US Bank has been on a roll lately, appearing in our blog more times this summer than in the previous three years. Its latest novelty? A unique “thank a banker” function, complete with smiley face emoji, prominently located at the bottom-middle of homepage (below the fold on my 13-inch laptop). It’s shown to both customers and non-customers.
I wasn’t sure what to make of it. While I don’t see the harm, it would seem to be a fairly low-usage feature to warrant homepage real estate. But the more I thought about it, the more I liked it. It’s great brand positioning, essentially saying, ‘Hey, look. we aren’t one of those impersonal banks. Our customers love us so much we have to put a box on our homepage to collect all the compliments.’
And then if anyone actually does use it, the bank gets a stream of attaboy/girls to send out to staff. Clever. Hopefully, the bank sends the customer a nice thank-you email (I hadn’t received one 30 minutes after submitting form).
The website function is outsourced to an employee-recognition specialist, OC Tanner. An ewardcenter.com URL is displayed to US Bank customers as they fill out the 13-field form, a hefty 9 of which are required fields (see second screenshot below).
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More importantly, I like the Labor Day loan sale at the top of the US Bank homepage (see below). It’s traditionally a big car-buying weekend, so it’s a great time to promote vehicle lending, especially with the still ridiculously low APRs available here.
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US Bank homepage (3 Sep 2015, 10:00 a.m. Pacific):
US Bank “thank-a-banker” form (link):
