Pub. 9 2014-2015 Issue 5

www.nebankers.org 26 Extraordinary Service for Extraordinary Members. I N THE AGE OF DIGITAL MEDIA, INVEST- ing in your tellers may seem counterintuitive. Most banks I visit don’t seem very interested in products requiring human intervention. The drive in the industry is to outsource any and all functions possible to the consumer. Of course, this is all done in the name of convenience to the cus- tomer. Why not be able to take a picture of a check while I am sitting on my couch and deposit it into my bank? The solution is great, but does this provide “real” service? Given the transition in banking to web-enabled services, one has to won- der if the teller will survive. Nationally, tellers are declining at a rapid pace. Since 2007, the number of tellers in the United States has decreased by 13.2 per- cent, according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. Teller salaries are also decreasing at the national level. In 2013, the average teller salary decreased by 6.7 percent after adjusting for inflation. These factors are leading to a smaller pool of talent from which to pull and eventually will lead to turnover. Salvation for Tellers in a Digital World Josh Banta , VP Service & Technical Sales, Data Business Equipment Inc. So why should we continue to staff the teller line? The answer is that cus- tomers crave human interaction. If we could simply place machines outside and have our customers complete all of their banking through them, the ATM would have long since destroyed the teller line. If mobile banking was the answer, banks would see much higher adoption rates than the typical 15 per- cent. The fact is that bank customers still want to see a face while conducting transactions.