No Hook, No Sale

Jeff Platter
August 16, 2010 | COMMENTS

The jury is still out regarding the impact that the recent financial reform legislation passed by Congress will have on community banks. They definitely dodged a couple of large bullets and will be burdened by fewer new regulations than their mega-brethren. Additionally, as the large banks are forced to impose punitive fees to make up for lost revenue, community banks will benefit from the opportunity to grab market share.

That is if they are positioned to take advantage of that opportunity. And a large part of the ability of community banks to gain market share depends upon whether their frontline staff can effectively transform the marketing opportunity into actual sales.

I have to report that the evidence on that score is mixed. As part of my firm's consulting practice, I conduct a lot of mystery shopping of community bank branches. As our founder was fond of saying, “You don't know what is really going on in your branches without shopping them.” Unfortunately, most bank executives – especially those charged with retail – would be disappointed by what we see in their offices.

We definitely see evidence of lots of marketing dollars being spent. We encounter ads on TV and the radio; we see yard signs and banners and window ads; we drive by billboards; and our clients send us samples of direct mail their employees have received from competitors.

Yet, when you actually enter bank branches, you find a huge disconnect. It is clear that the employees have not been prepared to determine which product is right for a prospect or how to ask for their business. These companies have not absorbed the simple lesson that marketing without training is like bait without a hook.

In one recent month, I personally walked into about 30 community bank offices in markets as diverse as Wichita, St Louis and Milwaukee. My approach is to walk in, look lost as a new prospect would (not hard to do as I have never been in the branch before) and ask for “information about checking accounts.” In a few cases, I venture into only one office of a company. But in most cases, I attempt to visit at least three offices of the same bank to get a fuller picture.

The people I interact with are invariably friendly, eager to help and proud of the company they work for. Beyond that, however, things fall apart. Almost nobody shook my hand or asked for my name and only a few gave me theirs, usually on my way out. In only one bank did I find a consistently applied professional etiquette, where the personal banker or teller I interacted with in all three offices started off with the same process of introduction and asked me if I would like a beverage.

As for identifying the right account for me, none of them had a clear and consistent process for qualifying me to find out which of their accounts provided the best fit. The common practice was to open some kind of brochure or lay a sheet on the desk with listed accounts (or in one case, to read from a computer screen) and then go through the details of the accounts. None of the companies had a true sales tool for the employee to use and only one company had a complete brochure with every current account and its characteristics that I could take home with me.

What I have just described is not an anomaly; it's what we see in community bank branches all across the country. Two things are clear: your employees deserve better and you deserve a better return on your marketing dollars. The difference between an average and a high-performing retail bank branch is three to five consumer and small business account openings per week. The opportunities are too rare and new customer households too valuable to blow any of them. Make sure your bait has a sharp and effective hook!

This is an executive summary from an article by Jeff Platter, vice president of Haberfeld Associates, in which he offers tips for improving employee responses to prospective customers. Reprinted with permission from http://www.bai.org/bankingstrategies.