It’s Time to Engage Your Tellers in Sales

The opportunity

The reality is that tellers at your bank or credit union have more face time with customers/members than any other group within the organization-doesn't it make sense that they be an integral part of your sales and CRM initiatives?

The challenge

The teller's traditional role has been to process transactions quickly, accurately and securely, but that's no longer enough if your institution wants to grow profitably or continue to build value that it can pass back to its customer/members. You must be able to engage tellers in personalized servicing and selling without sacrificing the customer/member experience or disrupting the lobby flow. 

The approach

There is a natural ebb and flow to processing teller transactions. Take advantage of the quiet moments in the normal transaction process to deliver service and sales messages that are personalized for the customer/member. When you first begin to engage your tellers, the customer/member message delivery needs to be scripted with natural speech patterns to make the teller feel comfortable and sound professional while being brief, direct and polite. It is also critical to provide an automated way to capture the customer's/member's interest level and enable tellers to arrange for follow-up with only a few additional key strokes. The follow-up then takes place away from the teller line, maintaining "business-as-usual" for the overall teller line experience. 

And finally, the key to all of this is that the process be...

Quick-the customer/member is identified during the transaction process and this allows for a 2 or 3 click process to capture the referral information.

Meaningful-creating and presenting personalized offers that deliver special value to customers/members increases the level of acceptance. Tracking the offer made with a "yes" or "no" maybe keeps your teller from annoying the customer/member with repeated attempts at the same offer.

Actionable-get the referral to the right person for follow-up. Track the follow-up process and keep all parties informed of progress and results. Incentive and recognition help maintain focus and reward extra effort.

Every teller interaction presents an opportunity for your institution to further cultivate mutually beneficial customer/member relationships. Positioning tellers to engage in personalized service and selling, will complement your sales and CRM initiatives and ultimately, help your institution to grow profitably and build value for customers/members.