Back in March, I posted about my attempt to open an account at a large regional bank based in the Southeast. Essentially, there had been a huge disconnect between the options available online and those offered in the branch. Worse, both options offered at this bank resulted in an unsuccessful account opening. My point was that this multi-billion dollar institution had not bothered to ensure their online account opening (OAO) user experience was sufficient or that their cross-channel options were consistent.
It bothered me that this bank–clearly not a small community bank with limited resources–would have offered such a poor customer experience. Well, today, I spoke with David Eads of Gro Solutions (Gro) and had an extended conversation on the ability of financial institutions to get this account opening experience right. He reached out to me based on my blog post, and he shared with me some interesting and innovative things his company Gro is doing relative to this OAO experience issue and how it can be made consistent across channels.
Before I continue, let me definitively state that other than David reaching out to me, I have no other affiliation with David or Gro Solutions, and this post is not meant to be an “endorsement” of their service. I am merely writing about innovation where I find it, and I believe Gro has created a service that speaks directly to the issues I experienced in attempting to open an account online, fund it, and use it. Here are the highlights of what I learned from David about the Gro platform:
Don’t call it Online Account Opening (OAO). David pointed out this name is associated almost exclusively with the online opening of a deposit account. What about the online opening of loan accounts or credit cards? The term Gro uses is Digital Sales and Marketing–let’s call it Mobile Account Opening (MAO)–to specifically differentiate what they do from other OAO competitors. Therefore, Gro Solutions can:
1. Open all types of accounts in one online / mobile session (ie: checking, credit card, line of credit, etc.)
Most OAOs can only open one type of account (albeit not very well) and if you want to open another account, you have to go back through the process again, likely needing to re-key the information you just provided in the previous OAO session.
2. Create a super clean user experience (UX)
I am bit of a stickler about this. UX is an art, not a science. One person’s impression of a multi-step experience can definitely vary from another’s. However, there are some basic elements that define a clean UX: clear instructions, a minimum of keystrokes, progress indicators, and so forth. The large regional bank where I attempted to sign up for an account online had a great UX as far as collecting my information. In fact, one of the best parts of their experience was telling me upfront what information I needed to have handy before starting. Gro also has this feature, and it’s a good one to have.
3. Provide real-time access to core systems
This is an absolute must. In my OAO experience, the bank was using a third party not connected to their core. So initially it was a great experience, but then I found out it would take four or five days before they would update their core system with my account. That is simply unacceptable in today’s instant access culture.
When you are online and real time to the core system, then whatever results from the online activity is updated in the core in real time (or near real time, which is good enough). The test is, can I open the account, access the FI’s mobile app, authenticate myself, and then see my account? Even if the funds are not immediately available, I have access to my account and it is useful nonetheless. In my earlier blog post, I had needed to give HR my account number to set up direct deposit, but due to the aforementioned delay in getting the account set up, that information was not available to me.
4. Accept credit card or ACH funding
The funding of an OAO is a major reason for session abandonment. Even if you have a clean UX up to that point, if you have to send a check to the institution, or worse, come to a branch to fund the account, that kind of kills the purpose of opening an account online. Fortunately, FIs have two really well-known and easy options to use when opening accounts: credit cards and Automated Clearing House (ACH).
Credit cards charges are more expensive, but seem to be easier for most people to understand. Very few individuals are “suspicious” of entering their credit card number online; they do it all the time in making online purchases. Credit card advances also get an instant accept or decline, which is very useful for OAO.
ACH requires the individual to enter the account number and routing number of an existing account. ACH is very inexpensive but has some disadvantages. Many people struggle to discern the characters at the bottom of a check or “share draft” (what credit unions call checks) and enter them incorrectly. Some FIs use payable-through institutions, meaning the R/T (the unique identifier of a U.S. financial institution) on the check or share draft is not the correct R/T for ACH. Careful attention to the user instructions can make the ACH process easier.
As with credit cards, ACH debits can be same-day, but are still less reliable than credit cards since the ACH has no idea what a person’s available balance is. However, either a credit card or ACH is a perfectly acceptable manner to accept funds to open an account. Gro enables both options.
5. Offer CSR assist
This is a huge issue. FIs with robust OAO features that do not cross over into the branch are making a big mistake. In my original blog post, I documented how I went to the FI’s branch so my account would be available to use for direct deposit right away, but the branch had no options for credit card or ACH funding. How could this be? Of course the bank has that capability, but it was not enabled for branch personnel to use for account opening. This is maddening and definitely shows a lack of understanding of the need for a cross-channel, integrated user experience. Really, is there any legitimate reason why something I can do online shouldn’t be available in the branch?
Gro addresses this with a feature called CSR assist. This means that the CSR in-branch (or in the call center, IVR, or wherever) can work with the customer to complete the online experience in the branch. Meaning, there are no options available for the mobile experience that are unavailable in the branch. And that is how it should be.
Gro Solutions has 50 financial institution customers–both credit unions and banks–using their platform. Their largest credit union is $4B, and the largest bank is $15B. David explained some of their FIs have elected to not use the full platform, some chose to not interface to the core, and others force their (hopefully) new customers to come to the branch to complete the account opening. That’s a shame. Those FIs are literally missing the whole point of an MOA event.
As another issue, some core vendors are reticent about exposing their APIs to allow for a third-party vendor access. I get it; they are trying to force their customers to use their ancillary products. With all of the recent talk about APIs, my hope is the cores will understand that the harder they try to squeeze their customers, the more they will slip through their fingers. In any case, should an FI be on a core that makes it very hard and/or expensive to use third-party products, you should take a long and hard look at that vendor and ask why you are still a customer.
If you are looking for an OAO, MAO vendor, or just want to see what an innovative company is up to, I encourage you to check out Gro Solutions.
Think about your products and services. Are you offering multiple channels where your customers can access your services? If not, you should. And if you do, how well have you vetted the ability of those channels to offer a consistent and robust, unified user experience that is clean, streamlined and effective? Not sure whether yours is effective? Start by tracking your abandoned online sessions; that information is available, and if you are not looking at it weekly, you are missing a key indicator of how easy (or not) your online services are.
By the way, for my account opening fail at that large regional bank, I got up and walked out of the branch. Do you think they track that as an abandoned session?