Community Banking’s Killer App: The Human Touch

Ninety-five years is a long time frame in which to develop, tweak and refine the perfect app.

For community banking, as Columbia Bank Executive Vice President of Consumer Banking Allyson Schlesinger told Karen Webster, that app might seem a bit old school, but in part, it has been honed since the bank’s founding in 1927.

It’s the human touch — aided, of course, by the digital transformation that has been a hallmark of the financial services industry through the past few years.

It’s a truism that in 2022, the physical and digital banking realms are colliding and the lines across channels are blurring. As Schlesinger said, no matter the type of interaction, banking customers like knowing that there’s always someone — a human voice and face — available for guidance.

Looking back across the whirlwind that touched down in 2020 as the pandemic roared across the globe, Schlesinger noted that everything changed dramatically in banking — and especially so for community banks.

Along the way, as digital channels have solidified, she said some surprises have emerged. In just one example, older populations — baby boomers among them — have embraced online offerings, even depositing checks through their phones.

Schlesinger said through the past 25-plus months, Columbia and its community banking brethren have sought to enable remote banking and support small businesses (with new treasury management and services and enhanced cyber-risk protection). Through all of that, the human touch is coming back into sharpened focus.

Related: Banks Turn to Tech to Keep the Human Touch in SMB Digital Banking

Community banks are not facing as much of a threat from the digital banks and the digital-only challengers, Schlesinger observed, because those tech-focused upstarts are chasing a certain customer.

However, those same banks have taken a cue from FinTechs in the bid to automate workflows and craft platforms that make small business lending easier and faster — and Columbia recently launched a credit card, as well. Online apps give consumers the ability to look at all their financial accounts and transactions in one central location.

“We’re automated behind the scenes for our customers so we can understand what they need at a service level,” Schlesinger said. But at the same time, the company is opening new physical branches in New Jersey and the tri-state area.

Meeting in Person

The urgency to meet consumers where, when and how they want to be met — including by representatives of the bank, face to face — is especially heightened as physical branches reopen and people are going back to the “old” ways of doing things.

Schlesinger said that Columbia’s own transaction volumes are back to pre-COVID levels, but are also re-emerging in physical settings (consumers are so happy to see familiar faces, she said, it almost seems like everyone wants to hug one another).

For Columbia, she said, some things remain forever changed, tied to transformative and advanced technologies. She pointed to recent automated mortgage offerings where consumers can input their information and be pre-qualified within a 24-hour period.

But dig a bit deeper, and there is still room for the human touch. Schlesinger noted that some banking customers may feel overwhelmed as they input their information through those digital conduits, and thus would relish having an account executive help them through that process. Call center volumes are also on the upswing.

“So,” she said, “there’s been a hybrid nature to the banking rebound.”

Schlesinger added that for community banks, there is value in underscoring ties to local merchants, to the families and individuals who come out to the annual Fourth of July festivities — ties that the largest, global marquee names in financial services cannot match.

“Community banking has it all,” she said.

Its continuum of services can be most advantageous in primary banking relationships, extending well beyond simply maintaining a checking account and paying bills. For consumers, that means being able to pick up the phone and make an appointment down the street at a branch if it provides peace of mind when depositing a large check.

That personal touch enables the community bank to educate consumers while offering full-service capabilities, a whole suite of offerings that can include wealth management planning and relevant add-ons as families move through the milestones of life.

“By having that human touch combined with technology,” she told Webster, “we’ll teach you how to use the new offerings, and then you’re off and running and can use the products and services as you wish.”

See also: FinTechs Adding Brick-and-Mortar Banks Becomes Global Trend