90% of customers not being served well by community banks…
Most community banks don’t manage telephones and it shows. Over 90% of all community banks are the same or worse than big banks when it comes to customer service. At the same time, 90% of community bankers truly believe they’re better. However, just because you think your bank’s phones are handled well doesn’t make it so. You have to score it. You have to monitor it. You have to manage it. If you’re not doing these three things there IS a problem.
We live in a new day. Customers have more choices than ever. Their only option is no longer the local bank a few blocks from their work or home. When over 70% of potential customers are visiting your website and calling your bank for product/service information, your focus should be there. By the way, if an employee is great on the phone, you can know that same employee is going to be great in person. That’s a guarantee.
What We Found
Here’s a quick case study… For approximately 3 years, we worked with a community bank conducting telephone mystery shops on a regular basis. Throughout that time, the bank was consistently scoring 100% and higher (A+) each month. With a leadership change that bank decided the shops were something they no longer wanted to do. Fast forward 3 months. We shopped the bank and found that much had changed since the last scheduled mystery shop. Their score had dropped significantly to 58% (F). What happened??? The employees now know there is no accountability. They weren’t rude on the shop, but they were no longer engaging and having a conversation with the caller or looking for opportunities to help. Now, they’re no different than the big banks in that critical area of first impressions.
Where To Start
When beginning a telephone mystery shop program, it’s important to ensure that a few basic parameters are implemented. See the list below.
An effective Telephone Mystery Shopping Program will…
- Begin with basic phone training
- Set minimum phone standards for all employees
- Be scored monthly
- Pay employees for remarkable performance
- Be reviewed in a monthly management meeting
- Require and empower managers to enforce the minimum standards
- Record each shop to take subjectivity out of the process
- Use the recordings as a coaching tool for management and employee development
- Never embarrass employees by playing recordings of poor individual shops for everyone to hear
- Always motivate remarkable performers by using their recorded shop as the example
What’s your choice? Manage your phones, customer service and first impressions or not.
