Spend a vision with me: August 2018

I had a very interesting experience last week and I thought it was worth sharing. Basically it is about OCBC and the push towards decreasing an organisation’s costs by either replacing humans by machines within their ranks, or shifting costs onto the customer (one of my pet peeves with supermarket self-checkouts), and especially how that push if being made and the possible impacts on existing staff, customers, and customer experience.

I had managed to lock myself out of my business banking internet account with OCBC. (Hey, what can I say, I love the fact that I have a personalised debit card... have always been a sucker for looks). What is important is that I am/was using self-service internet banking, apparently exactly what the bank wants. When I was locked out, I called the hotline, and was told it only operates during office hours.

The next day, I tried the hotline again, and decided to try and get the problem fixed without having to go to the branch. The superb robot couldn’t understand what I was saying. (I am not complaining about the robot, although I spoke in my version of English throughout (no mid sentence language switch which is horrible to deal with in speech recognition), but the simple fact is I couldn’t get what I wanted after trying a couple of times.)

You can stop laughing at my engriss please. The OCBC robot’s standards are way higher than mine and accent quite posh J

So I decided to take a quick walk to the nearby branch.

Anyway, after a not so small wait, I went to the counter and met a perfectly polite and helpful lady (Ms Lim if I remember correctly), she understood my problem, got the appropriate paper forms, ticket the relevant boxes, got me to sign and all was done!

Just before I left the counter, I asked, “around how long do I have to wait to have my access re-instated please?” and she replied “up to 5 days” and after she realised I was shocked she helpfully explained that they couldn’t do this on-site, and this piece of paper had to be sent to the relevant department for action, so it would take up to 5 days.

Ridiculous, don’t you agree?

Here you have a bank pushing its customers to use internet, but when they are locked out, it can take up to 5 days to reinstate access to the account. Now if like stupid me you thought internet access would mean you can always take advantage of the really fast bank transfers to pay for business expenses, you’d end up like stupid me with an invoice you cannot pay because you have to wait 5 days for the piece of paper to make its way from the branch to the relevant department (are they in internet banking department?) and for someone to take action.

I lost it.

I asked the counter staff to put herself in my shoes, and whether she doesn’t find it ridiculous that a bank that is investing a huge amount of money to replace these counter staff by ‘robots’ (1) didn't instead spend the money on making internet services for customers more seamless. (Unless I am one of the few idiots, if not the only one, who got himself locked out of his internet banking access – in which case I will hang my head in shame).

Anyway, the counter staff said she would talk to her colleague to expedite my case and I left the branch.

A few hours later, I received an SMS from the bank telling me my access had been restored, and an email, followed by a call by a human. Wow, speak of service! OCBC managed to turn an unpleasant experience into a surprisingly pleasant one.

So am I really writing a congratulatory blog?

I started thinking...

If it is possible to resolve the issue so fast, why wait for the customer to complain? Either the bank’s process were short-circuited to expedite my case as an exceptional case (can you do me a favour, I have this customer who is very unhappy...?) or the process does indeed take minutes but it is a deliberate policy on the part of the bank to make branch transactions as painful as possible.

The counter staff did ask me if I had tried calling in, and I said I did, but it didn’t work, the machine couldn’t understand what I was asking for. Was that a factor? So I did try the way the bank preferred, and hence I wasn’t made to pay the full price (5 days locked out).

This reminded me of an interesting article I read on how banks are pushing us towards ‘the cashless society’ (1).

Basically the key to making customers do what you want is “nudging”.

To quote the Wikipedia definition (emphasis mine) “Nudge is a concept in behavioral science, political theory and economics which proposes positive reinforcement and indirect suggestions as ways to influence the behavior and decision making of groups or individuals. Nudging contrasts with other ways to achieve compliance, such as education, legislation or enforcement.”

A classic example of nudging is illustrated below:

For people not familiar, public urinals often now come with a fly attached; the idea is that the urinator takes aim and thus spills less. The urinator is nudged towards doing the right thing. I think most of us would agree than a toilet where there are fewer spills on the floor is a good thing. It’s good for the urinator who is less likely to get splash back on his pants, it is good for the other toilet users who enjoy a cleaner environment, and it is good for the people cleaning the toilet (and the company that employs them) in terms of a less mess to deal with. Wins all around! Some organisations have even cashed in (2)

Nudging is another area that interests me, but again, I’ll hold off for another blog; reserve this one for how it appears to me, as an outsider and based on my personal experiences with and what I have read about OCBC’s latest trends. But for now what I am saying is that nudging is in itself and by itself not a bad thing; it can create win-win situations all round.

