A video conversation is an alternative to the classic face-to-face appointment. Many people – including myself – find this a more than fitting alternative to the classic appointment with for example your banker or (independent) advisor. And if you want to believe the success stories of Royal Bank of Canada and Nationwide (UK), among others, you should have started that yesterday. Still not convinced? Let’s take a look at the recently published report by EFMA and Vidyo about video banking. This tells us, among other things, that almost 20% of the 282 organizations researched in 63 countries see video banking as a full and legitimate channel.
LIMITED AVAILABILITY
If we take the Netherlands as an example. This small, rainy country is on the forefront of digital innovation, but only a couple of organizations in the Netherlands that really utilize communication via a video connection. In other words, contact via video conversations has a very limited availability. The development of consultants has actually come to a grinding halt. Thankfully, this is of course not true everywhere. There are plenty of examples where this is done right, where the modern consultant gets this space. As far as I’m concerned, one of the best examples of video banking is the mortgage conversation as done by ABN AMRO in the Netherlands.
LOOKING FOR THE WHY
So the question is why there are no more organizations that take this on? Why are we in the Netherlands behind on the surrounding countries? Maybe that is because we are not yet enough inconvenienced by our commute times. After all, our geographical distances are relatively limited. Nevertheless, there are a couple of other reasons that influence a successful implementation.
1. Strategic calendar
2. Costs
3. The consultant
Strategic calendar is immediately our heavy weight. To get this topic on the strategic calendar requires faith and perseverance. After all, without strategic support, you won’t get very far. But for those of us who are in sales and marketing, it is definitely word your time and effort to stop avoiding the conversation about this. By now, enough research is available to at least get a go for an experiment. At that point, you might have caused an avalanche.
Costs. Of course, everything costs money. The video conversation is no exception. But it would not be correct to state that it would be very expensive. If you just look at the technology, then you can start working at a couple of euros per users per month, depending on what provider and features you choose. This might actually be the most affordable way for your organization to innovate. It won’t start costing money if the technology has to be implemented in an existing system, for example a mobile banking system. Something that I strongly encourage from a customer’s point of view, by the way.
The consultant is no surprise. Change hurts and is usually accompanied with resistance; this is no exception to that. And we all know that this is the area in which errors can be most devastating. So don’t think of this too lightly, and make sure that your consultants get enough support and applicable training in video conversations. It won’t be until your consultants are completely convinced of this solution that you can start to fully enjoy the benefits of the video conversation.
THE TIME IS NOW
But no matter how great the challenge may be, the video conversation is really a fitting and modern alternative to the classic face-to-face conversation. So, the time is now to start, even if it would just be to experiment. Sometimes it is then useful to get some interpretation. Sometimes it is more useful to start executing. Whatever it is that is needed, GoGrapefruit helps organizations to further shape this interesting question. What we do? We provide impressive video conversations.
