The Headache: The meaning of "customer service" continues to evolve. People expect more than a friendly "hello" and lollipops for the kids.
Our Question: What is your bank doing to improve its customer service?
Come see what other bankers think, and add your own views
Customer Service: What is your bank doing to raise the bar
The December 2010 ABA Banking Journal Community Banking department features the article, "How good is your service?" Community bankers and others make the point that many banks think they are doing well in this area. Are they really? An excerpt:
| Michelle
Gula makes her living serving community banks, and she’s horrified. She
personally mystery shops branches and she thinks some CEOs would be
equally horrified to see what she sometimes sees. |
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Bankers say just being polite to customers and offering them lollipops isn’t enough today.
“Everyone considers community banks to have high service,” says Gula, head of M.rae Associates. “But just being a community bank doesn’t mean you automatically have good service.” Gula has found some community banks offering service little better than the big-bank brethren they typically crow about competing with on the basis of service.
Face it, she says, differentiation continues to be the key to community
bank success. “It’s hard to come up with a product that just your
institution has,” adds Gula. Further, larger banks, with their ability
to be first out with new products, have also been stressing service.
First Niagara and PNC are two examples Gula cites.
“We community bankers think that our employees provide the best
service,” says Brian Constable, executive vice-president and chief
commercial banking officer at Tustin, Calif.’s $700 million-assets
Sunwest Bank. “But just because I believe that, doesn’t mean it’s so.”
In fact, the risks are huge. “One bad teller talks to 50 clients a
day,” says Constable. If you lose five a month, he says, that’s
catastrophic.
More than ever, community bank leaders recognize the need for premiere customer service.
The article discusses bankers modern definitions of service, and then presents some case studies of their efforts. Two such case studies appear below as comments, and are drawn from the article. Add some thoughts on your own bank's efforts to make and keep community bank service what it needs to be.
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ABA BJ, based on interview with Bob Jones, president and CEO, United Bank, Atmore, Ala.
said:
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From the pages of ABA Banking Journal... Bob Jones? United Bank taps advisory boards?some geographic, one market-focused?for help. As one example of how these groups helped the bank, Jones took the issue of gift card fraud to the advisory boards to explore their views and perceptions. As it turned out, understanding of the difference between consumer rights and protections on debit cards and credit cards was quite low. Jones says this helped the bank put more effort into education. And it also began encouraging customers who shop online with debit cards to open ?shopping accounts? separate from their main household account. |
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ABA BJ, based on interviews with Cindy Munley and Susan Porter, First Hope Bank, N.A., Hope, N.J.
said:
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First Hope Bank has felt service had to be kicked up a notch to compete. Cindy Munley says the bank is about to launch a new customer relationship management system. But the bank has done more than shop for better tech. Training has been revamped to stress role-playing, Munley says. The bank wants its staff to know how to spot cues that could bring bank products and customers together. Munley says the banks? CEO, Norm Beatty, likes to say ?everyone can be taught to balance.? So the bank looks for new hires that fit its renewed service emphasis. ?Retail is a great background,? she says. Susan Porter, the bank?s senior vice-president and chief administrative officer, notes that there is a balance between friendliness and analytical skill. ?You don?t want someone who will just talk your ear off,? she explains. Among the tools the bank uses to find the right people are the Predictive Index tests that sort out personality types. Another tool is TalentPlus, an open-ended interviewing process that helps probe for integrity, honesty, exactitude, and work intensity. ?We are hitting the nail on the head in hiring people who want to be tellers, rather than just hiring nice people,? says Porter. |
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