Sterling Miller

Too often in the banking business, we focus on sales instead of relationships. We get hung up on our numbers, and not our service quality. We make things easy operationally, without regard for how it effects our customers. And we want more sales and better retention.

The trick to more sales is closer relationships with our customers and better service, the type of service that people tell others about. People travel far and stay long for exceptional service because that is what they care about the most. Customers that are made to feel special every time they enter the branch or call on the phone will rarely leave for a better rate or the latest checking account offer, and they will open more accounts.

Here is a checklist of how to make your customes feel so special that they will never leave:

• Greet them with a smile.
• Use their name.
• Talk about them, be interested in what they have to say.
• Treat complaints as lessons in how to provide better service; complaints are valuable!
• Listen for clues as to what products and services they would benefit from, and educate the customer about them.
• Take care of their business, and especially their problems quickly, efficiently, with no “red tape”, whether it’s over the phone or face-to-face. This involves your operations department.
• At every interaction, find ways to be exceptional, to differentiate yourself from the competition.
• Always close with a “Thank you, have a great day!” and mean it.

Two clients are using Fans for Life (TM) and are in the training and shopping stages of the program. The greatest struggle, believe it or not, is acknowledging and greeting members/customers, and making referrals for other products and services. Neither client has begun shopping the back room yet.

Why the struggle with acknowledging the people that mean the most to these organizations, and recommending appropriate products and services? Mostly because they were not originally hired as “sales associates” but as “tellers” or clerks. Traditionally the job requirements for tellers have required little more than the ability to process transactions accurately. As a teller, you could easily hide behind your window, remain smile-less, and speak as little as possible as long as you proved your work at the end of the day. “Personality” was not considered.

Current hiring practices should involve more than accuracy. Tellers should be renamed ”sales asscociates” or just “associates” to reflect their new role, and the requirements for the job should focus on personality, sales ability and sales experience. Handling work accurately can be easily trained with the newest transaction processing technology, but a bright, friendly and outgoing personality and a willingness to sell is a challenge to train.

This concept will hold true for the “back room” positions as well. The employees that have any contact at all with members/customers, should have great telephone personalities, and sales training. Many sales opportunities are lost by not having the right people on the phone, and existing business is lost because of less-than-professional experiences on the phone.

What to do if you know you don’t have exactly the right people in key positions right now? Create new job titles and new job requirements that reflect their new roles, educate and train. Give everyone a chance to adjust to their new job descriptions, shop, monitor, reward, and hold them accountable.

Having the right people for all member/customer contact positions in this economy is paramount to running a successful organization that will stand the test of time.

This really happened to me:

Yesterday morning I got a phone call from the bank that has had my business account for over fifteen years. It was “Linda” and she said that our account had a negative balance and there were two items being presented. She was unfriendly to say the least and said I had until 1 pm at the latest to straighten it out.

That account is closely managed so I knew something was wrong, but it is always possible that I made an error, so I ran to the bank to make a deposit, asked if Linda was there and to let her know (turned out Linda was the drive up teller), and asked for a printout so I could see what happened since the account was recently balanced.  The teller just kept her head down the entire time, obviously trying her best to avoid confrontation with me. I remained cheerful. 

There were people waiting behind me who heard the whole conversation.

Once back to the office I checked the printout which showed a deposit made on Sep 9 for $.02 instead of the correct amount of $500, and $60 in overdraft fees. We were able to get a copy of the front and back of the check and I took it in to the branch this morning.  I again had to approach the teller line because there was no one on the platform again (there was a woman in an office on a personal phone call, presumably the branch manager).  This time I had to endure “Patty”, who also treated me like a derelict and made a face when I explained the problem, again with a line behind me. She left her station to check on it, and finally came back to ask if she could research it and call me back. I told her that I made the deposit good yesterday, I only wanted the overdraft fees reversed. She said she’d check it out and call me and I said “Thank you, have a great day.”

She did call later on and finally apologized for the error. But, it’s too late. I’m in the process of taking my account someplace else, because even though I realize that everyone makes mistakes, it’s how they handled it that counts. Every customer must be made to feel appreciated and important even when there is an overdraft situation, or some other error, and it doesn’t matter whose fault it is. The bank should always give the benefit of doubt and apologize up front - it just makes the customer feel better. This approach does not alienate the customer, and gives the bank the opportunity to shine brightly and create a Fan for Life! And to have this kind of situation going on within hearing distance of other customers is just unacceptable. It was embarrassing. What is this bank thinking????

No customer hugging going on here, and it’s too bad, because this is one of the few independent community banks existing in our marketplace.

I had occassion to buy a new car recently - it’s been 8 years since we’ve shopped for a new car, so we looked around for awhile. Say what you want about car dealers, but my experience with one dealer we visited was a good one.

I think that generally, the people that work at car dealers get it. They understand what their job is: to impress, to know their product inside out, and to treat everyone as if they were the most important person on earth, so they have the best shot at getting the sale.

At the first dealer we visited, we wandered around a little until someone asked if we needed help. Odd question I thought, since my husband and I were in the showroom dressed in our business suits, looking at cars. Finally a young woman found us, dressed as if it was her day off, but she was pleasant enough. Unfortunately she did not know her product very well, because she could not answer some of our  basic questions, but, she did have the model we were looking at with a manual transmission, which we wanted, and offered to go get a plate and let us take it for a test drive. After our test drive we got a price, but there was no car in the color we wanted with a manual transmission. We left with the brochure she gave us, which was not the model we wanted, and her hand-written business card….

A few days later we visited another dealer. As soon as we walked in the door, a gentleman got right up from his desk, impeccably dressed and groomed, smiled and introduced himself. He asked if he could help or answer any questions. He was not pushy in any way, asked us a couple of questions, and answered our questions like an expert. He knew everything about the car. When we told him what we were looking for, particularly the manual transmission, which was not available as a leftover 2009, he simply asked if I had ever driven the automatic version. He suggested that I take a test drive just to see if I liked it. He was right - I did like it, alot, and had he not suggested it, I would have had to wait four months for a 2010, and paid thousands more for the car. We left with the correct brochure, his business card, and had already met with the business manager, who also gave us his card. We took delivery of the car just a couple of days later.

The day after delivery, our “client advisor” (salesman) called us to see how we liked the car and if everything was OK. We talked about how beautiful the car was, how much we liked it, and the fact that it was just sitting in the driveway that day, in the rain, waiting to be driven!

The day after that, I got an email from the service manager, introducing himself and giving me his phone number, saying he was looking forward to meeting us, and not to hesitate to call him.

Car dealers get it - they must impress to survive, and those who do it as well as dealer #2 will. Financial institutions could certainly learn a lesson or two from some of the car dealers:

• Tellers and CSRs need to smile and aknowledge every customer that walks in the door.
• They must dress to impress.
• They must know their products.
• They must know when and how to make suggestions for products and services that fit a need.

Follow up must be done for every new account; a new customer needs the assurance that the bank or credit union really cares about them. And they need to know who to call with questions.

I don’t know what will happennext with my new car dealer, but I am looking forward to a great relatioship!