transform you branches into sales engines
TRANSCRIPT
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g Introduction
g The Bank Branch Business Challenge
g Realigning Branch Activities and Staff
g How Workforce Management Can Help
g Assessing Branch Sales Productivity
g How Workforce Optimization Solutions Can Help
g Conclusion
g About Verint
Introduction
Traditional retail bank branches have reached a crossroads and face
a steady decline in branch transactions as customers deposit checks,
perform balance inquiries, and transfer funds on their own using ATMs,
mobile devices, and PCs. Bancography, a provider of consulting to
the financial services market, estimates that branch transactions have
plummeted 25 percent in the past five years.1
Consumer preferences aside, today’s banking landscape is very different
than it used to be, for a variety of reasons:
O Regulatory changes have slashed fee income. O Walk-in volumes are declining quickly—and fewer customers in the
branch typically equate to fewer opportunities to generate sales
from referrals. O Staffing requirements for dual control and security can cause branches
to have more staff than needed for transactions and walk-in sales. O Optimized teller staffing leaves little additional, bottom-line impact to
be realized from staffing reductions.
Clearly, if banks want to improve bottom-line performance,
they need innovative ways to evolve their brick-and-mortar
branches into more effective sales and profit centers.
They also need to focus on customer retention by offering
a superior customer experience.
1 Bancography, “The State of Branches in the Age of Automated Banking,” Nov. 2012
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If improving sales in the branch, enhancing the customer experience,
and evolving to meet industry changes are important objectives
for your financial institution, you’re not alone. Research firm Ovum
conducted a study of 250 retail banks and reported that increasing
customer satisfaction and revenues were the most important
objectives impacting IT investment strategy in 2013.2
So, what can you do to increase revenue and improve bottom-line
performance in your branch networks? Here are a few suggestions
to address the challenge:
1. Turn your branches into proactive sales engines.
2. Use your excess staff in minimally staffed branches as part
of the sales engine.
3. Focus on improving satisfaction among your customers—and
capitalize on their propensity to purchase additional products.
(The median cross-sell ratio in banking is just 2.2 products per
household, the same level as 15 years ago.)3
“Easier said than done,” you may be thinking. Not so fast! Step
back and think creatively. Why not use your branch locations
to deliver a high-quality, in-person customer experience by
focusing more resources on improving sales results? You may
already have the right solutions in place to help you forecast,
plan, and schedule specific sales staff and supporting activities.
Furthermore, you may also have technology to help you identify
hidden capacity that could be applied to sales activities.
If your bank does not have these capabilities, consider focusing
your IT budget on acquiring them. They are important for helping
your branch locations make the transition from transactional to
sales centers.
The Bank Branch Business Challenge
2 Ovum, “Retail Banking IT Priorities and Spending Forecasts to 2017,” March 2013.3 The Financial Brand, “The State of Branches In The Age of Automated Banking,” Nov. 2012
g Introduction
g The Bank Branch Business Challenge
g Realigning Branch Activities and Staff
g How Workforce Management Can Help
g Assessing Branch Sales Productivity
g How Workforce Optimization Solutions Can Help
g Conclusion
g About Verint
www.verint.com 4
g Introduction
g The Bank Branch Business Challenge
g Realigning Branch Activities and Staff
g How Workforce Management Can Help
g Assessing Branch Sales Productivity
g How Workforce Optimization Solutions Can Help
g Conclusion
g About Verint
Realigning Branch Activities and Staff
Moving from a transactional to a sales
focus can present banks with a business
challenge, since it necessitates a
skilled, well-trained branch staff that is
proficient at completing multiple sales
and service tasks, in addition to basic
teller transactions. As the branch and
economic climate continues to change,
an additional challenge is staffing each
branch with the correct number of
sellers to meet sales goals.
Bank branch staff can be trained for
in-person selling, making outbound
calls to customers and prospects, and
scheduling sales appointments when
the branch is not busy. However, branch
activities must be aligned accurately with
customer traffic flow. Other challenges include giving employees appropriate goals and
implementing a means of tracking their performance against them.
Information technology can help your bank address these challenges. Many institutions
are also turning to data and analytics to look for new sales opportunities at each location,
and to build new models for determining sales performance targets.
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g Introduction
g The Bank Branch Business Challenge
g Realigning Branch Activities and Staff
g How Workforce Management Can Help
g Assessing Branch Sales Productivity
g How Workforce Optimization Solutions Can Help
g Conclusion
g About VerintWorkforce management (WFM) solutions help branch operations
forecast demand to meet sales goals and service-level goals at each
location and automate scheduling to help them deploy the right
number of staff, with the right skills, at the right times. Moreover,
workforce management solutions can help banks project their staffing
requirements, measure employee performance, and develop resource
plans that support customer service and revenue objectives.
