It’s always interesting to see if a community bank’s brand matches it’s customer experience. It’s very easy to post a statement on a website with grand claims as to who you are as an organization. In fact, 95% of community bankers will claim that they offer remarkable service or at least service that exceeds that of the big banks. However, if you were to call these banks (75% of your potential customers do) and experience the service, almost always, the service doesn’t match up to the stated claim. Here are a few community banks we have recently shopped as competitor banks to those we currently serve. We’re leaving the bank names off the list so as not to embarrass anyone. Listed below is the claim they each make on their website, along with our rating of the customer experience.
- “Service that exceeds our customers’ expectations” – Phone Shop Rating “F”
- “A banking tradition since 19__” – Phone Shop Rating “F”
- “Award-winning service” – Phone Shop Rating “D”
- “Delivering world-class service” – Phone Shop Rating “D”
- “Your goals come first” – Phone Shop Rating “C”
- “We’re On It” – Phone Shop Rating “D”
- “A bank built on service since 19__” – Phone Shop Rating “C”
*In all the shops we’ve done over the past three months, the highest score was an “A” (only 1) and we did have three “B’s”. The remaining were C or lower and we didn’t count the big banks in this list.
The point is, just because you say it and think it, doesn’t make it a reality. For the most part as it relates to these shops, we’re not encountering rude employees, not even at the big banks. The employee can be nice enough, but if he is not answering the phone with a complete greeting, or not placing the caller on hold or transferring the call in a professional manner, then he is not serving the customer well. If he is not proactively helping the caller with her requests, or asking a few questions in conversation to uncover needs, then the employee is not setting himself far enough apart from the competition to gain business. Order-takers do not have a future in community banking, while relationship bankers are the future.
Remarkable service has to be managed and scored. A phone shop is just one indicator of your service. Tracking cross-sells is another. If you don’t have a process to keep score, then you’re purely guessing and hoping as to whether your branding matches the customer experience. Keep score based on what your employees can control, set expectations, and manage the process on a daily basis.
