ABA Banking Journal - August 2007 - (Page 43)

What’s state of the art for banks? check he gets from his mother, who lives in Boston. “Each year, branch personnel look at me like I’ve presented them with a stone tablet,” he related of the annual ritual that brings him into his local ABN Amro branch. But the story had an even better punchline, as the big Dutch bank is now set up so that transactional details from the internet, where Condon completes 99% of his activity, is captured at the branch. When he deposited the check this year, it prompted the branch manager to come out from his office, greet Condon by name, and offer him advice. Is that you, or a persona? One decade-old practice getting mainstreamed is use of “personas,” which can be thought of as the “method acting prep” of character development for marketers and IT, said Moira Dorsey, a principal analyst with Forrester. Much as an actor using method might make up a back story about a character to be played, this approach takes market segment qualitative research and defines a fictitious character with a name, age, job, and lifestyle. (This is based on Citi offers visual options, and as you make selections, you see fewer card images on your face-to-face chats with customers from different screen. Talk about intuitive! Citi is showing that it gets the new usability rules. ethnographic/psychographic groups.) It marries ping—literally, by displaying pop-out side-by-side elements—is profile information to transactional data so you learn that perbest of all. sona X represents say, 21% or 50% of your customer base, Rogowski pointed out that Web 2.0 means different things to which defines the persona’s impact on everything from channel different people. In terms of business sites, it is a time when to product use. “When these personas are created correctly, it many retailers, among them eBay, Blue Nile (a diamond retail- can help banks prioritize functionality and it helps them figure er), and CitiCards, are using newer internet technologies to out how to meet the needs of a very specific user, who may be, make process flow more smoothly. CitiCards, for instance, for instance, time starved versus willing to stay and explore on shows images of cards and has roll-down lists of product fea- the site,” Dorsey explained. tures. James Smith, executive vice-president, internet services group, Effective linkage to physical stores is also a key online chan- Wells Fargo, said that personas had been used by Wells to define nel requirement. “Our research shows that complex product the layout and refine the features of its website. Andrew Salesky, buys are multi-channel in 2007,” said Graeber. “All these years senior vice-president, client web services, Charles Schwab, indithat we’ve been working with the internet, and you still have cated that personas are excellent and have helped Schwab get its many firms where customers need to repeat their stories again “e act” together. and again [from one channel to the next] to get help or resolu“But you can dilute the effectiveness by adopting too many,” tion. It should be avoided.” Her colleague, Cliff Condon, based Salesky cautioned. “Best to have no more than two or three per in Amsterdam, told a funny story about the annual birthday line of business, or specialty area, to keep the focus sharp.” BJ ABA BANKING JOURNAL/AUGUST 2007 43 www.ababj.com/subscribe.html https://web.da-us.citibank.com/cgi-bin/citifi/portal/ps/detail.do?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&BS_Id=CreditCardsOverview http://www.bluenile.com/diamond_search.asp?filter_id=1&track=design_state https://web.da-us.citibank.com/cgi-bin/citifi/portal/ps/detail.do?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&BS_Id=CreditCardsOverview https://www.wellsfargo.com http://www.schwab.com http://www.ababj.com/subscribe.html

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of ABA Banking Journal - August 2007

Contents Editor's Column The Unbankers Snapshot: Do Share Repurchases Signal More M&A Activity Sleight of Mind Goals Behind Proposed ABA/ACB Merger ABA Resources ABA Chairman's Position Should You Sell Those Nonperformers Pass the Aspirin Branch Design - Evoking a Sense of Place Two Banks Take the LEED Move Over, Buddy Service Feature: Bankers' Banks Directory Websites: What's State of the Art for Banks? Citi Mobile to Go Strong with iPhone? Date First, Marry Later Mailbox Banker's Mart To Advertise/Index of Advertisers The Economy

ABA Banking Journal - August 2007

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.