You've developed the perfect marketing campaign based on research and customer needs. You know it will help your bank increase revenues and grow accounts. There is no doubt it will be a success. Or is there?
If you don't have a targeted employee training initiative to complement the program, all your hard work and research may have little impact on the bottom line. Without staff that can sell your new product and identify ways to build customer relationships around it, chances are that you're not achieving all you can.
Employee training is critical to ongoing success. In the movie, "Field of Dreams," actor Kevin Costner was told, "If you build it, they will come." While the movie dealt with baseball fields and childhood memories, this statement applies to marketing and the banking industry. You can build the perfect marketing program, one that makes your customers come into the branch and want to do business with you. The question then becomes: What do you do with them once you have their attention? It's the employees and the tools you provide them with that often make or break relationships and achieve maximum return on your marketing investments. So how does a company develop and implement a training program that has impact and ongoing value?
The first step is not to see training as a one-time project, but as an ongoing investment in the lifeblood of your bank. Obviously, a training initiative should be developed around new marketing campaigns so that short-term needs can be addressed. This time-intensive phase provides employees with materials, real-life scenarios and advice on how to sell products, identify customer concerns, address them and build relationships.
Training consultants should be able to not only provide materials for your employees but also develop and hold employee training sessions or workshops where staff members have the chance to role play and act out possible interactions. Ideally, this is a six- to 12-week process that educates employees, gives them tools for effective selling and encourages them to consider themselves critical to the bank's success. The program should also provide incentives to entice employees to participate and succeed, and an evaluation checkpoint should be part of the overall program. This allows for refinements based on progress to date.
While training immediately provides tools for program success, its ultimate goal is team building. When a bank focuses on team building, employee training has a larger impact beyond successful program deployment. It can improve employee satisfaction, reduce employee turnover and enhance the overall workplace environment. There are many companies available that develop and deploy training. Critical to the banking industry is seeking out consultants who have proven banking experience. By working with a consultant steeped in banking, your employees more easily identify with someone who understands their daily experiences and values their work.
Banks should also find consultants interested in long-term relationships. Training companies that want to provide a six-week training program and then move on to other customers aren't an ideal fit. Ultimately, training that is ongoing and tuned to the specific needs of the bank develops a service culture. And banks that operate from a service perspective rather than a sales one are proven to have deeper, longer customer relationships. This should be the goal of every bank in today's heightened environment of competition. At its best, training is a key step in a bank's journey of becoming a service-focused organization where marketing is a critical piece of every interaction. It's these institutions that continue to grow relationships, build new ones and succeed in spite of increased challenges. As you look for ways to take your organization to the next level of success, don't overlook training and the meaningful impact it can have when done correctly.
