Virtual tellers can offer banking customers the human connection they crave

The news: Consumers are increasingly turning to self-checkout for efficiency, especially in retail, and this trend extends to the banking sector as well, per the PYMNTS report “Going Solo: Self-Service Catches On Across Retail and Banking.”

By the numbers: The survey behind the report found that most banking customers consider video interactions comparable to face-to-face interactions.

• Almost 70% feel working remotely with virtual tellers feels just like speaking with someone in person.
• 36% said speaking with a virtual teller was better than working with one in a branch.
• 90% of banking customers that have tried these virtual interactions would do so again.
• 25% of Gen Zers and 15% of baby boomers said they’d weigh a financial institution’s self-service ATMs as a factor when choosing where to bank.

How we got here: Young consumers especially have grown up in a digital world, turning to videos for news and to learn about products, trends, and how to perform tasks. A pandemic lockdown at a pivotal moment in their lives helped solidify their comfort with virtual interactions. 

• Jonah Stillman, who co-authored the book “Gen Z @ Work,” told the BBC that 84% of Gen Zers prefer face-to-face communication over texts or emails, and see videos like Zoom calls as this type of communication.
• Many young consumers seek to mitigate unprompted interactions by putting their phones on “Do Not Disturb,” which further exacerbates their social anxiety, per Psychology Today.
• Virtual tellers also offer socially anxious young consumers a more comfortable alternative to walking into a branch, waiting in line, and speaking with someone in person. 

What this means for FIs: Embarking on digital innovation and expanding or maintaining an FI’s brick-and-mortar presence may have seemed like a binary strategic decision—but virtual tellers offer banks a hybrid option that seems to resonate with customers who crave both human interactions and swift digital service. 

This strategy also gives FIs a human alternative to relying on chatbots to provide the humanized customer service customers crave.

• But FIs that use virtual tellers should train them to understand the local clientele they’ll be interacting with if they’re located elsewhere.