Sometimes one remark you hear in a whole day of meetings really strikes home.
At a Rutgers University seminar, Ann M. Limberg, the president of Bank of America New Jersey, said that in her bank's experience 93% of new customers come in through referrals.
I thought: How could that be? Banks spend fortunes on advertising to snag competitors' customers. They fight like mad to open branches and provide attractive rates and fees. Is it all wasted effort?
Ms. Limberg, who started as a teller for Citibank, told what B of A thinks it must do to make customers tell other folks to bring their accounts over. "You have to delight the customer, not just serve him," she said.
She then gave two examples.
- "Even though there is a long line, the teller should greet you, speak a pleasantry, thank you for coming in, and then wait until you have walked away from her station before yelling, 'Next customer please!' - so you don't think you are just a number to her."
- A man at poolside in a hotel tells his wife he would love some blueberry pie. Ten minutes later, unexpectedly, a waiter brings him a slice. A gardener had overheard the conversation and told the kitchen.
"This is how you delight them," Ms. Limberg said.I didn't buy it. Nor did the bankers and graduate students in the audience.
One audience member asked, "If the gardener overhears the conversation and acts on it, isn't that an invasion of privacy, even though the guest may appreciate the pie?"
As for me, I thought: If there is a long line to get a check cashed and I am on it, I just want that line to move as fast as possible. I don't need the pleasantries; I need the money.
I also thought back to the time I told an agent at Newark Airport as I was buying a ticket on Continental Airlines that I had been flying that line for over 50 years, since I was in the army in El Paso.
Someone in authority must have heard this. The next month I got a basket of fruit from Gordon Bethune, then Continental's president, with a note saying, "Thank you for your loyalty."
I was impressed - but did it affect my choice of carrier? No. I still pick the airline that can get me where I want to go, when I want to go there, at the lowest price.
I told a marketing professor friend of mine about Ms. Limberg's talk. "I think she is correct," he said, "but she left out one key first step that I am sure her bank considers.
"Almost all new customers come from referrals," my friend said, "but first the customer has to become unhappy with the service provider he presently is using. Then, when he is looking around, referral by a friend or colleague can play the key role in his selection of a replacement."
I thought about this and then remembered that old saw in banking: "You have to insult a customer a long time before he finally realizes it."
Maybe the advertising and well-chosen branch locations mostly prime the other guy's customers to think of you when those insults register.
That's also when referrals count. Ms. Limberg's remark is a reminder that great service, locations, and rates may tickle your current customers into recruiting new ones for you.
