As chairman of BrainReserve, a New York-based consulting firm, Faith Popcorn takes the cultural pulse of the nation for Fortune 500 companies. She gained renown for spotting and naming such trends as "cocooning," to describe some insular habits of the modern-day middle class, and "cashing out," which many Yuppies have done from conventional corporate life. In her latest book, "Clicking," Ms. Popcorn uses the computer mouse and remote control as metaphors. Some business practices "click" and others are "off-trend." She devotes 15 pages to explaining why banks are woefully "off-trend," whence Jennifer Kingson Bloom of American Banker launched into this recent interview. You make banks sound frumpy. What are they doing wrong? Basically, we're saying there's not a trend that they're "on." So frumpy is an understatement. Banks need more personal service, more involvement with their customers' financial future. They need to turn into a refuge from the storm, to become a comfortable place where people expect preferential treatment and personal attention. They need to focus on service rather than real estate. It's very hard to see your own future when you have so much invested in real estate. That's what the department store people face, that's what the supermarket people face, and that's what the banking industry is going to face. And the man or woman who sees it wins. It's bigger than banking. What must banks do to "click" with customers, or get back "on-trend"? They need to care about each customer. We call it "one-on-one marketing." We're talking about making house calls. A commercial for Natwest Bank is on the right track when it shows a mother with a newborn child and announces that a service representative will make a house call to open a savings account in the baby's name. And we're talking about having a personal banker - a real person - available all the time through 24-hour telephone-only banks. We're also talking about making banks cozier and more comfortable - the "Barnes & Nobling" of it. Easy chairs, couches, desks instead of tables, espresso machines in the lobby. If lines are long, you could take a number like at a deli, and be able to sit and sip coffee until your number is called. How realistic do you think these ideas are for banks? Are you just being tongue-in-cheek? As tongue-in-cheek as Len Riggio was when he created Barnes & Noble Bookstores. I really think they need to just do something, make it comfortable. I think that a bank, if it wants my business, needs to just be willing and available to manage my financial future, not just be a bank. That's how all the insurance companies and others who are going to take the banking business away from the bankers are approaching it. Can you give another example of a company that's doing things the right way? MetLife. It's one of the most innovative insurance companies around. We at BrainReserve sat down with their CEO and COO and asked, "How many female entrepreneurs do you sell to?" They said they hadn't collected data in a way that would let them identify how many of their customers were women. So we suggested that they create a FemaleThink division, and told them it would represent a $1 billion revenue stream. We showed how the female market was being undervalued and underserved, and was underpurchasing financial services as a result.
So we came up with the concept of "MetMentors." Essentially, these were a female-supportive sales force who would offer women information and advice on insurance and other products. Understanding female-think and creating a relationship with women and helping women grow their business is something banks should learn to do as well. Female businesses are growing enormously. Female-run companies are currently employing more people than the Fortune 500 companies combined globally. You need to help women grow their businesses to get their banking loyalty. And that means showing up there if you have to, because she's got kids, she's got her business, she can't get out. Pull up to her driveway. You know the bank van idea? Mobile bank vans - which would pass by your home, your office, your shop and make change, deliver cash, accept deposits - could be the Good Humor trucks of tomorrow. Are there other industries you would compare to banking, in terms of being out of touch? It was hard to find another industry that was completely "off." In my first book, "The Popcorn Report," we said supermarkets also are making it hard for shoppers to shop based on their diets, or based on time, or based on carrying their children with them. They should have a place for shoppers to dump their children when they come in. They should have home delivery, of either ingredients or already-cooked food. Is one reason you're so down on banks that you had a bad personal experience with one?
Once I went to my bank and it wasn't there any more. And they had moved my safe deposit box to another location. And one time I made a date to move my safe deposit box to another bank, and when I got there the guy had gone out to lunch. I have never heard from any banker I've ever had, even though I've had hundreds of thousands of dollars - that I probably shouldn't have had - in my checking account. I have never been offered any kind of help or support. I have always had a hard time getting a line of credit, and I have excellent credit references. I think most women have this problem. I haven't had one iota of support from any bank I've ever worked with. And I've asked my friends, is it just me? Do I have bad bank karma? And everybody said the same thing. That started to focus me on the banking industry. I think it's an extremely male-run, male-thinking industry. A very hierarchical, its-my-job sort of industry. Another industry like this could be the airline industry - another I'm-just-here-doing-my-job, here-are-the-rules kind of industry. The industries that will survive in the 2000s are those that understand they are marketing to the individual. Because in the 2000s, we're all going to be on our computers or in our virtual reality rooms and we're going to be sitting with our personal bankers virtually, able to see them in 3-D and deal with them and talk to them and interact with them. In your book, you predict that home banking will take off through telephones and televisions, but not through personal computers. I think personal computers will be the first part of it. But eventually it's going to be virtual banking with your virtual banker in your virtual reality room. What about the Internet? Do you surf the Web? I do. I think it's going to be "it." I don't think it's "it" now. It's too confusing. But I think it will be "it." How do you do your banking? I have somebody who manages my checks, and they write out checks the old- fashioned way. Although I do banking, I have very little relationship with a bank. Do you use ATMs? When I get stuck.
Do you think smart cards are going to take off? I think so. Anything that you don't have to see the face of someone inefficient and incompetent.
Didn't you say customers are craving the human touch? Do you know what every person wants? What the private banking customer gets. I want the same services I would get if I had $10 million in the bank. If you don't know how to deliver that to me as a banker, I don't care. I'm going to go to somebody who does. That alternative hasn't come along yet, but it will. And these bankers are not prepared for it.
