Making the newly banked look like a million bucks

5 ways to express empathy when signing people up for their first bank account

First impressions last. A cliché that is as true for meeting a person for the first time, as for “meeting” a brand. Recent research shows that emotion is the #1 factor in customer loyalty, so how can we consciously deliver an experience that feels good from the start?

We’ve recently developed a tablet application to sign up new customers for a free account. We ask for people’s ID, a profile photo, verify their mobile phone number, record their biometric fingerprints, and they’re good to go. Not bad compared to the existing alternative of creating an account at a branch which requires people to visit an unfamiliar location, wait in line, pay fees, and collect a pile of official documents.

Now let’s take a closer look at the subtleties of this sign up experience; the soft side. We want our customers to feel empowered while knowing we’re there for them. How far could we go in terms of letting them create their account themselves? To find out, we built two different self-service kiosk prototypes (wood, cardboard, pink paint and a tablet) and installed them at one of our Baobab service points. Here are some of our take-aways:

1. Offer a seat

Both of our kiosk models required people to stand; perfect for quick transactions that last less than a minute, less so when taking the time to explain the benefits of an account to someone who has never had one, or assist people who sign up.

Offering a seat is an obvious thing to do when a VIP client visits a branch manager in his or her office. Why not also at our service points? It doesn’t have to be a big leather fauteuil. We witnessed that even when space is scarce, hospitality is expressed through offering a place to sit on a stool, bench or bag of rice. An appreciated gesture when it’s over 30 degrees celsius!

2. Lend a helping hand for tasks that require a bit of practice

Have you ever tried one of those self-service checkout stations at a grocery or department store? Nothing more frustrating than carefully following the steps, getting an error message without knowing what you did wrong, waiting for help and then watching sheepishly how the shop employee scans your items.

Anything that is not a routine behaviour requires mental effort. Keeping this in mind, it is not surprising that we found no correlation between level of education, age, and the desire to be assisted with technically tricky steps such as automatic text recognition of an ID card photo. Easy when you do it all the time, not a skill worth mastering for a customer who will only need to do this once.

3. Make people look good, literally

The first step of signing up was presented as taking a “selfie”, something familiar and fun. But some reacted: “Wait a moment, you want a photo of me in my old t-shirt all sweaty from running errands before I’ve even opened my account with you?!” Imagine on top of that taking a photo of someone with dark colored skin in an ill let environment, let’s just say this doesn’t put them in their best light.

Ask the customer to face the light or step outside if needed, take a couple of shots at once “photo booth” style, and let them select one. Going further we could apply basic photo enhancements, but simply showing that we want our customers to look good is already an excellent way to indirectly say we care about their (financial) well being.

4. Make agents look good too

We were curious to see how agents would react to the idea of having a kiosk at their service point. Would they feel redundant?

Many questions came up right away like who would pay for the electricity and who would take care of maintenance, but they seemed to accept the idea of a kiosk on the condition that they would be the one guiding customers as a host. We also saw a positive appetite to learn professional sales techniques.

Treating our agents as partners, investing in their knowledge and equipping them with intuitive applications will empower them to make that first great impression.

5. Celebrate success

Being used to things taking long, some people did not realise their account was active immediately after completing the signup in spite of SMS received. What a pity to have dormant accounts while our customers patiently wait for a sign of life!

Amplify successful sign up, a happy moment in the journey, with a special action such as an animation on the app or a physical token. And a first deposit should be celebrated as well. This year we will continue to experiment with effective ways to get people in the habit of using their account and getting a taste of reward right away.

In the end making people feel good is not about having the latest fancy looking technology, but about behaving like a human friend.

Next time a service makes you smile, consider what they did exactly to make you feel that way. You might notice that empathy is at the root of it!