MINNEAPOLIS _ Most businesses try to entice customers to empty their pockets. A growing number of banks have a formula for getting every last cent _ installing self-service coin-counting machines in the lobby. 
But the popular self-service coin counters are not the only way banks are working to lure customers back from the Internet and phone banking to bricks and mortar. The bait includes espresso bars, areas for watching TV and employees who greet customers at the door and offer individual service in banks without teller windows.
The trend marks an about-face from the direction many banks headed in the '90s, an era of mergers when immediate profits took precedence over long-term growth and many banks decided only one in five of their customers were big enough borrowers or savers to improve their bottom line. The unlucky majority were pushed to do much of their banking on the Internet or by phone, with fees serving as the club to discourage people from other options.
"Banks felt they needed to get more profitable by concentrating on their profitable customers. It didn't bother them if their less profitable customers went away," said Ben Crabtree, a securities analyst at the brokerage firm Stifel Nicolaus.
Profits grew but revenue growth stalled for many banks that followed the strategy.
"There's a general sense in the industry that the service quality needs to go up," Crabtree said. "The whole model of cutting costs, becoming more efficient and concentrating on the most profitable customers has been negative for growth."
Wayzata, Minn.-based TCF banks has been one of the leaders of the move back toward encouraging customers to come back to branches, installing free coin-counting machines, extending branch hours and offering no-cost checking, Crabtree said.
Community banks and credit unions are following the same pattern. So are some giants, like Wells Fargo, which has added self-service coin-counting machines at many of its branches.
The idea is to get more face time with customers.
"Banking remains a very competitive business," said Joseph Morford, banking analyst at RBC Capital Markets, a brokerage firm in San Francisco. "It's a whole lot easier to do more business with your existing customers than to try to recruit new customers."
And the more business that customers do with a bank, he explained, the stronger their loyalty.
"The bigger the share of their wallet, the more likely they are to stay with you a long time," Morford said. Wells Fargo has been one of the best at embracing that concept. "A good percentage of their revenue has come from doing (more) business with the customers they already have," he said.
When Lake Community Bank opened a branch in Long Lake, Minn., last December, the list of amenities included a coffee bar and stadium seating with small desks that allow customers to fill out paperwork while watching a nearby TV.
"Customers really seem to like it," said Michael Byrne, the bank's president. With investors cruising the Web and Sunday papers shopping for the best rates on savings accounts and CDs, winning customer loyalty has become a challenge, he said. The new attention to its lobbies _ including bankers who deal with customers face to face with no teller windows between them _ has paid off for Lake Community.
"We've gotten about $15 million in new deposits and we've been there short of a year," Byrne said. Many new branches take two or three years to match those results, he said. Coin-counting machines seem to be a particularly big hit with walk-in customers. Park Midway Bank in St. Paul spent $18,000 on a coin-counting machine for a newly rebuilt branch, locating it not far from the bank's espresso machine.
The bank hopes to build traffic not only from current customers but also from potential clients who remain years away from being able to open an adult account. "One of the reasons we put it in is that we have a children's savings club," said Connie Powell, senior vice resident/operations. "Part of it is to encourage them to bring their money in." Another advantage of the investment is to spare bank employees the time-consuming, dirty job of handling coins that arrive daily in shoeboxes, jars and buckets.
"When I told the tellers we're going to bring it onboard, they were ecstatic," Powell said. For part of the last decade, supermarkets took advantage of banks' disinterest by installing self-service _ but not free _ coin counters as a way to get customers in the door. The popularity of those machines, which led to more than 300 million transactions by Coinstar counters, was used to sell banks on the strategy. Makers of the self-service coin counters argue that their products lure customers back to bank lobbies, where tellers can be trained to use the opportunity to pitch other products rather than simply take deposits.
"It gives the (branch bank) staff time to do other things, like selling other services," said Wayne Stellmach, manager of marketing communications at Cummins-Allison, a Mount Prospect, Ill., maker of self-service coin counters. Cummins-Allison doesn't reveal unit sales, but Coinstar, a rival maker of self-service coin counters, estimates the number in banks exceeds 2,000. The largest coin-counting companies claim double-digit growth rates in bank installations. But they've got a long way to catch up to retail centers, where Coinstar puts industry-wide units at about 15,000.
Coin-tallying machines can count as many as 600 coins per minute, with displays that show a running tally as the coins stream in. The more costly models, priced as high as $30,000, allow customers to put their money in a checking or savings account with the swipe of a debit card and entry of a personal ID number. And the coins can add up. Coinstar tells the tale of gas-station owner Edmond Knowles, who two years ago hauled a collection of 4.5 tons of pennies to a counting machine at an Alabama bank. The pennies, collected over 43 years, totaled $13,084.59 _ or more than 1.3 million coins.
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