I'm in Chicago this week for the 2011 BAI Retail Delivery. It's a retail banking conference where executives meet to discuss best practices and learn about the newest vendor solutions. I've found that many of the best practices discussed can actually be applied across industries; for example, Roger Peverelli (Co-Author of Reinventing Financial Services) talked about the latest trends in consumer preferences and how organizations need to change to capture share of sale. In his book, he and his co-author interviewed 60 executives from global banks. He gave six global trends that they had captured in the research:

1. Consumer's relationships have changed: Forty-six percent of people say their trust in banks has decreased. Such a dramatic change in such a short time is unprecedented. Regaining trust requires many touch points. According to Peverelli's data, most of the touch points today are online, but most banks are concentrating their customer service efforts to the local branch. This requires a rethink!
2. Consumers want transparency and simplicity: Pare your offerings to those that are simple to understand and sell. This isn't that difficult to understand. According to Peverelli, if it is possible for water distributors to differientiate AND charge a premium price, then anyone should be able to do it.
3. Consumers are more and more self-directed: Peverelli says that a great example of this can be found in investments - today, 41 percent of US investors are self-directed. Although they still value advice, they want it later in the process.
4. Consumers value the wisdom of the cloud: Seventeen percent of people trust advice from someone on the Internet that they've never met; only 14 percent say they trust companies. Social media has become an important source of information and news for consumers. Some of the first breakthroughs in social decision-making were made in the hotel and travel industry. Today, the insurance industry is also making gains with comparison and review sites.
5. Consumers revalue values: According to Peverelli, sometimes ethics conflict with an organization's business strategy. He says that consumers don't see the conflict. They want businesses to sell only products that the organization's executives would buy themselves. Consumers want to be treated as the organization's executives would want to be treated.
6. Consumers prefer being close: People don't see the benefit of the globalization effort. Peverelli says that consumers crave localization. So, banks are answering that call by locating branches in malls, ski slopes, beaches, coffee shops and grocery stores. They are also offering increasing numbers of mobile applications and online customer interactions.

"There are still challenges with localizing the online customer experience," says Peverelli. Banks are still thinking of products for online in the same way that they think of traditional products. Peverelli illustrated this by showing a picture of the horseless carriage. At the time, automakers couldn't think past a carriage without a horse. In the same way, bankers today cannot think past their offline products. The true breakthough for customers, according to Peverelli, will be when banks think of creating for online's sake. One bank that he highlighted was Danske Bank. Danske Bank has created Moneyville, an educational program that teaches children about finance and investing.