Banking services used to be simple and straightforward. You got a paycheck, filled out a deposit slip, walked or drove up to the counter and presto, your needs were met. Perks? Anyone for day-old coffee and a lollipop?

Today, banks, credit unions, pay-day loans and other financial firms look more like modern retailers. The amount of financial services has mushroomed, and with more customers choosing to bank on their mobile devices, the need for promotions to build awareness has never been greater.

Also like modern retailers, progressive financial institutions have shifted into high gear meeting customers’ needs for a better, more connected experience by creating an atmosphere that is conducive to selling financial products.

However, today’s connected finance customer can get services almost anywhere but the bank—on the Internet, via mobile apps, or at the ubiquitous ATM. Human interaction is no longer required for a bank transaction. Considering this, we ask, is self-service the future of banking?

According to the TD Branch Financial Education Survey, some of those “old fashioned” face-to-face banking practices are not only valid today, but also have demand from younger generations. For example, consider these recent findings:

• 54% of Millennials prefer to visit their bank for detailed information.
• Millennials still visit bank branches as frequently as they did in 2013 for simple transactions.
• 90% of consumers prefer face-to-face advice for complex financial products.

To be sure, routine transactional banking activities are going digital by the majority of customers with over 50% using online services, but for more complex transactions that require thorough consideration, modern banks are meeting the needs of consumers by shifting to the concept of full-service flagship locations.  These consumer-friendly centers provide a plethora of financial services and tools, and are staffed with knowledgeable associates for on-the-spot assistance alongside self-serve kiosks for the do-it-yourself customer.

“Many people do their banking not only at a branch but online as well,” noted Robert Moctezuma in the Digital Signage For Financial Institutions white paper published by DigitalSignageToday.com.  “Digital signage can help tie together the financial institution’s online and offline presence.”

“When people walk into a branch just wanting to do a few things, there may be a line at the cashier. They can go to a sign, they can touch it, they can interact, and they can get what they need done,” Moctezuma said. “That helps the institution extend the online presence to the offline world.”

Since banks can no longer take walk-in or even drive-through customers for granted, managers want to do their utmost to maximize the opportunity. This is where modern banking differentiates itself from our parents’ bank. Modern banking crosses the digital divide to connect to customers in new ways, ways that provide information and ways that provide services.

Here are four examples that demonstrate how digital signage can improve the customer experience and better meet growing expectations.

Cross-Selling Financial Services – The common task of cross-selling financial services typically falls on tellers’ shoulders, which is not the best game plan for positions that have high turnover. Fortunately, digital signage provides a platform that can prime customers’ interests and create awareness before having that conversation.

Customer Experience – Modern banking can facilitate better customer experience by reinforcing the brand—and the atmosphere—that makes the client better informed and more inclined to accept additional services. This can happen through customer engagement with both bank employees and interactive media, bolstering services that directly address and fulfills customers’ needs on the spot.

Drive-Through Banking – For approximately 60% of the customers that drive to the bank, the majority use the drive-through to meet their banking needs, which is possibly the most overlooked opportunity to promote and cross-sell customers. Today’s digital signage can be easily placed outdoors, providing a reliable, dynamic way to keep drive-through customers informed.

Staff Training – Bank employees can benefit as much as patrons with targeted digital sign messages. Keeping staff up to date with the latest promotions, rates, and industry regulations becomes much easier on a display platform that resides in break rooms and cafeterias. Busy personnel can be reminded of the most important product promotions, rates, and other service offerings that managers want to emphasize. This greatly reduces the time required training staff, and the reinforcement greatly improves retention.

So, to resolve the question we started with, the answer is a resounding YES! Self-service is the future of banking, but that future will also include many digital bridges that go right back to face-to-face services that even your Grand Pa and Grand Ma would fondly remember, barring the stale coffee of course.

David Little is a charter member of the Digital Screenmedia Association with over 20 years of experience helping professionals use technology to effectively communicate their unique marketing messages. For many more helpful digital signage tips, examples and solutions, keep in touch with Little at KeywestTechnology.com.

Disruptive technologies can greatly change society. For example, in 2007, Apple released the iPhone that had a massive impact on how and why people use phones. Yes, most of us still talk on phones, but we are using smartphones for just about everything else, too. How much longer will society tolerate anything less than "smart", and what does all this mean to the future of digital signage?

Life was certainly less connected before smartphones. For example, before most people knew that an Apple was more than a tasty fruit, I was fortunate (or unfortunate depending on your perspective) to have had one of the first smartphones on the market, a Toshiba Pocket PC. If you have never heard of this product, that's probably because it was made about the time you were born or otherwise too young to care.

What do I remember about this phone? Nothing glamorous. It was slow, clunky to operate, prone to glitches, required rebooting about as often as Windows 95, even crashing with the blue screen of death on occasion!

And when I think about this a bit more, I realize the same could be said about legacy digital signage systems.

It just so happens I was involved with the nascent digital signage industry in the 90s, the same decade the original smartphones were invented. Yes, when I think about digital signage in the 90s, I can easily conclude it too was slow, clunky to operate, prone to glitches, required rebooting about as often as Windows 95, even crashing with the blue screen of death on occasion!

However, if I were to sum up digital signage starting in the 90s right up to the last few years, one would have to say that despite all of its quirks and limitations, it was glamorous. How about you? How did you feel about digital signage in its infant years? Try this; think back to the very first time you saw a flat panel television. You were likely spellbound with its thin stature and seductive HD resolution. If not spellbound, maybe you remember being gagged by its price with those early plasma panels costing over $10K each.

