STRATEGIC PARTNERS
February 21, 2002
Where have all the people gone?
This was the question that customers of a large British bank asked Thursday when they saw no tellers -- only machines -- to handle their financial needs.
As part of an experiment, Lloyds, Britain's largest retail bank had substituted ATMs for its staff at branches in Reading, near London, according to news reports.
However, the test so infuriated customers that they threatened to bank elsewhere, which prompted Lloyds to return human tellers to the branches.
Lloyds' experiment marks a trend among banks to wean customers away from using tellers for service to cut expenses. But, if the test was any indication, many consumers aren't ready to give up interacting with a live being.
Gordon Pell, Lloyds' director of retail banking said: ``As with any pilot, the experiment in Reading was a useful learning experience and we have listened closely to what our customers have told us.'
The movement to replace humans with machines has sparked competition in the banking industry by teller-less branches, like First Direct, which solely relies on the Internet and telephone to provide customer service.
