Stuff Branches Need to Know

“Relationship management” is a key theme in most branch planning nowadays.  A good branch manager, new accounts representative, and even teller are expected to be guides, so to speak, for customers in their travels through the myriad products and services the bank is trying to sell.

If we take a snapshot of customer behavior today, where are those travels taking the customer?  How much are branches expected to manage customer experiences they don’t actually handle directly?  We’ve been thinking about this at Cornerstone (I know – we don’t actually have lives), and as I was sitting in a branch just last week watching employees serve customers it struck me how many times those employees needed to talk about some transaction or event that occurred somewhere else.

There are numbers to back up that observation.  Based on the surveys we conducted with banks and credit unions this year, I can tell you that for every 100 times a customer visits a branch, that customer also performs:

• 49 telephone calls to an IVR or call center
• 41 log-ins to an Internet banking system
• 63 ATM transactions
• 196 debit transactions
• 18 loan applications through a non-branch channel

Think about it.  Even if a debit transaction at the store is weighted as less important than a branch visit, the message is the same – more than 75% of the customer issues a branch deals with may have been caused by an encounter the branch had nothing to do with directly.

Now, this hasn’t gone unnoticed by any means.  In fact, there has been a great deal of focus and increased demand on branch systems and their ability to integrate the account information, transaction history and customer contact history needed to competently service the customer.  Vendors have felt this heat, and rightfully so.

But how well are branch employees armed with the non-systems part of this equation?  How well do branch employees understand how all of the other contact points and channels actually work?  Do they understand the entire process beyond just how systems work?  This is an issue that executives in charge of branches need to take a hard look at, because, in the long term, branch knowledge of the entire process a customer goes through in these non-branch encounters will be more important in giving great service than the systems branch employees have in front of them that provide the information.

Let’s get specific.  Here are 10 areas of questioning about branches that the best practice bank will be able to address with authority and confidence:

1. In a 25-question test on loans, how many branch people would get 80% right?  This is a great question my partner Steve Williams brought up a while ago (in other words, I’m stealing it).  For example, what’s a covenant?  What does a title company do?  What does “conforming” mean? What does a credit score mean?  What is Freddie Mac (hint: not a hamburger)?
2. Can the branch manager explain the five major differences between the bank’s retail Internet banking system and its business cash management system and outline why a small business customer would want one or the other?
3. Can branch employees explain what happens when a customer disputes a debit transaction?  Who has to get involved?  How long does/should resolution take? What happens to the money?
4. Could any of the branch employees define check-to-ACH conversion and draw out what happens if a business customer converts a check to an ACH transaction?  What’s the benefit?  What does the customer give up?
5. Could anybody in the branch explain the difference between a PIN debit and a signature debit, other than the fact that there’s more money to be made on signature?  How is one processed differently than the other?
6. Could a branch employee explain what actually happens when a customer pays a bill via Internet banking?  Who’s involved?  Where does the money go?  What happens if it rejects? How long does it take? (Hmmm. Now that I think about it, could anybody explain this?)
7. Does the platform sales rep know what happens in the bank if a customer uses the Internet at 9 PM on Saturday night to apply for a loan that’s different than if they walked into the branch?
8. Could a branch employee relate the service options customers have when they call the bank’s IVR?  Could an employee list the options on the first menu?
9. How many branch employees could explain what happens to a wire transfer after they fill out the request?
10. How many branch people know what Pay Pal is?  Not important for them to know, you say?  Well, more of your customers have Pay Pal accounts than have signed up for Internet banking.  Still not important for them to know, you say?

Bonus question – If a business customer walked into the branch and dropped an account analysis statement on the desk, how many branch employees could discuss it with confidence and credibility?

These are only some examples.  Anything here you think a branch shouldn’t know?  Would you be confident on the front line with customers if you couldn’t answer them?

Here’s the point.  Any of the customer encounters listed above might occur completely outside the branch and never need branch employee involvement.  They are also all encounters that might require a branch employee to be in the thick of at any time of day, when they can’t pass off, and where the customer’s long-term impression of the bank is at stake.

Anyone who spends a few days in a busy branch will see quickly that these are examples of things branch employees need to know.  Never mind that “there’s online help and manuals.”  Not good enough.  Branch employees need to be able to explain them ad hoc with authority to a worried (or maybe steamed) customer.  And here’s a note from the field – they’re dying for this training and knowledge.  Branch people are nutty about understanding how things work, and I think nothing, absolutely nothing, will cause them to sit up straight, look customers dead in the eye, assist them with flair, and cross-sell them the next product and service you want them to get than the confidence this type of understanding and knowledge brings.

Check the 2007 branch training budget and ask how much is being spent on sales behavior, how much on systems, and how much on just explaining how things work in banking. 

Is the mix right?  Think about it.  They’re your customer guides, after all.
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