At BAI’s Retail Delivery Conference last year, Microsoft launched its new campaign, experience Banking.

For many of us, the best experience we have in banking is when we get in and out of a branch without anyone saying more than 10 words to us.

But at TowerGroup’s annual conference this spring, I listened as Alan Bauer, direct group president at Progressive Insurance, one of the fastest growing carriers in the US, sounded like an evangelist for Microsoft’s experience Insurance campaign.

“The experience space is becoming a big one, and you’re up against the best,” he said. “Being best of category may not be good enough.” In little things, like the amount of time customers spend on hold to a call center, a company sends important messages through the customer experience.

“Your call is very important to us,” is the standard recording. And then the company leaves you on hold for 20 minutes. What does the customer conclude?

“You’re lying to me, AND you think I don’t know it,” said Bauer.

Customers don’t compare financial services firms just against other financial companies; they rate them against top performers such as FedEx, Nordstrom, and Starbucks.

The costs of individual failures are going up because of search engines and blogs; that unhappy customer can easily let the world know what he thinks.

A company that creates good experiences for customers also creates better experiences for employees, because they are not dealing with angry customers all day. Who wants to be the customer service rep who finally answers the call from the caller who has been on hold for 20 minutes?

In addition, a company that treats its customers and employees well is apt to receive friendlier treatment from regulators.

Bill Wray, the highly respected CIO at Citizens Bank, explained the selection of a Getronics system for tellers in experience terms.

“It is very important for tellers to have a system that makes it easy for them to be successful,” he said. A good system helps them remain cheerful so they make customers happy. That’s especially important as banks hire people with retail, rather than banking, backgrounds.

Bauer noted that the most important factors for customers are the quality of service, the price of service, and how the service is delivered – a factor that is often overlooked but one that is all about the customer and employee experience.

“The finance category is not inspiring. You don’t say, ‘That’s a beautiful insurance policy.’ It offers little in the way of aesthetics, design, or tactile pleasure; it’s not trendy,” he said.

In other words, people might line up overnight for a new Sony PlayStation, but they won’t line up for a new insurance policy. That’s why financial services firms need to concentrate on the customer experience.

Bauer’s suggestions: make it fast, and measure time from end-to-end of a process; make it transparent (what do you profit from the consumer’s not knowing?); be correct; be consistent; be relevant (because customers don’t want a lot of flowery language); and finally “maximize the data to ink ratio.”

To judge your delivery, make sure your employees, including the senior executives, are also your firm’s customers. Progressive found a glitch in its mail system after a senior executive called to say he hadn’t received his policy renewal notice.

Finally, ask yourself, “How would my mom like it?”

Firms should measure their performance against goals. They should track the variance and consistency in the level of service they offer and the number of screw-ups they have, because although screw-ups will happen, it’s important to focus on making their numbers go down.

Meanwhile, firms should avoid being a pest; avoid nickel-and-dime-ing customers; and avoid over-complexity.

The concepts are pretty simple. I suspect the execution is not. But it’s one of the best summaries of what experience Financial Services could be that I have heard to date.