The Human Element: Sales and Service, Bank’s Last Link in the Marketing Chain

What if I told you that after all your efforts with marketing (product, positioning and price), there is a one-in-ten chance the branch representatives will undermine the sale?

Now more than ever, it is critical for banks to establish themselves as the primary provider of financial services, not only for deposit accounts but across a variety of financial products and services.  Increasing the average products per customer will require a strategic approach to both product design and marketing.  However, at the end of this strategic marketing process, there is the human element, where prospective customers must interact with bank employees to complete the sales process.

As part of our services to our clients, Kinesis tracks purchase intent as a result of in-branch sales presentations.  According to our research, 10% of in-branch sales presentations observed by mystery shoppers, result in negative purchase intent.

What do these 10% failed sales presentations look like?

Here are some quotes describing the experience:

“There was no personal attention.  The banker did not seem to care if I was there or not.  At the teller line, there was only one teller that seemed to care that there were several people waiting.  No one moved with a sense of urgency.  There was no communication materials provided.”

Here’s another example…

“It was painfully obvious that the banker was lacking basic knowledge of the accounts.”

Yet another…

“Brian did not give the impression that he wanted my business.  He did not stand up and shake my hand when I went over to his desk.  He very rarely made eye contact.  I felt like he was just going through the motions. He did not ask for my name or address me by my name. He told me about checking account products but failed to inquire about my situation or determine what needs I have or might have in the future. He did not wrap up the recommendation by going over everything nor did he ask for my business. He did not thank me for coming in.”

In contrast, here is what the shops with positive intent look like:

“The appearance of the bank was comfortable and very busy in a good way. The customers were getting tended to and the associates had the customers’ best interests in mind. The response time was amazing and I felt as if the associate was sincere about wanting me as a customer, but he was not pushy or demanding about it.”

Now…after all the effort and expense of a strategic cross-sell strategy, which of the above experiences do you want your customers to encounter?

Would it be acceptable to you as a marketer to at the end of a strategic marketing campaign, have 10% of the sales presentations undermine its success?

These are rhetorical questions.

Time and time again, in study after study, we consistently observe that purchase intent is driven by two dimensions of the customer experience: reliability and empathy.  Customers want bankers who care about them and their needs and have the ability to satisfy those needs. Specifically, our research suggests the following behaviors are strongly related to purchase intent:

• Friendly/Smile/Courteous
• Greeting/Stand to Greet/Acknowledge Wait
• Interest in Helping/Offer Assistance
• Discuss Benefits/Solutions
• Promised Services Get Done
• Accuracy
• Professionalism
• Express Appreciation/Gracious
• Personalized Comment (such as, How are you?)
• Listen Attentively/Undivided Attention

As part of any strategic marketing campaign to both bring in new customers as well as increase wallet share of existing customers, it is incumbent on the institution to install appropriate customer experience training, sales and service monitoring, linked with incentives and rewards structures to motivate sales and service behaviors which drive purchase intent.