To get your bank’s people ready for a technology upgrade, you need to do two things: educate front line staff so they become ambassadors for the new tech and help customers learn how to use it. Sounds easy, but in many cases, financial institutions don’t have the right tools to nail their digital customer experience through a technology upgrade.
Start with developing your training and development assets for staff training into the bank’s technology project plan and each rollout. Your staff needs to time to become familiar with the new technology; launching training two weeks prior to go-live won’t set them up to successfully help customers access the new services. Project managers and executive sponsors should develop and test a digital banking curriculum in advance of rollout and begin training front line staff on how to use the tech before launching it to the public.
The seemingly logical approach is to ask the bank’s learning and development group to create some new tech training in the learning management system (LMS). But that often doesn’t work. Traditional LMSes often aren’t tooled for digital experiences; static learning content struggles to drive digital fluency among employees. And tedious training approaches or topics can foster an aversion to LMS training among staff. Banks investing in their digital products and services may want to consider a modern solution that’s tooled for teaching tech.
Game-based learning that uses built-in incentives and an employee’s inherent motivation, as well as interactive role-plays and visually appealing learning modules, are often the most effective way to help today’s employees retain essential information. These innovative elements can make the difference in a bank’s training system and subsequent customer interactions.
And as your staff tries out the tech, either in-house or after launch, be sure to explicitly ask and encourage for their feedback on the digital experience. What can be improved? Which features are hard to understand or non-intuitive? What additional features and functions are desired? Where do they stumble when using the tech?
Endicott, New York-based Visions Federal Credit Union created a digital advisory board made up of a dozen rank-and-file employees who meet monthly to discuss consumer behavior trends, review prospective vendor partnerships and provide feedback on the institution’s use of consumer technology.
“They’re not necessarily managers, VPs or SVPs,” says Tom Novak, vice president and chief digital officer at Visions Federal Credit Union. “They’re day-to-day employees that are in the know about what’s happening in technology, social media and typical consumer lifestyles. They understand why people are on TikTok more than Facebook, or why they use Venmo instead of traditional PayPal mechanisms.”
Your team will also need the right tools to support your customers after their training. Consider providing them with access to technology walk-throughs and simulators, so they can easily find quick tips and features to help customers calling in or visiting a branch. Ensure your learning solution provides staff with support in the flow of work, so they can help customers on demand.
Finally, allow your customers to “test drive” the tech before they commit. Change is hard on your customers too. Your institution needs to be prepared to coach them along the journey — whether that’s a new digitally based product or service or an upgrade from a prior solution that they have grown comfortable with over time. Give them a chance to try it out, and provide them with a safety net through easy-to-use, shareable technology walkthroughs and simulators to make learning easy.
While financial institutions of all sizes are making significant investments to transform their technology to meet the ever-changing needs of their customers, the biggest hurdle often comes in right at the end. To achieve success in your technology upgrade, your bank will need to leverage the power of your people through a well-considered deployment strategy that places intuitive learning and technology support squarely at its center. New, innovative learning and development tools make these processes — and ultimately, the digital transformation — less intimidating, engaging, fun and flexible.
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