Bank managers want to see their branch staff members courteous and considerate, insightful and informed.
In good times, banks might invest generously in training programmes for employees. Training centres provide space, tellers and account managers become students for a few hours or a few days. This does not mean, however, that front office people get fully equipped to deal with all situations. On a daily basis, they still appreciate guidance and support.
From EFMA conferences, I brought back stories about best practices of international banks in service quality and customer experience management. In Russian Raiffeisenbank, part of Raiffeisen International group, our SQM team built on those imported ideas and came up with new projects. “Twenty Days To a Good Habit” was one of such projects, a service quality improvement campaign in branches. Three weeks in a row (as it takes 21 days to form a habit) colleagues would have 15 minutes of training before the start of the workday. For example, two people look at each other and exchange approving comments about each other’s appearance (though it feels a bit awkward). Next step, they try to say the same but without words, just by way of looking at their vis-à-vis. About a dozen of exercises of sorts were to be repeated during the three weeks of the campaign.
During the same days, branch directors would pay friendly visits to other branches, to look at things with a fresh pair of eyes and exchange impressions afterwards. The hard part was to convince everyone to come to work 20-30 min earlier for three weeks in a row. The most surprising feedback from staff was they enjoyed the campaign more and more towards the end because it gave them a chance to spend some time with each other and become friends.
In 2010-2013, the campaign would get repeated, here and there in the branch network, initiated not by head office but by branches or regional managers.
A similar campaign to form some good habits I suggested in Russian Citibank where I started in December 2014 as Customer Experience Head. Before, Citi would almost yearly launch customer care programmes initiated by NY office, American style, a bit detached from immediate realities as far as I could understand from talking to colleagues.
A global programme Power of One, though, was very good, and I was very happy I could participate shortly after I got the job. It would have been wonderful if every employee had participated but those who could get most out of it – front office employees – hardly heard about it. Only managers of certain grades were invited to spend a couple of days in a hotel conference room to immerse into various insightful exercises.
I suggested several interpretations of Power of One exercises when we designed some joined initiatives with branch network and Citiphone. In branches, we called the campaign aimed to improve tellers and account managers communication skills “New Good Habits” and, surprisingly, many things came as new and fresh.
As one top manager said, “our people in branches were afraid of customers, and this good habits initiative has brought good changes”. The “New Good Habits” got repeated several times, with content varying depending on the challenges the bank branch network faced.
In 2015, we would elaborate small talk skills and compliments to customers, in 2017 the focus was on answering problematic questions and learning to prevent conflict situations. Starting and supporting a dialogue between head office and branch network/call centre was an important part of my work.
I always recommended head office people to come to branches and sales points informally, without a scheduled meeting, just as Michael Peririn, first president of Raiffeisenbank in Russia, did. My first recommendation to branches in 2015 was to remove the navigation sign “CitiGold Customers get priority service”, which seemed a somewhat simplistic way to approach a target group separating others as not too important.
As Customer Experience Head I also worked with other teams including contact centres – the bank’s own one, Citiphone, and with third parties. Citiphone virtually changed the brand’s tone of voice in Russia as well as hiring, motivation, training and quality control practices, more on that here – Contact Centre Transformation
