Check-image makeover: how to market an imaging service to your checking-account customers ... so that they won't weep, balk, demand to continue receiving their cancelled checks or threaten to take their business across the street!(Promoting Check-Imaging)

• Author: O'Boyle, Ed

The 48 percent of banks in the United States that are not using check imaging were recently given another reason to adopt the technology.

The incentive was the enactment of the federal "Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act" ("Check 21"). This law will make it easier for banks to use electronic images or paper "duplicate checks" in check clearings--thus speeding up the process.

Banks with imaging technologies can use them for marketing purposes to "differentiate" themselves from competitors. For this reason, a number of banks that are not now employing imaging may jump on the bandwagon once Check 21 goes into effect this October.

The savvy institutions among this group will not be content simply to introduce check imaging. They also will develop comprehensive plans to market both the service as well as future services made possible by the technology--so that their customers will understand and accept the change without confusion, misunderstanding or bad feelings.

This article will outline the key elements of such a marketing effort and offer suggestions for those who are planning to implement a check-image campaign for their own bank.

Bank benefits

Is it necessary to market check imaging? Can't you throw it into the marketplace and assume that most customers eventually will adjust? If you care about customer retention, the answer is "no." Focus groups show that initially most customers are skeptical about a banking change that means they will no longer have their cancelled checks returned. The goal of a marketing campaign should be to create 100 percent understanding, participation and acceptance of the new service.

A bank will benefit from a check-imaging campaign by:

* Differentiating its product.

* Enhancing a "forward-thinking" image--by pointing out the unlimited ways that digital information (check imaging) can improve future services.

* Giving employees a feeling of ownership and pride in an institution that offers "improved" checking products.

* Promoting community awareness of both the bank and its innovative products. (A good marketing campaign can actually generate community excitement. Some financial institutions have reported examples of noncustomers walking in and asking about opening a checking account with "the new check-imaging features!")

The following are six action steps that are essential to any check-imaging campaign.

1. Brand the new check-imaging product. When Five Points Bank, Grand Island, Neb., introduced check imaging, for example, they called it, "The Better Checking System." The brand is important to the implementation as it positions the new imaged product as a better alternative to the old-fashioned paper check. Branding gives the product a name for customers to remember. It reinforces the customer decision to use a checking...