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Keeping Tabs on the Lobby: Tracking Key Sales, Service and Productivity with Intelligence-Gathering Solutions

March 18, 2013 By W. Michael Scott 2 Comments

Most financial institutions (FIs) gather and analyze product and service metrics and other business intelligence (BI) in some form. However, branch and senior management often overlook an area overflowing with invaluable information—the lobby. Fortunately, technology now makes it simple for FIs to determine the value of service and sales efforts in the branch lobby—and facilitate more sales and better service, as well.

In the Queue
Historically, banks have relied upon sign-in sheets to manage lobby customer service efforts. Once a personal banker, loan officer or customer service representative calls a customer into his or her office, there is often no easy way for the agent to note activities and discussions and upload them to a central BI platform for meaningful analysis.

A far better solution—but one that surprisingly few banks use—is to track and manage customer experiences via a computerized solution from the moment they sign in or are greeted. Here’s how it works:

1. The customer signs into a terminal or iPad and provides his or her name, purpose for visit and any special information that might help the customer service agent assist them. Upon sign-in, the system notes the arrival time. (Optionally, a greeter can sign the customer in and input this information into the system.)
2. The system begins tracking wait time and alerts representatives and managers if it becomes excessive.
3. A service agent notes in the system that he/she will assist the customer, entering the name, reason for their visit and other details for use during the interaction, and then greets the account holder, by name, for the consultation.
4. During the consultation, the agent seamlessly updates the system with items discussed—not only services addressed but also products and cross-sell products suggested (with outcome, e.g. purchased or requires follow-up).
5. When the consultation is complete (or the customer transitions or is escalated to another staffer or different department, if appropriate), the agent closes out the session, which stops the time tracker.

Business intelligence solutions that track agent-customer interaction from sign-in let management know:

  • How long customers are waiting to be helped (and whether agents are responding to reminders about excessive wait times).
  • Average time spent in consultations during sales and service accomplishments.
  • Most prevalent topics during consultations (which can pinpoint hidden service issues and highlight future sales opportunities).
  • Percentage of service interactions, products sold, cases escalated and other important metrics during the average consultation.

Without a dedicated, user-friendly software solution, most managers and agents will not accurately record the details needed for such a powerful sales, service and performance analysis. When reports are utilized that analyze this and other data in real-time, the branch and senior management teams can gain vital insight into the health of their lobby service and sales efforts, segmented by specific time periods, high- and low-performing staff members, and other key metrics.

Analytics can generally be customized to enable reporting on any number of available metrics. To learn more about lobby tracking technologies and their benefits, we invite you to download the Retail Branch Lobby Study white paper from FMSI.com.

About W. Michael Scott:
W. Michael Scott is President and CEO of Financial Management Solutions, Inc. (FMSI). FMSI provides easy-to-use, yet sophisticated, business intelligence and performance management systems that allow financial institutions to manage and staff efficiently to meet service and sales needs. For more information, visit www.fmsi.com.

Filed Under Industry News Tagged With brick & mortar branches, business intelligence, financial institutions, Financial Management Solutions, Retail Branch Lobby Study

Your Money or Your Bank

January 28, 2013 By Banking.com Staff Leave a Comment

Customers logging into the Citizens Bank site had a problem last week. The online services “were not available at this time,” they were told, and while no reason was given for the outage, it seemed apparent that foul play was involved, specifically a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack.

This is by no means the only bank to be on the receiving end of such assaults, and Citizens even had more traditional criminal issues to deal with—two of its branches in Philadelphia suffered old-fashioned bank robberies. True to pulp fiction form, one was from a perpetrator wearing a surgical mask, while in the other case the suspect handed a note to the teller demanding money, got away with an unspecified haul and, yes, is “considered armed and dangerous.”) Still, the outage is newsworthy specifically because it captures so many trends of the moment.

First, a spokesperson for the bank politely urged customers to find their way to a local branch—advice that will seem increasingly irrelevant. This has nothing to do with the incidence of bank holdups; it’s simply because the number of branches is dwindling. According to a report from research firm SNL Financial, banks closed 2,267 branches last year while opening only 1,149. That’s the biggest net loss since the firm began tracking closures in 2005.