Let’s assume OCBC is nudging me away from branches to using internet banking.

You could argue that I can’t complain about the fact that the hotline was not operating is a non-starter since I wouldn’t be getting 24 hour service if I was using a branch.

But that ignores the issue of expectations. We have been sold the idea that using internet banking is superior because it is 24/7. But if support is not 24/7 is internet banking for businesses really 24/7? I don’t think so.

Plus, personally, I much prefer dealing with a human than a robot, face to face rather than via phone. But that’s just me. So if I am moved away from this personal touch, there needs to be a compelling value proposition.

What else is OCBC doing at the branches?

OCBC is planning to replace half of the teller staff (3) by machines by 2020 (4). But it is not firing people thankfully, but retraining them as highlighted (5).

There are a couple of things I’d like to highlight from the articles.

I object to tellers being called relatively low-value added services: “The bank said the tellers would move into roles that allow them to take on "higher value-added" tasks that require decision-making or physical verification.” What is the measure of value? That’s a blog post in itself, but to me being able to get my issues resolved and queries answered is very valuable, and it’s a definite plus if it comes from a human. I am a human, and I relate better to humans; I ‘feel’ a brand if I am dealing with a human representative of that brand, I do not feel anything if I am dealing with a machine from that brand. So to me there is a tangible (issues that are not out of the box, specific preferences, services that require more stringent verification as pointed out by OCBC themselves) and intangible (the human factor).

Another fact that I find interesting is that, even as the new generation machines developed by OCBC at the cost of $14m and over which they have 5 year registered design license are ‘future-proof”, they are retraining tellers into advisory (which is great) and where verification is required. This latter piece puzzles me.

To me, anything that is used multiple times is something that can be automated. For example, if to release funds requires verifying the documentation and signatures, there are basic steps that are always followed, and even for signature verification, technology enables you to score how different a signature if from another. And if there is anything you want when deciding whether signatures are similar enough is some objectivity to decide the “enough”.

How about advisory then?

Well I am sure that, especially given the evolution of the role of counter staff from pure customer servicing and transactional role to having some sales component, many tellers will be able to make the switch. However, OCBC has also debuted ‘robo-advisors’ a few days ago (6). And this is not a one-off; it is a direction that OCBC has taken for at least a year (7).

They recently launched service targets younger investors; well heeled clients already have relationship managers, so what market will the newly trained advisors target?

I applaud the efforts by OCBC to re-train its staff, i think it is too easy to replace people without a thought, and putting resources into improving the skills of existing employees is great. Furthermore this is in-line with the efforts by the government to upgrade the skills of the workforce, for example skillsfuture (8).

However, I believe that an organisation should not cry victory at the beginning of a programme, but should only do so once there is a victory. OCBC claims that all tellers who are being replaced by the new machines will be re-employed in different roles. As the articles point out (4) and (5), OCBC did not disclose the current number of tellers, neither was the number of affected people. I believe that OCBC should follow up this PR exercise to put its money where its mouth is and disclose the number of tellers affected now, and the number from this group still employed in 2020. That would be a true win-win.

I hope OCBC can truly create a win-win-win situation where customers get better service, employees remain gainfully employed and enjoy their roles, and the organisation naturally makes more profits. Automation, Analytics have the power to create all around win situations, and organisations who create such situations would certainly emerge as winners in the medium to long run.

I believe that automation, finding better ways to serve customers, embedding analytics at all levels of processes of an organisation (effectively making organisations data-driven) can enhance the ability of people to do their jobs, make them more productive, decreasing the costs of the services and thus allowing more people to enjoy them. It’s about decreasing costs to decrease prices and make things more affordable to more people, not decreasing costs to increase profits.

“If you don’t have a PhD, don’t call yourself a data scientist”; with these remarks the government linked person set the stage to explain his views via a presentation on AI, and the problems implementation of AI suffers from today.

To flesh out his argument, he argued that only a PhD gives the rigour and access to large enough data to play with to become a data scientist.

A very interesting point of view from someone linked to the government.

Not everything he said was that controversial, at least to me.

The presenter used my favourite diagram for data science, the ‘Drew Conway’ diagram (1), acknowledging the importance of subject matter expertise. Data Science is a balanced combination of “Substantive Expertise” or subject matter expertise, “Maths and Statistics Knowledge” and “Hacking Skills” or IT skills.

Furthermore, the presenter also mentioned how hard it was to find all 3 skills at a required level in 1 person and also spoke of data science teams; or like what I say: “Data Science is a team Sport”.

