« Innovation supplement | Home | Innovativeness ranking »

28.06.06

Stores not branches

In this Business 2.0 article, Dick Kovacevich (CEO of Wells Fargo) explains why his bank see their “branches” rather as stores — in contrast to their competitors. According to Dick Kovacevich, Wells Fargo doubled the number of bankers in their stores over the past five years. Why? Because of the many opportunities customer contacts provide — and those are obviously translated well into added value for the company:

“Every transaction is an opportunity to engage a customer - both to satisfy a transactional need and also to sell him something. And the transaction actually gives you an understanding of customer needs or another new opportunity. If you come in and cash a check from Fidelity, one of our tellers or someone should ask “Could we introduce you to an investment consultant to see if we can do a better job for you than Fidelity?” and so on. So store traffic is good even though it can be more costly, because transactions give us an opportunity to understand and satisfy a customer’s need, and therefore make new sales. And I would just ask two rhetorical questions: Who over time have been the better merchandisers, retail stores or banks, in terms of their ability to attract customers and serve them well? Most people would say retailers have been more effective than banks. And I’d ask the second rhetorical question: How many retailers don’t want customers in their stores?”

You may wish to leave a from your own site.