Trust is a rare commodity.
It requires time to develop and it has to be earned through a series of promises kept. We use cherished adjectives to describe those we trust: dependable, reliable, caring, and honest.
The most recent American Banker/Gallup Consumer Survey documents the enormous advantage banks hold over other financial service organizations in the "trust and confidence" category. Asked to compare their trust and confidence in banks to other financial service organizations, customers almost always put more faith in banks.
While trust is an extremely important advantage, the 1999 survey shows that banks' margin of victory decreased when compared with the 1995 survey. This erosion of trust should concern all bankers.
Banks' sales culture model can impact trust significantly. In choosing one, banks need to ask three key questions: Which sales models are product-focused and which are truly customer-needs-focused? What are the underlying values implicit in the models being considered? Is a given model's sales method consistent with the bank's values?
The cost of selecting the wrong model can be steep. Unless a model is truly customer-needs-focused, trust will be damaged. Customers can easily tell when their banker is trying to sell them something just to make a sale.
Fortunately, customers can also tell when their banker genuinely cares about helping them. Instead of trust eroding, it is strengthened.
The right sales model is the key to long-term success for both the bank and the customer. It integrates selling into a comprehensive customer service strategy. Prof. Leonard L. Berry of Texas A&M University spoke to this in his book Selling in Banking. He wrote: "Professional selling is part of delivering good service and it should always be positioned as such in a financial institution.
"Professional salesmanship is not talking people into buying financial services they do not need. Rather, professional salesmanship is the act of helping customers and prospects determine just the right services to satisfy their particular requirements; it is helping people make better decisions."
Banks must spend more time examining the underlying philosophy of their sales training if they are to preserve trust. Otherwise, customers will view them as they do other financial service providers -- and trust will erode even further.
