with very little experience and most of their training is compliance related not product related. Worse they are neutered by the banks’ policies. To add to the frustration, these days, relationship managers are so overloaded with clients and so overwhelmed by internal reporting obligations for each of those clients that they barely have time for most of them.
Finally, I’ll provide an example that best illustrates the above.
One of our major banks in Australia spent billions on technology in the last five years. They outspent every other bank and that was a very good initiative. They now have the best tech of any bank in Australia, indeed one of the best in the world. However, at the same time they decreased the number of client facing relationship managers. We now get many of their customers coming to us looking to change.
Some complain that they don’t know whom to contact, some older clients complain that after banking with them for decades they’re treated like school children when they apply for credit. Younger clients complain of the complexities involved in getting a loan. That’s why I don’t lose sleep when there are all of these fantastic innovations. Until of course they teach the software to fake sincerity and develop a personality and character. Then I’m doomed.
While I understand why there’s a need for disruptors and fintechs and other progressive financial innovations. They should all remember that business is primarily a personal interaction. It’s something that appears to have been forgotten with all of the current innovations.