WFM solutions can be especially useful for helping branches
increase their sales productivity and efficiency. For example, they
can help your branch:
O Schedule an appropriate number of tellers to work at the
counter, thus reducing “cannibalization” of sales staff to
perform teller duties.
O Schedule sales employees based on sales targets (i.e., what
you want to achieve), rather than on historical sales results
(what you achieved in the past).
O Schedule dedicated outbound calling activities for sellers—
and for tellers with sales skills when there is excess capacity.
O Plan meetings for times when the branch is typically less
busy, and walk-in customers are less likely to require
interactions with sales staff.
O Teach staff to schedule sales appointments when the branch
tends to be quiet, better enabling them to take teller referrals
when the branch is busy.
How Workforce Management Can Help
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g Introduction
g The Bank Branch Business Challenge
g Realigning Branch Activities and Staff
g How Workforce Management Can Help
g Assessing Branch Sales Productivity
g How Workforce Optimization Solutions Can Help
g Conclusion
g About Verint
Assessing Branch Sales Productivity
Using WFM for more than just basic teller
forecasting and scheduling can be a relatively
simple way to help improve sales productivity
in the bank branch. But why not take it a step
further?
To do so, it’s important to have an in-depth
understanding of how your branches operate,
and where operational problems lie. You can
gain this insight by coupling your existing
WFM solutions with a supplemental branch
sales effectiveness solution. Look for one that
incorporates a branch productivity assessment
as an initial first step.
A branch productivity assessment can evaluate
current sales productivity, provide comparisons
to industry benchmarks, and recommend
objectives to address your organization’s
specific sales challenges.
Here is a breakdown of the various phases that might be part of a branch
productivity assessment:
Phase 1 - Preparation and Data Request. Before the assessment begins, the
consultant sends a data request to the financial institution to build a quantitative
picture of the branch network and its performance.
Phase 2 - On-site Interviews and Observations. The consultant visits: O Corporate sales management O The head of retail and several business line leaders O A sampling of branches
Phase 3 - Analysis and Presentation of Findings. The consultant provides the
executive management team: O Analysis of all data captured O Findings and recommendations, including recommended sales targets
and configurations
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g Introduction
g The Bank Branch Business Challenge
g Realigning Branch Activities and Staff
g How Workforce Management Can Help
g Assessing Branch Sales Productivity
g How Workforce Optimization Solutions Can Help
g Conclusion
g About Verint
How Workforce Optimization Solutions Can Help
Branch productivity assessments can
help you determine where to focus your
sales effectiveness initiatives, as well
as provide a baseline against which
to measure change. But how do you
get started?
Consider implementing workforce
optimization (WFO) software, which
combines the forecasting and scheduling
capabilities of WFM with functionality
that offers insight into employee desktop
activities and performance. Be sure to
look for a comprehensive WFO suite
designed specifically for managing
branch sales and service employees
as well as tellers.
Such suites offer desktop and process
analytics (DPA) solutions, which can
help your bank monitor the details of
a seller’s desktop activities, including
the amount of time spent per activity.
You can use this information to assess
compliance with critical sales processes
(such as completing customer needs
assessments) and confirm that regulatory
requirements are being met. You can also
gain visibility into the processes followed
by high-performing employees and
use this information to coach and train
underperformers.
Workforce optimization suites also provide
performance management solutions to
measure and display progress towards
sales goals for individuals, teams,
branches, and regions. Scorecards can
reveal individual performance through
user-defined key performance indicators,
and can show how employees compare
to their peers. If individual performance
falls below a predetermined threshold,
alerts can be triggered automatically
and sent to supervisors, and coaching
sessions can be assigned and scheduled
automatically. This process can help your
bank implement a cycle of continuous
performance improvement.
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g Introduction
g The Bank Branch Business Challenge
g Realigning Branch Activities and Staff
g How Workforce Management Can Help
g Assessing Branch Sales Productivity
g How Workforce Optimization Solutions Can Help
g Conclusion
g About Verint
With consumers continuing to move away from using tellers in
branch banks to perform common transactions, bankers must
think creatively about ways to improve branch sales, enhance
the customer experience, and evolve to meet industry changes.
Branch productivity assessments can help banks determine
where to focus their sales effectiveness initiatives while offering a
baseline against which to measure change. With comprehensive
WFO suites, banks can enact their sales effectiveness strategies by
optimizing their current branch staff and business models, enabling
them to place more emphasis on sales and customer service.
By evolving from a transactional approach to a sales approach,
branch banks can focus on driving revenue and forging stronger
relationships with customers—a smart strategy for success in the
evolving, highly competitive financial services industry.
Conclusion
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