Author’s note: The consulting team at Cornerstone Advisors loves to share best practices that we pick up while on the road. This week, I am ecstatic to share the following internal memo from the Kramerica Bank & Trust in Queens, N.Y. Kramerica’s CEO, Mr. Kruger, recently issued this memo to all his employees, outlining a fresh approach to customer relationship management, or “CRM.” Before your bank plops down a few million for the latest in CRM solutions, you may want to steal some ideas from these revolutionaries.
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The Kramerica Bank & Trust
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TO: All Team Members
FROM: Mr. Kruger
RE: CRM Strategic Initiative
I wanted to bring you all up to date on the groundbreaking CRM initiative that we have under way here at Kramerica. In late 2002, I engaged the consulting firm of Dewey, Cheatem and Howe to help our company develop a holistic customer-centryc vision for our organization. In 2003, DCH presented its report to our executive team and board of directors. This impressive 232-page PowerPoint presentation recommended that Kramerica “focus on the customer” and that “relationships should be emphasized over transactions.” As you may recall, I agreed with these recommendations and instructed the senior management team to implement a comprehensive CRM technology solution. There has been a lot of excitement around the company after the sales team at Illogic Systems demonstrated all 26 modules of their Customer Telepathy solution. It was really cool how they scanned my driver’s license and sucked it into the customer profile right there on the screen. (By the way, if a developer from Illogic named Rashid comes into the branch trying to cash checks under my name, call me immediately!)
Unfortunately, our executive team has come to the conclusion that the $3.7 million price tag for Customer Telepathy is just way beyond the pocketbook capacity for a bank our size. I’ll try one more time to negotiate the price at Illogic’s customer conference in Aruba next week, but I’m not hopeful. On a positive note, I’ve determined that our bank can implement a lot of DCH’s recommendations without a fancy, expensive CRM system. I’ve spent the last two weeks devising an action plan that will cost only $842.67, and now I am ready to share it with all our team members. These changes will be implemented starting Monday, so be prepared. A revolution in customer sintricity is about to begin:
We need to make sure customers do not feel like just another number at Kramerica. Unfortunately, without Illogic’s Personalization Module, we can’t get too specific about each relationship. Therefore, I would like all employees to follow this simple protocol:
NOTE: All male employees, please do not direct the “working out” question to your male customers. It may make them uncomfortable. Instead, say something like, “Well, how do you think your team looked last weekend?”
I’m convinced that this simple approach will make our customers feel like they are banking with old friends.
It would be great to have an online system that would prompt employees with the “next-product-to-sell,” but our CIO says there’s no way it will integrate with the DOS-based branch system we are running. Therefore, I will be distributing a laminated Cross-Sell Matrix to all employees that gives the following helpful hints:
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The Kramerica Cross-Sell Matrix |
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| If they have a… | They can’t leave until they have a… |
| Checking account | Debit card |
| Mortgage | Home equity line of credit |
| CD | Checking account |
| Business loan | Cash management account |
| LOT OF MONEY | High-commission annuity!!! |
Please tape this laminated matrix to your PC monitor. I think I have articulated in 35 words all that our employees need to know about cross-sell.
Without the Real-Time Sales Dashboard that Illogic Systems demoed for us, we’re going to have to roll up our sleeves to track sales. Therefore, I will be distributing a Big Chief yellow pad to each employee next week. During the week, please record on the pad everything you sold. At the end of the week, tear out the sheets and interoffice them to Darren, our Marketing Intern. Darren will enter this information into Microsoft Excel and then email the file to Myrna in payroll who will calculate employee incentives and enter them onto the ADP system. I know this process sounds a bit clunky and antiquated, but cheer up. A guy from Cornerstone Advisors recently told me that 90 percent of banks do sales tracking this way. We’re going to be right up there with our peers!
Although it would be interesting to identify our most profitable customers, I have no desire to get into a big brawl about cost allocations and transfer pricing. Therefore, I had Darren the Marketing Intern print out our entire MCIF file for my review. Using colored markers, I have eyeballed all 162,000 relationships and put each into one of three categories:
Category 1: “Buttsmoochio” – As long as you don’t tell me, I don’t really care what you do to make these clients happy and keep their business under our roof.
Category 2: “Fence Sitters” – Just do the transaction as fast as you can, referring to our powerful Cross-Sell Matrix.
Category 3: “Cavity Search” – Please make these customers’ experience at Kramerica worse than a visit to the proctologist. Tell them you’ll be right back and stay away for 15 minutes. Charge them a $30 fee because they never turned in their expired ATM cards. Finally, make sure to talk up all those great deals over at Bank of America.
Because we live in a multi-channel world, our bank needs a system to store and share customer contacts across the organization. Sadly, we do not have a system that can do that. We tried with GoldMine a few years ago until our local programmer moved from the trailer park without a forwarding address. Fortunately, there are two user-defined fields remaining on our CIF (fields User7 and User8). These are both 30-character alphanumeric fields. Going forward, please try to cram as much info in there as possible about recent customer encounters. To save space, use abbreviations like my example below:
“Cstmr sd we suk – clsd acct”
For some time, I’ve wanted our bank to be seen as a really cutting edge leader, but biometric technology and kiosks are way too pricey. Never fear, your CEO has two great ideas:
I will be distributing pen-shaped flashlights to all employees. Please shine them in customers’ eyes when they come into the branch and say you are conducting a “retina scan.”
I have purchased 14 broken and mothballed self-service kiosks from E*TRADE for $376. These will be installed in our branches with a simple, flashing logo screen. Because research shows that no one actually uses these kiosks, we will be able to brag about our innovative technology without having to make it work.
Finally, to have a customer syntric culture, we have to make sure our employees are delivering the highest level of service. I was not pleased when someone posted the pictures of our mystery shoppers on the intranet last quarter and then started the “Mystery Shopper Sighting” message board. That was an improper use of our valuable collaboration tools. However, since you can’t be fooled by the mystery shoppers anymore, I have ceased using this service. Instead, I am going to rely on our board of directors to be the official mystery shoppers. This will work for two reasons:
If you do happen to recognize a board member near the headquarters branch, please email me immediately. The back stairwell is collecting dust.
Well team, as you can see, Kramerica will soon be revolutionizing its approach to customer sentricity. In our continued quest to become the #13 market share player in Queens County, the out-of-the-box thinking just won’t stop. In fact, I’ve been noodling on some other ideas:
Stay tuned.
-spw