Peering into 2014 and beyond, I think we can safely say that digital signage is beyond glamorous-it's a bona fide medium-at least for advertisers. For example, at the 2013 Digital Place-based Advertising Association (DPAA) summit held in New York City, the panelists agreed that place-based advertising (think digital sign media) would continue to rise through 2017 (up from 5% to as much as 25%). "I think place-based will outgrow [other forms of media] because it lends itself to targeting customers," said Chris Paul, General Manager AOD of VivaKi. "It is just a matter of technology, terminology, and industry understanding being in sync before we see dramatic changes."

What kind of dramatic changes is Paul alluding to? Possibly, the 2013 ANA/Nielsen Survey has the answer. The survey states that in three years, the importance of integrated multi-screen campaigns is expected to dramatically increase, from 20 percent of digital media purchases today to a projected 50 percent by 2016.

We might consider at this point the attributes that would lead to such optimism on spending. According to the survey, spending increases on multi-screen campaigns will require three main things:

• Verification that advertising achieved the desired result (noted by 71 percent of respondents)
• Consistent metrics across screens (61 percent)
• Verification that advertising was delivered to the right audience (59 percent)

Are you one of those that still think digital signage is a fad? Heads up! According to the AdNation News article, Digital Place-based Media, What's Ahead?, there are strong reasons to believe it's here to stay. The article reported a case study related by David Krupp, CEO of Kinetic, who shared information about Degree Women's "DO MORE" antiperspirant campaign.

 "By focusing place-based media in gyms, likely to be seen by women while they were working out, the study concluded that consumers had better recall (56%) and a stronger intent to purchase (62%) than the control group. Krupp described Degree as 'the right brand for the right environment' because in this place-based campaign, it reached a large scale of consumers, who were in the right mindset to recall the product."

So digital signage went from glamorous to a medium to a business almost overnight. It started out as an eccentric technology with a glamorous flair. Eccentric because no one was exactly sure what to do with it and how to best use it-plus it was unfriendly to use and awkward to manage.

But glamour alone does not build markets. Results build markets because investors put their money where opportunities look promising, and digital signage has been adept at getting results. Looking forward to 2014 and beyond, we can now make an educated guess at where digital signage is heading, and we need to look no further than the popularity of smartphones, online gaming devices, tablets and the Internet itself.

What do these popular technologies all have in common? The single thread that ties everything together comes in the form of engagement. Digital signage of yesteryear behaved more like our parents' TV-it broadcast a message to its likely viewers without a plan for interaction. There's nothing wrong with this, of course, but the big opportunity for digital signage going forward has more to do with engagement. Engagement is the way forward for digital media of all kinds, including advertising, branding, infotainment, videos, movies, gaming, and social media at large.

David Little is a charter member of Digital Screenmedia Association with over 10 years of experience supplying professionals with trusted digital signage solutions. For many more helpful digital signage tips, examples and solutions, keep in touch with Keywest Technology.

New research from IHS iSuppli indicates growing adoption of digital signage around the world as professionals in the retail, hospitality, healthcare, corporate and government sectors look to the medium to communicate to audiences on the go.

Political watchers probably are familiar with that often-asked question -and even more often asked in an election year: Is the country on the right track or the wrong track?

I would propose that those who make their living communicating marketing messages, ads, information and even entertainment on digital signs should frequently ask themselves a similar question. Is digital signage on the right track or wrong track? In other words, is digital signage a growing, vibrant communications medium that is headed in the right direction as a viable communications choice? Or, is it losing favor?

A new forecast from display market research specialists IHS iSuppli suggests that, indeed, digital signage is on the right track, at least if its adoption is any indication. According to the forecast, digital signage will see impressive growth. Worldwide shipments of signage and professional displays this year will reach 17.2 million units, up from 15.4 million in 2011 and 13.5 million in 2010. For the year, the unit shipments will reach 12.6 percent, and by 2016 they are expected to reach nearly 26 million units, IHS iSuppli forecasts.

The research firm attributes the healthy growth to a few factors, including a greater need for digital signage in public spaces and the rapidly declining price of LCD panels.

The IHS iSuppli forecast also identifies the largest digital signage markets for 2011. They include retail, hospitality/healthcare and government/corporate. The forecast also finds the education, outdoor and control room/simulation markets to be important.

So why are those with a message to communicate increasingly adopting digital signage? A few reasons are clear. First, digital signage has the unique ability to reach the public with clear, impactful communications when they are on the go.

Second, because it's a place-based medium, digital signage communicators can identify areas to locate signs that likely will be frequented by their target audience. For example, a restaurateur has a pretty good idea that the people entering the restaurant have eating on their minds, and the registrar of a college knows students entering the administration building at the beginning of the semester are likely interested in class registration information.

Third, digital signage offers communicators the chance to change messaging frequently -at little to no expense- which makes the medium responsive to rapidly changing requirements.

For all of these reasons and several others that have been well discussed in this space in the past, digital signage increasingly is being selected as an important part of an overall communications strategy.

As this nation enters the political season, journalists surely will report on the public's response to the right-track-wrong-track question. I'm sure each time I hear one of those stories, I am will be reminded of this column and the clear evidence from IHS iSuppli that digital signage is indeed on the right track as a communications medium.

While prognosticating about the results of any of this political season's races is a craps shoot, one thing is predictable. Digital signage as a communications medium will remain on the right track as long as professional communicators need to reach people on the go with their important messages.