Banking promises

Banks are back in the news for all the wrong reasons. And begs the question, what promises are our banks making?

In the over competitive race for differentiation, banks are making bigger and bigger promises that appear doomed to failure.

Why do I think that? Quite simply there seems to be a fundamental lack of awareness that it is not good enough to make a promise and then TRY and figure out how to keep it. The game winners only make promises they CAN keep and that just isn’t happening.

Consider the “theme” lines of each of the big four banks. What are the implied promises in each of these statements?

• Westpac – “A bank you can bank on” – we won’t let you down and will be there when you need us to be.
• ANZ – “We live in your world” – we understand the things you deal with everyday, your problems are our problems.
• Commonwealth Bank – “Determined to be different” – we won’t do the things other banks do.
• NAB – “More give. Less take” – we’ll be fair in our dealing with you and charge you less for the things we do.

Not sure that is what they mean, but when I read those statements that is my take. And in each case they are almost impossible to live up to.

In recent news both ANZ and NAB made a mockery of theirs by condoning, or at the least not overseeing the practices of their outsourced collection partners. Twitter was quick to point out that “more take” and “bank world” were both alive and well and operating behind the happy shiny images being presented.

It remains to be seen whether Westpac can keep the promises they are making. Signs are good if the work behind the scenes to recruit people with real business experience rather than banking corporates, and internal programs that put business bankers on the ground for a day with small business bank customers are anything to go by.

However, when I see their statement I can’t help but imagine the small businesses that need a business loan and are turned down because they don’t “meet the risk profile.” Pretty sure they won’t feel that the bank was one they could bank on.

I could be wrong and would love to be, but experience has made me pessimistic about these things.

Of course, the sheer number of promises between the bank and the customers and the bank and its partners that are contained inside even the most benign interaction have the ability to unseat expectations and create problems.

ATM fees being applied, credit facilities between banks and merchants, teller counter transactions and loans, etc. Each one having one or more explicit promises but also a host of other promises behind the scenes inside the bank and with outside service partners, that go into delivering the product of service.

I’m not sure it is possible to totally offset the complexity of that. However, a more mindful approach to ensuring the organisation has a fighting chance of actually delivering implicit and explicit promises BEFORE making them can’t hurt.

I contend that until this starts to happen, situations such as was highlighted in last week’s story about collections will continue to the rule not the exception.

See you next week.

Michel Hogan is a Brand Advocate. Through her work with Brandology here in Australia and in the United States, she helps organisations recognise who they are and align that with what they do and say, to build more authentic and sustainable brands. She also publishes the Brand thought leadership blog – Brand Alignment.