Bankers Just Don’t ‘Get’ Their Consumers

Remember the show “The Odd Couple”? Well, bankers and their customers appear to be an odd couple, too.

Bankers, new data suggests, just don’t “get” their customers.

For example, 80% of bankers think their consumers want video chat as part of their banking experience. Not really. Only 34% of consumers surveyed as part of a study commissioned by Cisco want video chat.

And that’s just video chat. According to the Cisco data, bankers are consistently overestimating what consumers want, particularly when it comes to mobile banking applications. Do consumers want mobile bill payment reminders? Yes, 50% of them do — but bankers think 63% want them. Account monitoring? 43% of consumers want the application, but bankers think 63% do. Credit score monitoring: consumers 17%; bankers think 35%. Retirement savings or pension fund tracking: consumers 7%; bankers think 38%.

This is not just some small disconnect. There appears to be a notable misunderstanding on the part of bankers about what consumers want. I have little doubt that will lead to shortcomings in utilization that ends up disappointing bankers and reinforcing the notion among consumers that banks “just don’t care.” Video chat, for example, will end up languishing like text banking.

Why does this happen? Why is it that bankers “miss”? I can’t say I have the answers to these questions. Honestly, I am just not sure. Is it that banking tends to be an insular industry within a relatively insular nation? This disconnect, to be sure, is disquieting, if not loss-generating. And that should trouble us all.