Be professional on the telephone starting now!
Do you wonder why your latest marketing campaign flopped? Why that new product didn’t take off? Why that new branch isn’t meeting expectations? News Flash! It’s the way you answer your phones. It’s the way you treat your potential and existing customers.
You have spent millions of dollars on branches, signage, marketing, branding, product development and employee expense and you still cannot answer the phone professionally. We have conducted 1000’s of phone shops and fewer than 1 in 20 community banks meet basic phone standards. Over 20% are actually turning the business away because the employee clearly doesn’t want to go through the trouble of opening the account. Of the 5% that do meet or exceed standards, all have a disciplined process in place for reaching and maintaining professional phone standards and they accomplish this for less than $500 per branch per year! Here are some of the best action steps we have seen:
- Set simple basic non-negotiable standards for anyone who answers the phone.
- Train all employees on these basic standards.
- Train all retail employees on professional phone etiquette.
- Monitor and record how your phones are answered.
- Monitor your competition.
- Coach retail employees by playing their recorded calls back to them. This should be done one-on-one with their direct supervisor.
- Play the remarkable recordings for the entire bank. Create phone heroes.
- Do not let anyone who cannot meet the basic standards answer the phone!
More than 60% of customers are currently willing to change banks. Over half of those will call before dropping by one of your branches.
