When my banker friends lament their teams' cross-selling struggles, I often suggest that what they are doing really isn't cross-selling at all. What I most frequently observe would best be described as selling.
I am not just semantically splitting hairs when I say these two activities are appreciably different.
One of the best-known cross-selling tactics of all time began when McDonald's started asking, "Do you want fries with that?" whenever an order was placed. Later their ubiquitous line became, "Would you like that super sized?" Millions of dollars in extra revenue has been generated from that simple, no-thought-required tactic.
I've joked to bankers that I think many folks in our industry thought, "We have counters and drive-up windows, too! If it's good enough for Mickey D's, it's good enough for us!" But I would submit that when McDonald's suggests another product, that's cross-selling. When bankers throw in tag lines totally unrelated to a transaction, that's selling.
Skipping the obvious point that customers do not treat banking products as impulse buys, the more important and often missed issue is that when customers walk into a restaurant or a retail store, they are already in a purchasing mind-set.
While in that state, they are more likely to find suggestions of different or complementary products helpful and beneficial. Customers who are totally focused on conducting a transaction associated with products they already have are more likely to perceive an unrelated solicitation as superfluous and beneficial only to the business.
At this point in the conversation, and before my banking friends break out paper bags to avoid hyperventilating, I tell them that I am not suggesting we stop attempting to cross-sell products. What I am suggesting, however, is that we take a better look at the dynamics of customer visits and interactions with employees.
Study after study has shown how additional products are much more likely to be sold during the opening of the first account than during subsequent visits. I would offer that it is not because we are that much better at selling during an initial visit than we are in later interactions. It is simply that customers obviously have a shopping mind-set at this time. They are more open to considering our suggestions.
Cross-selling has as much or more to do with the customer's state of mind than it does with our tactics.
Given this fact, a key goal for our branches should be to foster a shopping mind-set in transaction-minded customers. To do that, we must increase their levels of interest and curiosity.
With all due respect, I don't believe tag lines such as "You want an equity line with that?" are the best way to accomplish this. In fact, overuse of a canned sales pitch is more likely to cause a loss of credibility than an increase in interest.
There is an astounding difference in the quality and productiveness of a conversation you are likely to have with a customer who actually invites you into that conversation. That's true even if we help that process along with a gentle nudge.
I laughed recently when a young lady told me one of her favorite cross-selling tactics was watching for customers whom she observed looking toward a hard-to-miss display in the center of the branch. When a customer approached, she would make some passing, innocent comment about the display.
If the customer did not respond, she simply dropped the subject; those who were clearly disinterested were spared a sales pitch they did not want to hear anyway. But if a customer showed even slight interest or asked what the display was about, she cheerfully told them about the bank's latest great offer.
I told her that she had a great working knowledge of human behavior. Customers who had asked or commented about the display — and thereby indirectly about the product or service it promoted — were far more willing to listen to her. These customers felt that they had invited the conversation, and the banker was seen as an information provider, not a product pusher.
Consider your own branches. How many message boards or displays do you use, and how often are they refreshed? How many fliers and brochures are put into circulation each day?
Are customers who are walking into your branches or using your drive-up windows at all likely to have their interests piqued about anything beyond their original purpose for visiting? What can customers learn by simply looking around your branches? Are they seeing anything different from last week or last month?
Few things can have as great an impact on a branch's bottom line as getting more business from its current customers. Strive to create environments that engage them, and establish your teams as helpful service providers and knowledgeable information resources, not product pushers.
They'll be far better positioned to "super size" more relationships.
