Four Steps to Increase Your Teller Referrals

One of the easiest ways to increase sales is by increasing your teller referrals. Wait, did I say easy? Do I know what I am talking about? The answer is absolutely yes.

Your tellers need to take care of your customers’ needs quickly in a friendly manner. What most tellers and managers fail to realize is the not-so-obvious needs that they need to serve – that is, the needs beyond the transactions. As the front-line of your institution, they have the face-to-face contact with your customers and are in a unique position to help your institution recognize and support their changing needs over time.

It all starts with these four steps at the teller line.

LISTEN. Train your tellers to listen for common phrases or observe behaviors that identify needs for your products, such as check cashing or a large deposit.

SHARE. Encourage your tellers to not only listen for the cues but to act on them by creating appropriate referrals.

MEASURE. Let your tellers know you are watching and share their results to encourage quality leads.

REWARD and RETRAIN. Reward your top performers, both individually and as a team. Encourage and retrain under-performers.

It will take commitment throughout all levels of your organization to make this work, starting at the top. The difficult part is getting the organizational buy-in to get it started and stick with it. The actual process itself is easy.

Check out the full article at http://www.quest-analytics.com/sdarticles/sd201007-03.asp

How Your Bank can Benefit From Reg E Changes

Over the last several years, institutions have seen tremendous growth from fee income. Recent legislative changes will severely impact that income in the very near future. What’s worse, though, is how these changes designed to help the customer COULD potentially cost you many customers if you don’t have a plan.

The impending changes to Reg E requiring opt-in for overdraft protection could put many of your customers in a bad place by denying point of sale purchases and embarrassing them. They will most certainly blame your institution for their situation, and not the government or their failure to opt-in. So, do you have a plan to deal with these calls that will no doubt be coming your way?

Here are five things you should be doing right now:

1. Contact your customers – Call your customers and explain the Reg E situation in terms they can understand by giving an example of what might happen in the grocery store should they overdraft their account. Use real life examples.
2. Cross-sell Opportunity – Use this opportunity to have a discussion with the customer about their relationship with your bank and their financial needs.
3. Educate your customer on the new regulation. In addition to calling your customers, put notifications in the branch, ATM, web banking as well as via direct mail.
4. For banks not participating in Reg E, are you using this as an opportunity to call your customers? Call them and tell them that you are not participating in this Reg and what that means to them.
5. Evaluate new technology to help your tellers manage Reg E. Quest’s Teller Referral Assistant® software was created specifically for banks running Fiserv, FIS, Metavante, Jack Henry and OSI and can help tellers view and update the Reg E indicators without leaving the teller application.

Check out the full article at http://www.quest-analytics.com/sdarticles/sd201007-01.asp