Offline Isn't All Bad

The net has changed the business market - but it hasn't changed what humans need from the companies they favor. Sure, some customers like doing business without ever having to talk to another person. But sometimes it's extremely important to have at least the possibility of human contact. Businesses that have both an on and offline presence are best prepared to give customers the human touch. Virtual institutions may have the advantage of little to no overhead, but brick and click businesses have a built-in way to reach customers on a person to person level.

Perhaps in no other business is this human contact more important than banking. Customers like the convenience of online banking. But when problems arise with their service or they need specialized assistance, they don't want to send an e-mail into the void. Bruce Cleveland, CEO of brick and click Presidential Bank, had to face these problems when Presidential went online in 1995. Over the years Presidential has evolved strategies that make its offline Washington, DC bank a valuable part of the online strategy.

Give Customers Someone to Talk To

Many customers do prefer doing simple business transactions online. Why bother going out for CDs, books, flowers, etc. when what you want is so easily found on the Internet? But when problems arise - and arise they do - customers want to talk to a human. "We have a call center that prides itself on having a very quick response time," Cleveland says. "We try to be as responsive to them as we can and not just be a web page where you can't ever get a hold of a human. We recognize that our customers are humans even if our web page isn't. Customers want to use the convenience of the Internet to reach us, but they also want the convenience of human contact once they do reach us." Think about it - do you like being shunted to an e-mail center for support? Do you like leaving e-mail messages and having no idea when - or if - they'll be returned? Presidential's customers always know they'll reach a human when they call for help during call center hours. "We recognize that once a customer has established contact with us, our customers want to be dealing with a human so that they can discuss whatever problems or questions they might have," Cleveland says.

Delineate Online and Offline Tasks

Of course, some things can and should be done online. Simple tasks are a breeze online. But for more complicated problems, customers don't want to have to search a FAQ or look through a support database. "They want to go beyond the web interface as their sole contact and have a personal relationship over the phone as well as the convenience of being able to do on the website the things that are best done on a website - such as learning checking account balances or finding out the size of a working capital line of credit that you might quality for," Cleveland says.

Banks offer certain services that are just naturally suited to online interfaces. "It used to be that you had to call somebody on the phone or use a voice response system to get your balance. It was more difficult to find out if a particular check had cleared. Nowadays you can go onto our website and many others and see a statement of your transactions for the month with your current balance up to the minute," Cleveland says. These tasks used to require expensive human operators. Now they're automated - cheaper for Presidential AND more convenient for customers. That way Presidential can concentrate more resources on tasks they've decided should be offline. That includes their call support center and face to face visits with loan customers who have qualified online.

"When we're making a loan to somebody who has come in over the Internet, we want to make sure they're really there," Cleveland says. "It's just like they might worry about whether we're really here. Customers give us their company information and their financial information over the Internet if they want. In just a couple of minutes, the computer will tell people what size loan they qualify for." But before that loan is closed, Presidential meets with the customers in person. "We feel it's important for us and for them to have that personal relationship. Normally once you establish a commercial lending relationship, it's something that goes on for years. It's important for both sides to be able to put the face with the name," he says.

And that's just what doesn't happen online - putting faces with the names. A tremendous amount of business is done impersonally these days. But that's not always the best strategy. The trick is to decide which tasks are better performed online and which offline. Don't just assume that all your business should transition to online systems. Sometimes that old fashioned brick and mortar presence can be your hole card.