Better service does lead to higher sales

At the beginning of our work, David Fisher, then Head of Retail Banking said “We feared we were becoming the nicest bank people didn't do business with. We even saw one of our best staff helpfully direct a sales enquiry to one of our direct competitors!” But it wasn’t all bad, far from it. Many people and branches were performing very well. But Halifax could not understand how there could be such a wide variation in performance amongst branches with similar potential. Halifax’s sales performance was declining at the same time as analysts’ expectations were growing. Above all the key measure – market share – was declining. The traditional strengths of tight control and sound risk management had created a solid reputation. But this solidity was getting in the way of sales and service improvement. Above all, it was the inconsistent branch performance in both service and sales which posed the greatest headache. Not that any of the major competitors were really doing any better. The business knew it was time to act and to become consistently better at selling and serving customers.

Football managers rise or fall with the results of their team. Similarly, in retail banking the quality of line management is a major influence on branch performance.

So our starting point was to carry out a management effectiveness diagnosis.

Conclusions were obvious once the analysis had been done. Branch, area and regional managers all needed to be increasingly like football managers – present on the field of play, observing the game, coaching the players and leading by personal example. But the jobs they were used to coaching had changed beyond all recognition since they did them.

So how could they diagnose what was going wrong and coach improved outcomes? All the managers were working very hard – probably too hard. But many of them were doing the wrong things, often very well!

So the initial focus was on the routines and disciplines at all levels of management. Working with our team, the bank redefined a framework of key priorities and behaviours and created a more focussed and disciplined management approach to sales and service.

This framework was the context for retraining them in the essentials of high performing sales management. Coaching, observing customer interactions, mentoring, resolving problems - these became more important activities.

Then line managers, (not Human Resources people or training specialists) led a programme of on the job, video-supported training, combined with robust measurement of sales and service behaviours and results at the branch level.

This was directly linked to the bank’s day-to-day targets and was delivered “just in time” to support specific products and marketing campaigns. Participants included the Head of Retail himself, right through the management chain to frontline staff.

At the heart of the learning was a simple, defined customer interaction sequence. This created a structure for customer conversations – from greeting through to follow-up, in person or on the telephone. The result was more competent, focussed staff who were better able to probe and identify customers real needs and who were more confident in asking for the business.

The next step was structured measurement of the sales sequence, right through the sales pipeline process – focussing more on the steps that led to a sale rather than on the numbers of sales themselves. Most importantly, service was measured and based on analysis of customers’ views at each individual branch location.

Staff reacted enthusiastically and the buy in was high. In many ways they had been more on customers’ needs and less on Halifax’s priorities. “Seeing my manager stand up and deliver training in team meetings made me realise that the bank meant business with this sales and service thing,” said one branch manager.

Now that managers are regularly observing their staff they see that customer oriented behaviour has changed. "In the past, I thought striking up a conversation with a customer was a daunting experience. Now people are much less intimidated about engaging customers, understanding their needs and looking for opportunities to satisfy them. We don’t really think of this as selling." Subsequent mystery shopper reports and the new customer service measurement system showed that staff were probing for needs and actively asking for the business in over 85% of cases.

Quote: Mortgage lending, six months on, was at an all-time high

But, if the acid test was business results, the bank measures were up here too. Mortgage lending, six months on, was at an all-time high; sales of current accounts and personal loans were at record levels also. And, most importantly, customer surveys demonstrate that the bank is selling the right products to the right person. This was not just a numbers game.