Say No to lousy ATMs
Monday, January 8th, 2007Why would one go to an ATM? If one attempts a precise answer, I think almost 90% of the people would say, ‘To check my account balance and draw money from it’.
Nowadays the ‘Q’ in front of ATMs would make a Kerosense ‘Q’ in ration shops look small, especially during the first few days of the month. Yet our stupid banks (both pubic and private sector) could not care less to improve the plight of the ordinary ATM user.
Just consider this scenario. I go to my HDFC ATM, enter my Card, type in the PIN, and the next screen is a gateway screen where there are buttons for all types of transactions. Here I select, ‘Cash Withdrawals’ and then there is a screen which advises me to keep my password safe with a ‘Press here to continue’ option. Grrrrr!!!
Up to here is bad enough, but no, apparently we deserve more for opening an account in banks as lousy as these. The next screen leaves me completely baffled. It asks me if mine is a SAVINGS ACCOUNT or CURRENT ACCOUNT. I mean, if you can authenticate my card and PIN and link my account, can’t you see that I hold only a salary account in your bank? Does it take rocket science to figure this out?
First and foremost, I think banks can save a lot of precious time for users by simply replacing the gateway screen with a screen which simply says
YOUR BALANCE IS ****.** along with
A Withdrawals button,
A Click here for other transactions button, and An Exit button.
I think it would save a lot of time for most of the users. This is similar to the difference between Yahoo Mail and GMail. GMail assumes that a person logs in not for fun but to check his mails. Yahoo on the other hand gives an ‘Inbox(5)’ information and asks the user to click again which I think is basically senseless.
And secondly, banks should do away with jarring ads, “Keep your password safe” advices and those stupid “Savings Account” and “Current Account” option screen. I mean, why even give a chance to the user to select a wrong option? If I hold a Savings account and if I click a Current account, will the bank let me draw money from some other guy’s Current account? No? Then why the hell do we need such a stupid screen?
Also, I think there should be a Interactive Voice Response system option for novice users. Too many times I’ve seen people (especially the older generation) struggling to figure out how to operate ATMs. A friendly IVR would help them in no small measure.
In a Q of 10 people, if each person saves atleast a minute by all these optimisations, the 11th would go to the ATM at least a good 10 minutes earlier than usual. I think that would be a good enough improvement in user experience to warrant a change in the ATM interface.