"For the tenth time, no I'm not interested...I'm having dinner with my wife. Stop calling."

This speaks to knowing your audience.

One of the tasks Retail Banks have their customer service reps perform is to make outbound phone calls to customers in the evenings with the objective of engaging customers in sales conversations.

The Banks adopt an “inside-out" rationale for justifying this activity, i.e. they focus on their internal strengths, resources and sales objectives. The customer doesn’t factor into it. The contact ratio is very low, yet they consider the activity worthwhile if it initiates even 1 sale in 100 calls, and assume that customers will receive value from the calls (verbal content for lack of a better term).

If Banks took a customer point-of-view, i.e. “outside-in”, and learned more about their audience, they might find that customers don’t want to be interrupted in the evening. They might also find that it could be harmful to long-term relationships and that customers don’t find value being cold-called, but might instead want more valuable online or mobile content. Banks will never know unless they adopt an outside-in philosophy.

I’d be interested to hear any suggestions on content that banks could provide that would be relevant to you. Content that provides value when and where you need it. My own thoughts are that banks could do much more to help customers better manage their personal finances. Banks make good revenue from overdraft fees, so you would imagine the incentive is low. However, by providing rich content through mobile apps and a real-time text dialogue with service reps, for example, the value to customers could strengthen long-term relationships and far outweigh lost revenue from fees over the long run.