Change Your Mindset #18: Bankers' Hours are not necessarily Customers' Hours

Several years ago, I was speaking with the President of a community college who was describing the intense labor negotiations he was conducting with his faculty union. The college had shown a significant increase in demand in its evening and Saturday offerings while struggling to fill classrooms during the ‘traditional’ Mon-Fri 9am-5pm hours that the faculty was contracted to teach. He went on to stress his resolve to maintain a healthy institution by proclaiming “I am going to offer courses when students want to take them, not when faculty wants to teach them!”

Sound vaguely familiar? It is hard for me to understand, but even today I often hear bankers talk about their version of this story: “Extending hours will only spread out the same amount of business over longer hours.” Or, “When I was at Bank X we extended our hours and didn’t get any new customers.”

But let’s face it; people today are accustomed to the utmost convenience in every facet of their lives. A couple of examples: people (translation: your customers) today hear cable TV service advertising “On Demand” Movies, they can buy/download music at anytime, not to mention everything else that can be accessed at anytime online. But that doesn’t mean movie theatres are obsolete, nor are music outlets, or sit down eateries, or libraries. And I’m sure you can think of countless other examples from other industries we see every day.

And while there are obviously other factors in play, customer convenience is at the core of all these examples. Customers are conditioned by other industries to demand access whenever they want it; so it’s no surprise that convenience is one of the biggest drivers in many of today’s consumer purchasing habits.

While we aren’t recommending that you follow Bank Atlantic’s approach where many of its branches are open seven days a week with some open until midnight, we are encouraging you to consider your customers’ needs and preferences. As customer expectations of bank hours shift, you must address the shifts in order to stay relevant and competitive. In many markets this means staying open later than 5:00 p.m. at least a couple nights a week and having branch hours on Saturday; and increasingly, we are seeing the expectation, or the norm shift to extended hours across all days of the week.

TCF is another great example of a bank that has made a commitment to extended hours. TCF is "open 7 days" and has made that statement its most visible value proposition as its tagline.

So when we are thinking about the value added by your institution, consider how convenient you are in terms of operating hours in addition to your physical location. . For “If you build it (or have built it), they will come,” can only hold true when it’s convenient for your customers – and it has to be on their terms/hours, not yours.

Redefining Bankers' Hours

Today’s customers are demanding. They want access and they want convenience; and they want it on their terms. And in an industry flooded with customer-centered value propositions (which often times end up being little more than hot air), many would expect that customers’ demands for access and convenience would translate, at the very least, into extended operating hours - beyond the traditional 9-5, and certainly beyond Monday-Friday and Saturday mornings.

It’s surprising that more institutions haven’t adopted similar extended-hour strategies like those of TCF Bank ($14.4bil.; Wayzata, MN) and BankAtlantic ($6.2bil.; Ft. Lauderdale, FL). These two institutions obviously understand the value of their customers’ time; they have adopted non-traditional operating hours (for banks); and, most importantly, they allow this convenience to drive their value propositions.

“Open 7 Days” and “Florida’s Most Convenient Bank – 7 Days a Week” clearly communicate real value to the customer or prospective customer; and, because many financial institutions are still operating with “normal” business hours, TCF Bank and BankAtlantic have a clear differentiator that will truly set them apart from the competition.

Throughout Chicagoland, TCF Bank has taken substantial steps to incorporate its tagline: “Open 7 Days” not only into its marketing materials, but also into its branch signage – indicating that this is not temporary; and institutions should take note. I recently saw an advertisement for TCF Bank which expands upon the message of being “Open 7 Days” to include the message: “Redefining Bankers’ Hours,” and this statement couldn't be more true.

In addition, while many institutions can’t comprehend staying open later than 5:00 or 6:00pm, BankAtlantic has many branches that are open until midnight. Jarett Levan, the Bank’s president had this to say about the initiative: “we remain extremely committed to redefining bankers’ hours…As time increasingly becomes a precious commodity for our customers, we hope we are providing a convenient alternative to help with our customers’ busy schedules.”

Let’s face it – change can be difficult, especially when it means that you and your staff will be working weekends or working later than 5:00pm. This isn’t to say that every institution should be open 24/7; but rather, that institutions must adapt to their customers’ needs – and, more often than not, this will mean stepping outside of your comfort zone, changing the way you do business and offering real value to your customers.