Author: Alden Seabolt, Head of Blend Consumer Banking. The views expressed here are solely those of the author.

For years, bankers proudly declared they were engaged in a fierce battle for deposits. Perhaps the best representative of this strategy was Hugh McColl Jr., a former Marine and tough banker who famously kept a hand grenade on his desk in Charlotte, North Carolina. McColl, who retired as CEO of Bank of America in 2001, was passionate about mergers and acquisitions, once telling rivals that if they did not accept his takeover offer, he was prepared to "fire missiles."

Times have changed. Strategies that worked well for banks in the past are being replaced. The focus now should be on winning customers' hearts and minds. Don't fight for deposits.

The mission of bank leaders is to help customers easily access the financial tools they need to achieve their goals. Sustained success depends on defining the institution's role through a relationship-oriented lens: as a trusted expert financial advisor, providing guidance and superior service at every step of the customer's lifelong financial journey.

Customer relationships should possess many characteristics of a successful marriage. The process of getting to know each other is a slow dance—a courtship—that is the development of trust and mutual respect. Over time, this blossoms into a committed, long-term partnership.

Attract customers, not customer profiles

Like the cautious and meticulous early months of a budding relationship, successful lender-customer partnerships are built on listening—an act that seems simple but is quite challenging to do well. To this end, bank leadership can broaden the scope of strategic thinking, focusing on the core drivers of consumer relationships. Study the success of exceptional consumer brands like Apple, Netflix, and Amazon.

When customers walk into an Apple retail store, there is no hard sell. Customers are encouraged to browse, try out any product on display, and ask questions. Apple retail employees (who are not paid on commission) demonstrate deep knowledge of the company's products.

This product-agnostic, interaction-focused approach encourages employees to explore, understand, and address the customer's ultimate dreams—rather than pushing a specific piece of technology.

When a customer interacts with a bank, they want to be treated as an individual with financial goals, not as a profile user categorized by the few products they use. (Imagine if Apple categorized every customer merely as an iPhone user or a MacBook Pro user.) Product-oriented thinking gives rise to outdated metaphors like the "deposit war."

To address this misalignment, there are three concrete steps:

  • Be obsessed with understanding customers.Use a research mindset to deepen this understanding, and leverage advanced technology to capture customer information. Encourage branch employees to approach with curious empathy, combined with organization-wide knowledge of products and services, with the goal not of selling but of understanding the customer.
  • Ensure that operational organizations across product lines can easily access this hard-earned data.When different teams within the organization can see the customer as a complete picture, rather than scattered puzzle pieces, they can better meet the customer's overall needs.
  • Seek the intimacy and closeness customers feel when they are understood.Some solutions are simple, such as auto-filling application information from one product to another. Others are more sophisticated, such as connecting customers to the products that best serve their goals.

Regardless of the underlying complexity, customers expect a high level of personalized care. Providing that care creates the invisible glue that sustains lifelong relationships.

Fast and frictionless

Consumers expect fast and frictionless digital experiences with their banks, just like their experiences with Apple, Amazon, or Netflix. But getting a mortgage or opening a retirement account is clearly more significant than buying a winter coat online or watching a movie.

This is where branch bankers can make a difference, providing trusted guidance and superior service at every stage of the customer's financial journey. By empowering employees with the data and tools they need, free them to deliver the human touch that creates long-term value.

Even the tough McColl, despite his strong personality and preference for military metaphors, embraced the goal of servant leadership, working tirelessly for bank customers and their communities. If a retired Marine can abandon war rhetoric and support relationship building, then certainly other bank leadership can too.