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Banks evolve with customers
By Kalea Hall
Banks are no strangers to adapting to change.
With advances in technology comes change in what the banking clientele want and need, which consequently makes banks evolve with their customers.
“As technology has changed, customers have changed and the role of the teller will change,” said Steven Rhodes, Huntington executive vice president and director, branch sales and service.
Tellers have evolved from just processing simple transactions.
At Huntington, there are three core levels of tellers: the traditional teller, the traditional personal banker who customers can sit down with and talk about their needs, and a division called the universal banker.
Every colleague at the Huntington in-store locations is considered a universal banker. They basically are both the personal banker and traditional teller put together. In the past three to four years, the role of tellers at Huntington has started to evolve.
“We have also started to filter those positions into our traditional [out-of-store] locations,” Rhodes said.
But just because the role of the teller has changed and the way customers use banks also has changed does not mean the brick-and-mortar bank locations will go away. Those locations are still important to customers, Rhodes said.
“We still very much believe this is a people-to-people business,” Rhodes said.
PNC Bank also is training tellers to become universal bankers at its universal branches.
“They are being trained and developed to have full-scale conversations with the clients,” said Drew Martin, executive vice president and PNC market manager of Northern Ohio.
The universal bankers are there to help the client process transactions, explain products offered by the bank, answer questions and open accounts.
“We are still testing the strategy at universal branches,” Martin said.
The universal branch plan is to have consultants and more technology in branches throughout PNC’s markets, including Youngstown, but the time line for this is unknown.
Martin also emphasized that physical branches still matter and remain a primary concern for PNC customers.
Locally operated Farmers National Bank of Canfield also is taking steps to evolve with the client.
“A lot of our banks are going to a universal banker instead of a teller,” said Amber Wallace, chief marketing and retail officer for Farmers. “Now this universal banker can do everything. They have a wealth of knowledge.”
That wealth of knowledge includes being able to process transactions and open accounts, and they know more about lending.
Farmers is in the process of opening a branch in Alliance where those universal bankers will work. The community bank also has adapted with its online banking system. This weekend the bank will launch a new system that allows the customer to turn a debit card on and off and take a picture of a bill to pay it, instead of having to enter the information.
Farmers has worked with its 28,000 online banking users to prepare for the upgrade.
“You still need your branch,” Wallace said. “The relationship with the banker is important.”