Focus on the customer experience is not new. Secret shoppers and client surveys with NPS (net promoter scores) have helped build an entire industry because all banks, like all companies, want to continually improve the customer experience and ratings. Research validates that high ratings on the customer experience in banking correlate to more repeat business, more profitable and longer-lasting relationships, as well as recommendations to others. In most cases, it is also true that it costs more to replace a relationship than to grow existing clients, and of course, a strong experience is the best way for most bankers to earn additional relationships.
The Experience – Are Your Clients Satisfied or Engaged in the Customer Experience in Banking?
Many companies have a team of people that are held accountable for measuring and ensuring a positive client experience. For example, have you talked to a service company recently that didn’t ask you to take a 3-question survey at the end of the call? In the past, the focus was on gauging customer satisfaction. But in recent years, in light of direct and non-bank competitors, the focus has evolved to discovering clients’ engagement levels as a score for the customer experience in banking.
In fact, a recent Gallup survey discovered that:
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48% of consumers who were satisfied with their banking relationship also said they would consider their institution for their next product or service.
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When they said they were both “satisfied and fully engaged,” the ratio rose to 83%.
Engagement can occur across all the various channels in banking: online, chat, customer service, in-branch, and social media. At times, these impersonal, multi-step digital avenues can work against the bank as well. So how does a bank turn a satisfied banking client into a more engaged client?
Meaningful Engagement Involves People-Powered Conversations
Equipping and training your customer-facing people is the silver bullet to creating and increasing customer engagement in banking. Consumers and business managers alike have been emailed, texted, pinged, and surveyed to the point of apathy. But when a need arises or a financial goal must be attained, there is no greater opportunity to drive engagement than when the phone rings or the customer walks into the bank.
When that happens, are your people prepared to ask enough of the right questions to truly understand and consult with the client? Are they capable of creating a conversation so impactful that the client is not only satisfied but wowed — ready to tell their family and friends about the experience and looking forward to the next one? That’s engagement. And when clients are that engaged, they have no interest in talking to other financial providers because their needs have been met and exceeded. Only adept, people-powered conversations can achieve that.
Helping Your Team Have More Powerful Conversations
Our sales evaluation partner, Objective Management Group (OMG), has identified 21 Core Sales Competencies that are critical for success in sales, business development, and relationship building. These competencies fall into three categories:
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Tactical Competencies
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Mindset Competencies (Sales DNA)
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Grit Competencies (Will to Sell)
Want to improve conversations? Evaluating your bankers’ competencies is fundamental to predicting a team’s overall success. In fact, bankers with high competency scores on the 21 Core skills are 50% more likely to be top performers. Bankers and sellers with higher competency scores perform better on win rate, new opportunity finding, and relationship building. By identifying and training the right competencies, bank leaders can give their teams the tools and training they need to succeed in their specific roles and to drive more engaged and enduring relationships.
