The power of the human in the digital world

I've been a loyal, sometimes satisfied, often grumbled customer of the same bank for over 20 years. I use digital banking on a daily basis without thinking much. What I remember are two non-digital experiences.

Processes & computers can disappoint, people can delight

I rarely visit any branch of the bank. One day, I had to visit the main branch for two different transactions. The lady at the first counter performed the first one and gave me the lamest of all excuses: “the computer does not allow me to do the other transaction”. I waited in the second line; the customer ahead of me took ages. I angrily turned around and left the bank.

While walking towards my car, my mobile phone rang. The banking employee called me to apologize and politely ask me to come back.

I was flattered. The point: she understood the situation. She took that extra effort to ask her colleague about my name and contact information and to call an angry person.

In measurable terms, this lowered her productivity measured by, e.g. the number of transactions per hour. Further, it had minimal effect on “average customer satisfaction”.

However, she acted as a human being.

That was 10 years ago. I still remember my feelings at that moment.

Opening my kid’s bank account

Fast forward to 2018: my 7 year old son decided to open his own bank account and deposit all of his savings (all 13 euros that is). This change of banknotes and coins into a number on a computer screen is a big decision even for a gen Z child.

So, we visited our local branch. The “Open Bank Account” process took 20 minutes. It included lots of manual work and lots of paper.

During that time, I was calmly sipping my free coffee and thinking about how much the “Open Bank account process” costs (paper + employee work) and how it should be improved and digitalized.

On the other hand, my son was getting more and more nervous. If the bank needs 20 minutes and lots of paperwork with his father’s signature on it, is it trustworthy enough to keep his life savings? He almost changed his mind.

The banking employee recognized it and asked him also to sign himself on the contract. You should have seen his immensely proud face when he was doing so.

This is a kind of an activity that cannot be turned into a business rule, internal instructions for employees, or a gateway in a BPMN diagram. Even further: technically, the employee was breaking the rules – all documents only needed to be signed by me as his legal guardian.

And that is the ultimate challenge of artificial intelligence: how to build an algorithm that will recognize customer anxiety, the reasons for it and will understand that putting 12 letters on the paper will dramatically reduce the worries and allow successful completion of the transaction. Oh, a “grandma” kind of a look from an employee asking for it also helped.

Don't get me wrong: I make my living from researching, teaching, and consulting on digital transformation, supply chain, business process management, business model innovation and related topics. If a company does not continually improve its business model and digitalize its business processes, it will eventually go out of business.

But these small, human touches may be the final tipping points for success. 

#humanizingdigitalwork