Copyright Texas Banker Association Dec 1993To the average consumer, it seems that banks are driven by money. But as successful bankers you know your businesses are driven by customers.
While trying to keep ahead of the avalanche of ever-changing federal, state and local regulations, many bankers have, however, forgotten that "customer" is just another name for "consumer." Today's consumers are savvy purchasers. Average consumers may not know very much, if anything, about CRA or present value analysis, but they know when they are receiving quality service. They have great expectations when it comes to customer service.
The September issue of TEXAS*BANKING had several excellent articles dealing with customer satisfaction. One article stressed the importance of Total Quality Management. Another article showed in graphic detail what it costs a bank to lose even a small-scale customer. "You're preaching to the choir here," you say. "I know the customer is king." You even have a great customer service training program for your new employees. Or so you think.
A bank with a "great customer service training program" had employees, through no malice of forethought, make these statements to the bank's valued current and potential customers.
EMPLOYEE: "Our bank caters to professionals."
CUSTOMER REACTION: "Gee I wonder if I'm 'professional' enough to meet their criteria?"
EMPLOYEE: "We only give that information to 'preferred customers,'" when asked about money market accounts by a potential customer.
CUSTOMER REACTION: You can guess what it was!
Could this have happened at your bank? Probably yes. No training program is 100 percent effective, and even good employees have "bad hair" days.
If you expect your customers to monitor your customer service program for you, think again. Statistics show that for every complaint registered, 26 go unreported. Ninety percent of noncomplaining customers simply will never return. By effectively monitoring your customer service program, however, you can obtain valuable information that will allow you to make appropriate changes. Whether by implementing Total Quality Management or another management theory, customer service training is an ongoing process for all of your employees.
Over the years, field representatives conducting customer satisfaction surveys for banking institutions most often find these three problems:
* Employees don't know what differentiates their bank from others, nor do they offer the customer all services available. Frequently, many do not even know what is available. And failing to know what is available, employees are unable to bring those services and products to the attention of your customers.
* Essential front-line employees may lack sufficient training on how to determine customer needs and then match those needs to specific services. Inadequate sales skills are often noted as a problem.
* Customers are treated with an attitude of indifference, as if they were just account numbers. If employees understood the real value of a satisfied long-term customer and knew how to develop customer loyalty, their attitudes and actions toward customers would be different.
Having chosen a management "theory" for your organization, it will become your road map to where you want to go. While you may have your destination clearly circled, if you don't know where you currently are, you still won't know exactly how to get to where you want to be.
There are many tools available to help you locate your whereabouts on the customer service road map. Customer opinion surveys, focus groups and lobby intercepts are all excellent sources of information to help determine whether your organization's training and communications programs are producing the quality of service expected. A customized survey can provide you with benchmark information to direct and monitor training as well as recognize performance.
Mystery shopping is another too to obtain valuable information regarding the success of your training program. Are your employees effectively determining the needs of the customer? Do your employees have appropriate product knowledge and offer options suited to the customer's needs? Do your employees reflect genuine concern for your customer A mystery shopper can obtain answers to all of these concerns while your employee simply executes his or her regular routine.
Another tool is the closed account survey or "autopsy report," information gathered from those customers you've lost. Today's consumers are usually receptive to any forum which allows them to vent the reasons why they chose to abandon one financial organization for another. Finding out exactly why a customer has decided to move their accounts elsewhere may help you retain more of your existing customers.
The days of one bank being all things to all people are gone. Parents' admonitions to their children, "do all your banking at one location. That way the banker will know who you are," no longer hold true. And consumers know it. Today's consumers have no feelings of guilt when they move their accounts from one organization to another and no longer feel bound by the old-fashioned custom of customer loyalty.
If your employees have a hard time determining what makes your banking institution different from the others in the city, consumers are equally confused. Consumers tend to believe that because the banking industry is so highly regulated, service and products offered from one bank to another are virtually the same.
In the mind of the consumer, about the only thing that differentiates you from your competitors is customer service. The good news is customer service is something you can monitor and have control over. It is up to you to make your customer's great expectations about great customer service a reality. If you don't your competitors will.
Vickie Henry is owner and president of Feedback Plus Inc., a customer satisfaction and consulting company in the United States and Canada. Henry oversees a corporate staff headquartered in Dallas and a network of more than 5,600 independent contractors/mystery shoppers who gather key data for the firm.
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