Your Future Nimble Branch Execution Is Here Now

In recent years, bank branches have been under both financial and regulatory pressure, with locations facing falling profits and rising closures. And COVID-19 has only accelerated some of these trends.

While banks overall remain safe, they face the pandemic, a recession, and other headwinds. This means bank executives must make hard choices in how they manage their branches. Most banks have migrated more of their personalized services into a digital format; others are allowing work from home and reducing branch hours; and so on.

Branch Staff Are Key to Success

Despite these trends, branch associates can have an incredible impact on the retail bank’s success. These associates handle key tasks—brand ambassadorship; customer servicing and sales; financial advising—and they create and maintain relationships with individual clients.

As banks respond to COVID-19, their stressed existing systems and processes are showing gaps. Associates are asked to execute new tasks that present unique and unexpected challenges. For example, they are ensuring compliance with rapidly changing health and safety regulations.

And they also are executing emergency business loans, as well as overseeing new cleaning procedures, among other tasks. And now more than ever, branch associates’ time and effort must be also customer-focused and success-enabled, to efficiently and speedily help clients navigate difficult and confusing circumstances.

Eliminate Branch Effectiveness Roadblocks

Traditionally, banks have leveraged a variety of heterogenous and largely disconnected online and manual systems. These rigid and monolithic tools and processes make communication and branch execution difficult. It’s essential to fix these systems and enable branch workforce nimbleness now.

One persistent branch challenge has been the creation of effective frontline communications. According to our recent International Branch Banking Survey, 27 percent of respondents claimed corporate communication methods were only somewhat efficient—or worse.

Many branch employees lack mobile or web-accessible tools and modern processes. Instead, they rely on paper-based or verbal instructions for customer service or internal operations. As a result, important updates and communications end up misdirected or unclear.

New Branch Transformation Execution Models

However, some industries (such as retail) have already demonstrated quantifiable success with agile staffing and execution. For example, many large retailers already support mobile employee devices for managing daily tasks, communication and scheduling.

Instead of toggling between Excel sheets or paper checklists, managers and employees can access and complete assigned activities from mobile devices for improved visibility and accountability. These systems can also prioritize work, flag exceptions, and ensure the quick resolution of recurring problems. Ultimately, this enables employees to do more, intelligently, and on the fly.

Likewise, bank branches can empower nimble execution for the current crisis and beyond. They are enabled to do this by using a holistic workforce and execution platform. Such a system can offer a complete view of daily branch activities and touchpoints.

Not only can branch staff easily see what needs to be done—from a single interface—management can also ensure that employees have received, read, and executed the latest bank directives and activities. As a result, managers avoid wasted time and effort performing branch or regional follow-up.

To learn more about powering nimble branch execution, read our latest white paper: “Solving the Branch Banking Workforce Execution Challenge Today.”