Follow-up Sales Leads Like A Bloodhound

Why do bankers give up on a potential sale so easily? If someone says, “I will think about it,” does this mean you should call them back or would you treat it as a dead opportunity? Too often, we leave valuable sales on the table just because we don’t follow-up like a bloodhound.

Years ago, I lived in England where they still have traditional fox hunts. There is one thing I learned by watching a fox hunt – the dog does not give up! The dog keeps on running and trying to find the fox until the fox is found.

Too often we stop our chase before it even gets started. Let me give you a real life example. A few weeks ago, I stopped into my bank. I have had a home equity line of credit for more than 10 years with this bank. I thought it might be good to see if I could do a bit better from a rate perspective now that rates have dropped significantly. Here is exactly what happened.

I sat down with the branch manager. She was pleasant in her greeting however she did not introduce herself by name or do any type of formal introduction. The branch manager was very polite. She answered each of my questions about the account, rate, and refinancing procedure. After all of my questions were answered, I said that I would discuss it with my wife and we would make a final decision. That was more than 5 weeks ago!

Never once did the branch manager ask for any of my contact details to verify if they still had the correct phone number. Never once did the branch manager ask for my email address. Never once did she hand me her business card so I would know who to call should I have more questions. Never once did she call me back to follow-up on my visit.

If a customer takes valuable time out their day to stop into the branch to ask questions, does that not qualify them as having interest in your product or service? It is time to stop leaving good business on the table and start following-up with every opportunity.

Here is what a banker sales bloodhound should have done:

1) Know your customer. Before a potential customer leaves your office you should know who they are, what relationships they have with you, and make sure you verify their phone number and email address. It is sad to say but phone numbers and email addresses change frequently and most likely your records are old or inaccurate.

2) Hand out a business card. Before they leave your office, hand them your business card. In fact hand them two business cards just in case they need one for their spouse. This is why you have business cards. This year your goal should be to go through as many boxes as possible.

3) Send an email. Directly after the customer leaves your office, send an email! You just verified the email address, so send them a quick email and say thank you for stopping in and you look forward to talking with them in a few days. If the email bounces, call them up and re-check the email address. You must have written it down incorrectly.

4) Follow-up like a bloodhound. Don’t stop until you get a final answer. Maybe is not a final answer. We will think about it is not a final answer. Yes, I would like to make an appointment or No, we are no longer interested is a final answer. 

5) Follow-up again. Lastly, let’s say a few days go by and you do not hear from the potential customer. Now is the time to be creative in your approach. Call them back and this time, use a servicing approach. Here is an example:

Hi Mr. Smith, this is Jane from Your Bank. We talked a few days ago about refinancing your home equity line of credit. The reason I am calling is that I may have forgotten to provide you with one other important piece of information about refinancing your loan. I noticed that you do not use our mobile banking product. Well, with your new line of credit account, you will be able to access this account from our mobile banking application.

This simple follow-up call provides one new nugget of information for your prospect but it also provides you with a valid reason to talk with them to gain commitment.

Don't let a week go by without contacting them again. Bloodhounds don’t give up. Bloodhounds want to win. Don’t you want to win? Sure you do. Stop letting business go to your competitor and start following up like the banking sales professional you really are.

Bank Phone Number Roulette

A May 2010 article from Reuters stated that nearly a quarter of all homes in the U.S. have abandoned land lines and only use a cell phone. The article further noted that, almost half of adults aged 25 to 29 lived in households with only cell phones. This means that keeping your customer phone numbers up-to-date is becoming more of a challenge.

Incorporate processes at your front-line to collect and verify phone numbers and email addresses at least once per year. This will allow your institution to stay in touch with your customers through these channels and cut down on costs, both in time and money, of bad contact data.

Quest has worked with many institutions who don’t even have current mailing addresses for many accounts, let alone phone numbers or email addresses. You need a process in place to continue to validate this data, this is just good business. And it is good customer relations.

As communications technology continues to change, you will be faced with an exponential backlog of outdated and invalid contact data for your customers unless you routinely validate and update it.

Here are some tips on how to keep things updated in times of change.
Read the full article in our Sales Ezine:

http://www.quest-analytics.com/sdarticles/SD201008-02.asp

Getting More out of New Account Openings

The new account interview is so very important to driving new and future sales. Your customer’s or member’s first account opening with your institution embeds their first impression of your organization. The type of service they receive on this first transaction will either be memorable in a positive or a negative way. If it is negative, trust me they will be telling their friends about the experience. You may ask, how do I know if I did a great job? You will know. The next time they are in the bank, they will ask for you by name. This will give you another chance to lock in a lifetime relationship with this customer.

Although the customer may have initially contacted you due to some great marketing about your “Free Checking” or other product line, never assume that this is the best product for the customer. You need to ask the customer about how they plan on using the account, the balances they plan on having and the number of transactions they will perform each month. It may be that they will have sufficient balances for an interest bearing account. If this is the case, explaining the advantages is very appropriate. Never assume that because they came into the institution for one particular account, that this is exactly what the customer needs. This is the point of the interview. The same holds true for CD discussions. Ask questions about what their short term and long term needs are for the money. Based upon their answers, you can make a good recommendation. The bottom line is you need to ask questions so you can properly help them open the correct account(s) from the start. This will help them get the most from your institution.

Ask questions about their other banking relationships. Most customers have 5 or more banking relationships. If you want to become their primary bank, you need to know how you can help them with their other needs. Don’t be afraid to ask where they have their other accounts. Don’t criticize their decision to use other banks. Tell them that many of your best customers have relationships with other banks as well. Do explain how easy it is for you to set-up account linkages so they can easily move money to your institution.See more tips your customer service agents should take to make sure you get the most out of every new account interaction by reading the full article - http://bit.ly/ctgRTY

Bad Data Costs Your Bank Money

Banks and Credit Unions of all sizes can cut a large chunk of operational and marketing expense by simply paying more attention to the quality of customer data. As absurd as this may sound, it is absolutely true. Routine and marketing mailings to bad addresses, as well as service and marketing calls to bad phone numbers are costs that add up very quickly and waste your valuable operations and marketing dollars.

Consider this example:

Marketing or operational mailing pieces per month = 20,000
Cost per mailing piece (production and postage) = $1.25
Total monthly cost = $25,000
Total annual cost = $300,000

Month 1 bad/outdated addresses = 1,000 (5% of mailing)
Cost of month 1 bad/outdated addresses = $1,250

Add 1% growth of bad/outdated addresses per month = 16% annually

Even if half of the bad addresses at some point in the year update their addresses, that is still 8% annually or $2,000 per mailing and $24,000 per year.

If your bank/credit union is like most institutions, you could probably put that money to use somewhere else where you would see a return on it.

So, do you have a strategy in place to deal with the degrading quality of your customer data? Do you have a process to regularly audit and review customer data with those who know the data best, the customers themselves?

Quest Analytics works with clients on these very scenarios. As a result, we now offer our IQDataQuality(TM) solution. It puts a proven process in place to ensure your customer information is validated at routine intervals by your front line. Our solution works directly with all teller applications and core systems.

Click here for more information on IQDataQuality:



http://www.quest-analytics.com/FactSheets/Quest%20Analytics%20IQDataQuality%20Factsheet.pdf

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