Mike Escudero, 30 Under 30 member, MBA candidate University of Southern California
The home pages were so content heavy I had trouble locating perhaps the most important link of all – how do I become a customer?
I went to Bank of America’s Web site today. Then I went to Wells Fargo’s. Both sites shared many similarities, but the thing that stood out the most about both had to be the amount of information being squeezed onto their home pages. With so many links it looked like Bank of America and Wells Fargo were selling ad space to Google. But how do you sign up?
Credit union Web sites are the same way, with maybe a little less clutter. The problem is, we only design our sites for existing members. Not a bad idea, as our number one mission is to serve members, but here’s the thing. We started tracking Web traffic at my credit union recently and found that people were really only visiting our site to log into Online Banking to check account balances, pay bills and move money around. Virtually no one was visiting our site to learn about accounts.
I doubt my credit union can be alone, so why don’t we beat the major banks to the punch and follow the ING Direct approach? Let’s focus our Web sites on acquiring new members. The ING Direct Web site isn’t beautiful, but the site’s simplicity and structure help ING effectively attract new customers while serving existing ones.
Of course this is easier said than done with technological and regulatory considerations, but now is the time. Time to make it easy, make it simple, and make it happen all online. The fact of the matter is your bank or credit union hasn’t earned my time yet, so I’m not going to spend more than 10 seconds trying to figure out how to become a member. And I’m certainly not going to come into a branch to open an account, unless the branch is across the street from my home or work. It’s true that youth are impatient, but it’s also true that we’re the future.
Comments
5
I’m with you, Mike. use the Web as something sticky, not just something connected.
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Mike, I look at web sites as ‘digital windows’ into the companies they represent. If some financial institution web sites are over cluttered with content, maybe they are trying to be everything to everybody instead of just trying to be great at one thing? Your comparison of ING Direct and Bank of America or Wells Fargo illustrates the differences between these two approaches perfectly. ING Direct focuses on three core products; Orange Savings, Electronic Orange (checking), and their Orange Mortgage product… as for the other two I don’t think the character limit on blog replies would accommodate listing out all the lines of business they are involved in!
Another online challenge for credit unions is providing a single online application that serves ALL the online needs for both existing members AND potential new members. With many credit unions outsourcing parts of their business to vendors and CUSOs (loan applications and decision, online banking, bill pay, mortgage applications and processing, etc.), you unintentionally end up with several separate online applications in additional to your standard web site content! We place such emphasis on serving existing members online that we miss out on focusing on ways to better serve potential new members who visit as well.
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A company’s website is their most valuable real estate. Too much junk and you look like Aunt Pearl’s yard full of garden nomes, plywood butts and pink flamingos.
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@Carma Lay off the garden gnomes! :)
A financial institution should allow members to do anything they can do in-branch, online. Digital brochures suck.
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First off I agree with Matt, everything available at the branch should be available in some capacity on line. Understanding of course that members will need to sign documents to verify their existance, the last thing we need is a blip in membership of 100,000 non-existing members.
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