“Today’s empowered consumers represent an interesting paradox: There have never been more ways to reach them, yet it’s never been harder to truly engage. “

That was the teaser line for a recent Forrester webinar with Richard Char, Global Head of Information Technology, Global Enterprise Payments of Citi. To address this “Empowered Customer Paradox” many banks are looking at new ways to use video to engage customers while allowing human resources to be distributed more effectively. In addition to general educational videos and instructional content for customers on bank websites, banks are using video in interesting ways to add value to other channels and to extend services beyond the branch.

Bank of America has rolled out ATMs with live teller video chat. BofA’s remote video tellers will be based at call centers in Jacksonville, Florida and Newark, Delaware and from there can serve customers in banking center, drive-up, and remote locations. Teller-assisted transactions will be accessible during extended hours: 7 am to 10 pm on weekdays and 8 am to 5 pm on Saturdays and Sundays, excluding holidays.

Members Equity Bank in Australia has no branches at all – only ATMs. It wants to expand services to customers by adding video-conferencing-enabled kiosks to aid customers without having to establish physical branches.

Some banks are looking at providing video conference access to centralized financial specialists rather than providing senior resources at every branch. Access is particularly useful at remote locations. Some speculate that video banking from home is on the horizon while others suggest it is still many years away.

Cisco, Telestra and Forrester have all released reports in the past year on the benefits of “video banking.” The use of video that I find particularly interesting is the use of personalized video to help onboard new banking customers or explain actual account activity. SundaySky’s State of Online Video Report (credibility alert – they offer a personalized video platform) found that personalization fosters significantly higher levels of viewer engagement. They say that short-form videos designed for a mass audience are viewed with only a 50 percent completion rate, while viewers will spend 2.5X more time watching a slightly longer video if the content is personally relevant to them. More than doubling the attention span is a pretty good statistic if they can back it up.

Telco’s have been testing personalized statement video for a while. Take a look at these examples from AT&T (using SundaySky) and UPC (using Idomoo). This type of solution – particularly for a customer’s first statement has the potential to reduce attrition and enable more extensive account activation.

Is video engaging to customers? Given how much time people spend watching cats on YouTube I’m guessing that video has at least a fighting chance of increasing customer engagement.