NASHVILLE - If marketing consultant Don Peppers had his way, automated teller machines would never again ask him if he wanted to conduct transactions in English or Spanish.
"When I put my ATM card in, I hope someday the ATM will say, 'Hello Mr. Peppers. Your usual $200? Or a different amount?"' he said. "That's knowing your customers."
Speaking at the Bank Marketing Association's annual meeting here, the president of Stamford, Conn.-based Marketing 1-1 sketched a vision of the future in which knowing customers is, perhaps, paramount to all other business activities.
Mr. Peppers would have banks complete loan applications for their customers; after all, banks should already have that kind of information.
And banks would never ask which language a customer speaks.
Said Mr. Peppers: "The day ('Don Peppers' asks) the ATM to talk Arabic or Spanish, then they better take my card. Because they should know that's not me."
To Mr. Peppers, it all boils down to managing customers rather than products.
The result: An industry more like that of years ago, when banks were smaller and bankers nursed their relationships with customers.
Mr. Peppers said computers make this possible on a scale bankers of the past could never have imagined.
The only obstacle, he says, is failing to get the most out of computers. Banks that fail to break down customer data bases to the point where an individual's needs can be quickly evaluated run the risk of losing customers - or at least of not getting all their business.
"Every time you make a statement, lumping customers together in a needless blob, you're not knowing your customers. ... If you differentiate your customers by what they need, then you've captured your customers," said Mr. Peppers.