Also the presenter was at pains to point out that a 3 month course in data science does not make you a data scientist, so even if you are an English Literature PhD, or hold a PhD in Astro Physics, a 3 months data science course does not make you a data scientist; it takes years.

I am on the wall on this one. I think “data science” like every subject needs practice, and while a 3 month course will most likely not give you enough experience, it doesn’t have to take years and years. Any expertise is gained through practice.

Furthermore, the presenter is a proponent of open source, and advises everyone to eschew classes and learn online instead, pay tens of dollars rather than hundreds. I am all for learning online, have taken classes from Data Camp (2) where I learnt a lot, as well as from Coursera (3).

But where it gets really weird, and please remember that the presenter is linked to the government, he then went on to “sell” is classroom courses, of around 3 months, and hopes he can provide some practical experience.

Unless he is targeting only PhDs as students, I find what he is saying quite contradictory...

The reason I mentioned English Literature and AstroPhysics is the presenter further mentioned that one of the reasons why the country may be finding it hard to find “data scientists” is the fault of HR departments. They are looking for a unicorn with degrees in computer science (let alone PhDs). The advice was that they should loosen the criteria and accept people from different disciplines and who have taken the online courses...

My view is not that dissimilar. I believe in passion and without knowing anything about a person, I would say that an engineer is more likely to make a good “data scientist” than a Statistician or a Computer Scientist. The reason is that to me, “data science” is about delivering value and the passion should be to solve problems, the end, not the means – AI/ML/Stats...

Then this goes back to the PhD question. Do I believe you can’t be a “data scientist” without a PhD? Well, it may be self-serving since my profile states “data scientist”, but no, I do not believe a PhD is required.

In fact, quite a few organisations have found this. Basically, people with PhDs are great at their own domain, but “data science: requires a multitude of skills that they may not have (for example subject matter expertise, or statistics for computer scientists, or IT skills for Statisticians) or may not want to engage in: the ‘dirty’ work of cleaning and preparing the data. Hence the organisations whose “data science” department is staffed purely by PhDs find it very difficult to get a decent RoI. (results, results and results).

While I am at it, I will also mention that another way that organisations get their staffing wrong (hey, may be that deserves a separate blog, but here goes) is in the fact that some “data scientists” delegate the data cleaning and preparation to “data preparation” or “data engineers”. It gets worse when the latter do not have a clear career path to the former, like sous-chefs becoming chefs... Data preparation should be done with a purpose, and unless the high and mighty “data scientist” can communicate the purpose effectively and in great detail (probably also requires some EQ), there is a risk that the data preparation will not be that fit for purpose.

Basically I believe that data cleaning and preparation is part of the role of a “data scientist” especially since “data science” is by nature iterative and iterations may involve obtaining and preparing data that was not included initially.

Quite a while ago I did an easy to understand view of the work of a unicorn (“data scientist”); as you can see, data preparation and transformation is part of the process. I can understand that someone who is good a solving business problems may not be very good at getting data in the most efficient way from various systems, or writing production ready code, but surely preparing data is part of the role after all, most people will tell you that this is 70%-80% of the work...(4)(5)

So why I am upset enough to write this blog?

Basically I believe analytics/”Data Science” has the power to unlock enough value to create win-win (win) situations (organisation, customer/society, and (consultancy/ vendor)), and getting the framework for data science is critical in that regard.

From the presentation I attended, it would seem that the government has got some things right, some wrong, and some contradicting each other. I do hope they sort things out; unfortunately, the Peter principle may be at work.(6), or may be it’s HiPPOs (7) or both since there often is a high correlation between the two (A hippo named Peter...)

Actually ya, this might be the topic of my next blog, although I am also itching to write about AI/Automation and retraining...

P.S. Did I mention that the presenter said that SLR is part of AI?
(See it pays to read all the way to the end... now please clean the coffee from your device)

1. http://drewconway.com/zia/2013/3/26/the-data-science-venn-diagram

2. https://www.datacamp.com/

3. https://www.coursera.org

4. https://www.infoworld.com/article/3228245/data-science/the-80-20-data-science-dilemma.html

5. https://www.xenonstack.com/blog/data-science/preparation-wrangling-machine-learning-deep/

6. https://www.forbes.com/sites/roddwagner/2018/04/10/new-evidence-the-peter-principle-is-real-and-what-to-do-about-it/#681be0a81809

7. https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/HiPPOs-highest-paid-persons-opinions

Spend a vision with me

Sunday 26 August 2018

Business Internet Banking, 5 working days to unlock an account? yticoleV. Nudge nudge branch transaction red flag...

Monday 6 August 2018

"If you don't have a PhD, don't call yourself a data scientist"