What's Next for Debit Rewards?

At a time when banks are trying to catch their breath from the reduced fee income impact of Reg E, the government has proposed a cap on interchange income that could equate to a 70%-80% reduction in fees that a bank can collect as part of debit card transactions. In travels across the country, it is clear one of the first casualties of these regulatory changes has been the reconfiguring or elimination of Free Checking at the largest banks.

Will these changes also eliminate debit card rewards programs that are funded by interchange fees?

Worldwide Response to the Importance of Cross-Selling

Last July, I posted a question on the Retail Banking Network Group on LinkedIn asking how the goal of cross-selling is prioritized in relationship to the goal of new customer acquisition at banks today. Since my posting, I have had more than 80 comments from bankers representing large and small financial organizations all over the world.

For instance, Lance van Wyk, Regional General Manager at Nedbank Ltd in South Africa believes that education, reward and recognition of employees is needed to improve cross-selling. In addition, he believes the timing of cross-selling is important and states, "Proactive investments in cross-selling at the acquisition stage could prove highly rewarding".

Reaching the ATM Customer With Intelligent Personalization

About a month ago, I visited my neighborhood branch office on a Saturday to open a few new accounts and was surprised to see the vast difference in customer traffic outside the branch compared to inside the office. More specifically, it was clear that the traffic outside the office was almost entirely for the ATM, since during my 30 minute visit only 3 people were served through the drive-up window while no less than 25 customers used the ATM. The manager even mentioned that she had offered the drive-up lane to the long line of ATM users, only to be told that, "we only need to make a withdrawal" (I guess many people don't remember the purpose of withdrawal slips).

While I realize the primary advantage of using an ATM is speed and convenience, are bank marketers missing an opportunity to expand communication through this channel? Having a captive audience, if only for a couple minutes, provides the opportunity to both target communications as well as collect insight.

The Sales Funnel Revisted

For my whole career, both in marketing and sales, I have understood the concept and importance of the sales funnel. Conceptually speaking, the traditional sales funnel starts with awareness being generated at the top of the funnel (the widest part) and then having the prospect work down the funnel through the stages of interest, consideration, commitment and eventually having a sale made at the narrowest part of the funnel. The funnel framework worked fairly well in providing the foundation for understanding what metrics should be concentrated on and where resources should be deployed.

But what happens in a world where prospects have so many more tools at their disposal to evaluate your offerings on their own or where they skip stages of the process all together?

Banks Need to Build Foundation for Effective Multichannel Marketing

While the BAI Retail Delivery Conference in Las Vegas doesn't officially begin until today, hundreds of attendees participated in a series of pre-conference workshops, including a session entitled, "Improving Acquisition, Onboarding and Cross-Sell Effectiveness with Multichannel Communication" which I was lucky enough to present with Matt Wilcox from Zions Bank and Tal Harry from Richter7. The workshop was attended by representatives from banks of all sizes and in various stages of multichannel marketing development.

During the session, we had several formal and informal surveys to determine where this limited cross section of the banking industry was with regard to their marketing mix.