In this test-drive report, we apply the Product Select and Buy Customer Scenario pattern and its "I want to find the product or service that best addresses my requirements" Moment of Truth to financial services for a customer's research, comparison, and selection activities for a new retail bank. In our scenario, Penny Pinscher is looking for a new retail bank for her day-to-day financial transactions; her current bank was acquired and no longer meets her needs. Her Moment of Truth is to easily find a new bank that meets all her primary banking needs.

The metrics around this moment of truth include the ability to find all the information she needs without making even one phone call; finding this information on each prospect bank's Web site within 30 minutes; being able to narrow the choices of bank account offerings down to the one offering most suitable for her; and being able to find a combination of accounts that requires no more than a maintained balance of $3,000 to avoid monthly account fees and that offers attractive interest rates.

To gather the information she needs to make a decision, Penny visits the Web sites of:

• Bank of America
• Citibank
• Wells Fargo

Results

Penny is able to narrow down her choices of accounts on both Bank of America's and Citibank's sites. None of the sites provided all of the information she needed online. Finally, none the banks met the 30-minute metric Penny wanted, primarily because she had to waste a lot of time looking for information she failed to find.

Ultimately, Penny selected Citibank, more for the products offered than for the customer experience, which was about on par with Bank of America.

The Bottom Line

All the Banks Met Penny's Basic Requirements, but Didn't Provide All Information or Meet All Metrics

Penny was able to identify appropriate accounts for her at Bank of America and Citibank. Although she was confident that Wells Fargo did offer accounts she might want, she was overwhelmed and confused after an hour researching, so she wasn't able to narrow her choices down to the best option for her.

None of the sites provided all the information that she was looking for on their site. And, because she had to either talk to someone on the phone, or explicitly choose not to pursue some information after failing to find it online, she spent more time and effort than she would have liked to get all the product details.

Finally, it seems that 30 minutes is not enough time on any of the sites for looking for account information. Even discounting the tangents to phone calls and searching for missing information, none of the banks met the metric.

Ultimately, after all her research, Penny is moving her day-to-day banking accounts to Citibank, primarily because of the high interest rates offered on the online-only savings account.

Going Forward

Going forward, we plan to research and publish more test drives for the key Moments of Truth in Customer Scenario patterns in financial services, telecommunications, retail/ecommerce, and high-tech. You'll be able to apply them or even reuse them in the customer experience that you deliver. Remember, support your customers' Moments of Truth to have more satisfied, more loyal, more profitable customers...