ORLANDO, Fla.–It’s been one of the biggest transitions since the onset of the COVID pandemic—turning front-line staff into contact center workers and even digital center reps. And it’s also been a transition at which many financial institutions have struggled and even failed to manage. One person has some advice on how to make it a success.
Speaking to the League of Southeastern Credit Unions’ Annual Convention & Exposition, John Findlay, CEO and co-founder with LemonadeLXP, which specializes in turning front-line employees into “digital experts,” pointed credit unions here to one bank’s experience that he said sums up the challenge CUs face.
Findlay said his company did work with TD Bank after discovering front-line workers seldom recommended the bank’s digital channels to customers. The reason? They didn’t use it themselves. In fact, many weren’t customers of the bank at all. With a new approach to training, Findlay reported the bank saw a 10x lift in digital product recommendations.
That example, he said, is just one reason “digital fluency matters.”
“Big banks are overwhelmingly winning new account opening,” said Findlay. “That’s an existential problem over the long-term. Small institutions are at risk. Overwhelmingly, branch interactions are declining. Covid has driven adoption. The challenge is creating the complete digital customer and the digital experience. As people move to digital we found FIs weren’t as prepared as they thought they would be.
“Digital now is table stakes,” continued Findlay. “It’s nothing fancy, it’s expected. But at the same time people still want support. Forty percent of consumers still want to talk to people, but when it comes to transactions it’s overwhelmingly digital.”
What’s so critical, according to Findlay, is that at the end of every transaction, for both employees and members, is a “human being.”
Obstacles to Activating the Front Line
Findlay reported most financial institutions his company works with say they are having difficulty activating the front line when it comes to digital technology. With so many working from home, employees lack the “shoulder to shoulder” work environment that makes it easier to ask questions and get support, he said, while front-line workers have complained a “a lack of digital tools” is the number-one thing holding them back.
“At home workers overwhelmingly say they want better training,” Findlay said.
Then there is the issue seen in the TD Bank example above: staff don’t always have to bank with their employer.
“If I don’t bank with my FI and I haven’t been trained on the new technology, there is a 0% chance I am going to recommend the digital options,” he said. “Even if you do bank with your FI, you probably do most of your transactions at work, meaning you’re not using the customer-facing technology.”
Training ‘Sucks’
And then there is another big challenge, according to Findlay.
“Training sucks. Staff have been given a career of dreadful training experiences,” said Findlay. “And I think there is a little bit of fear that this new tech is going to replace me. I think FIs need to respond by saying, ‘If you become one of our digital superstars you are going to be even more valuable’.”
Findlay said traditional training systems are not tooled for digital, they are instead built to satisfy auditors, are static and not learner-focused. That’s especially true for younger workers, he said, who are not going to be “engaged by a PDF.”
The Fire Drill
“In a lot of cases what we see in new tech roll-outs, there is fire drill training. And then at the end of the fired rill you go back to work after one-off training and then you don’t do it for six months,” Findlay said. “There is no chance the employee will remember.”
What learning technology, for both members and employees, is all about is the ability to use it frequently. But most financial institutions lack the tools to drive such digital fluency, he stated.
A ‘Proven Strategy’
To turn staff into digital experts, Findlay said step one is to address the aversion to training. In the case of Lemondade LXP, he said the company uses gamification to engage employees, but he stressed gamification is often misunderstood and poorly executed.
John Findlay speaking to LSCU meeting in Orlando.
“You can find a way to make that experience look appealing. You can have staff members want to participate,” said Findlay, saying engagement is about participation, practice and mastery.
Foundational knowledge, he added, is game-based, bite-sized and challenging.
“There has been a lot of crappy gamification out there and it has rightfully gotten a bad name,” Findlay stated. “There is a difference between gamification and game-based learning. Game based learning s about morphing an experience into a game to make it more engaging. Gamification is the process of adding games or a game-like elements to something to encourage participation.”
What it is not about, he said, is “tacking a bunch of junk onto the existing experience and not thinking about the experience.
It’s about empathy, walking around in their shoes. It’s about thinking, ‘What’s in it for them?’”
Digital Fluency
Findlay recommended creating two version of walk-throughs of all technologies. The first version is a guided tour that shows where to click and why. The second offers no guides. Findlay compared the process to driving to someone else’s home while they are driving, and then having to do it yourself (and not remembering how to get there). In the latter experience, users can get up to five questions wrong before being sent back to the guided tour.
Digital Advocacy
Findlay said digital advocacy is about “creating digital ambassadors.”
“We use virtual role plays where it is a customer interaction. You can build them so that employees have to guide the conversation so someone can elegantly make a recommendation without sounding salesy,” he said.
Another key is making the digital transaction training fun and risk free. Many members, he stressed, are reluctant to use a digital solution for the first time out of fear of making a mistake and losing money or being locked out. That’s why Findlay said a financial institution should offer practice interfaces that don’t present that threat.
“The next piece is supporting members in the flow of work and supporting staff in the flow of work,” Findlay said. “Nobody wants to try this in their real bank account. This is the reason for the adoption aversion. De-risking the learning experience is really important. Imagine if someone comes in and says, ‘How can I do this?’ It’s great to be able to flip something around and show them. The same thing is true if they are calling the contact center. You can email them a link and walk them through a practice training. The most important part is you can de-stress this for the agent so they don’t quit.”
Save the Video
Findlay does not recommend using videos for the tech training.
“Videos are really good for values adoption. They are not so good for training people in how to use a technology,” he said. “I also see web pages that look like old VCR manuals. You’ve got to build walk-throughs in ways that are risk free and easy to use, and then nest those into your website in a way that is easy to find. You can use those same walk-throughs to help branch staff show how easy it is to use digital.”
Members can also be emailed links to the 10 most common transactions.
“When I choose a financial institution I am choosing a technology I am going to use,” he said. “If I am going to get into a marriage with you and I can’t see the technology, I think that is a fail. I think you should be showing that upfront. These are assets that can be used in so many ways to solve members’ problems. To fight big banks winning, you have to support the consumer experience, show empathy, and show you have the expertise.”