There’s no single reason for this, of course. The economy at large, competitive factors, government regulation, shifting interest rates, internal priorities—they are all factors in any given trend. However, as even the new report makes clear, many financial institutions are encouraging their customers to move to online and mobile banking.

Which brings us back full circle to the issue of online outages, and the most recent problems in that area.

Any news search at any given time yields a plethora of stories about banks launching new initiatives in the online/mobile space. There are always deals being offered to draw new business, mobile apps developed and released to the market (both consumer and business) and significant investments being made. For everything from infrastructure to customer convenience, this is where the action is right now.

In this context, even a minor outage can be devastating. Customer loyalty can be extremely fickle: Just as retailers have found that the unavailability of a single item can mean the loss of a customer forever (since there are so many alternatives available at the click of a button), banks may find that patrons will go elsewhere because it’s easy to do.

Even the best security measures cannot guarantee that there will never be a data breach. DDoS attacks of the kind apparently experienced by Citizens Bank—which create enormous amounts of fake traffic to a targeted site, temporarily crashing servers and weakening defense—will likely gain in popularity. Customers don’t know or care what the problem is; they’ll know there is one and take their business elsewhere, and tell their friends to do the same (not just through word of mouth but also widely disseminated social media).

In essence, the ROI of any investment in online and mobile banking must involve more than the sum of its parts. There will always be online attacks and outages. The differentiator might be in how the affected financial institution deals with it.

Filed Under For Financial Institutions Tagged With banks, brick & mortar branches, Citizens Bank, DDoS, Distributed Denial of Service, outage

Banks: Games People Play

January 23, 2013 By Banking.com Staff Leave a Comment

If you want to see how much technology has changed the relationship between banks and their customers, then take a trip down to the Berkshire Bank branch in Pittsfield, MA. Yes, branch, as in real-world, brick-and-mortar, set-in-stone structure staffed by flesh-and-blood humans.

It’s got cash dispensers, high-quality TV screens, Sony PlayStations and a community room that can accommodate up to 30 people. And while this is the county’s largest bank, at least nine other Berkshire outlets have been similarly renovated recently.

Perhaps the most interesting addition has been teller pods, which essentially remove the time-honored barrier between customer and teller. In this arrangement, the teller stands in front of the computer, right alongside the customer during each transaction. If the teller is busy, there’s a place for the customer to sit while waiting. Cash dispensers situated by the pods enable tellers to stay accurate without actually counting the bills—another anachronism that can be happily disposed of. (It’s interesting to think about how bank robbers see this.)

The rationale behind all these changes, of course, is to personalize and enhance the interaction between corporation and consumer. People generally don’t go to the bank unless they really need to, and the inclination is always to conduct the transaction and depart as quickly as possible. For their part, most branches assume that the customer who can leave the fastest is the happiest.

However, when so many banking transactions are conducted online, it’s surely worth taking a look at alternative models.

In a sense, this approach flips conventional wisdom in other ways too—while consumers use banking apps to stay away from the branch, these banks are using different kinds of technology (teller pods, TVs, gaming consoles) to lure the customer inside the branch, and keep them there. The question is the extent of the value that can accrue from this relationship.

Not every branch has the space to even offer a community space, and customers who come in to, say, make a withdrawal have no real business staying there after they’re done. However, given the number of options now available to every consumer, anything that strengthens the relationship is a good thing.

A long time ago, IKEA created a differentiator by offering space for children to play while their parents shopped for furniture (it had been done before, but probably not to that extent). It’s even easy to surmise that kids clamored to go to the IKEA playpen, which in turn induced their parents to shop.

It’s hard to think of a direct equivalent for the banking industry, but it’s definitely interesting to see what innovative companies will try to lure new business and retain what they have. Might we see good banking combined with fine dining—a restaurant inside the branch, open only during banking hours? How about a sports bar where you get a drink and watch the game while paying your bills? Perhaps laundry services while you wait for a transaction to clear?

Comic speculation aside, innovation is always welcome. The banking industry’s reputation has taken a battering recently. Any approach designed to strengthen the brand and cultivate relationships is a very good thing.

Filed Under For Financial Institutions Tagged With banks, Berkshire Bank, brick & mortar branches, gamification