Look to McDonald's for Tips On Service, Conferees Told

ORLANDO - San Diego State University management professor James A. Belasco wants a Big Mac with his certificate of deposit.

Well, not exactly. But he does want community banks to aspire to the one-stop, service-oriented enterprise characterized by fast-food giant McDonald's.

And he wasn't the only speaker at the American Bankers Association/Bank Marketing Association's national community bankers conference in Orlando last week to link customers' desires for new and varied financial services products to the success that McDonald's has had selling both pizzas and hamburgers.

Titled "20/20 Vision: Focus on the Customer," the convention dedicated Monday mostly to customer service issues and Tuesday to technology.

In his Monday presentation on performance management, Mr. Belasco lauded the fast-food company's efforts to diversify its menu over the years and target what he counted as 13 market segments.

"They understand their customers," he said.

The golden arches reemerged on Wednesday morning, when Ken Ellspermann, vice president of CNB Bancshares, Evansville, Ind., discussed his bank's efforts to get its employees to embrace new products like mutual funds.

McDonald's has added items like fajitas to please existing customers and attract new ones, he said.

"We're doing the same thing," he said. "We are expanding relationships."

***

Community bankers are going back to the future, said Phil Jossi, president of $300 million-asset United Nebraska Bank, Grand Island.

And he didn't mean the exciting ride at nearby Universal Studios Florida.

In a speech Monday on successful bank niches, Mr. Jossi stressed that whatever products or services community bankers implement, their top priority must remain the customer.

"Over and over again, people come in our bank and say they just came from Brand X (bank) and they (the bank) can't make a decision," he said.

"What I do believe we're doing is serving the customer," he said. "Maybe we're going back to the future. This is how banking was 20 years ago. You had a question? You had a significant event in your family? Where'd you go? Usually called up Old Joe down at the bank."

***

William M. Randle, director of marketing and strategic planning for Huntington Bancshares, Columbus, gave small-town bankers here a glimpse of what could be accomplished with technology.

But some bankers were skeptical of the inference that what the gigantic Huntington does with technology could be transported to their tiny institutions.

Huntington's virtual-banking concept includes a Columbus branch that is smaller and employs fewer people than the traditional bank branch.

The twist is that in addition to the usual deposit-withdrawal transactions, customers can do things like use special automated teller- like machines to video-conference with bank representatives and loan officers.

Although Mr. Randle said the $18 billion-asset company sees its individual locations as community banks, one banker wondered after the session if some of the smaller-bank representatives at the conference could use such ideas.

"This is an $18 billion(-asset) institution that is talking to a bunch of guys that are running $12 (million), $15 million institutions," he said. "And I'm not sure they're addressing all the issues that the small bank has."

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
MORE FROM AMERICAN BANKER