Servicing Affluent Customers

The leading Portuguese bank Millennium BCP has long invested in the growth potential of the European Union. Having bought the bankrupt SiteBank from the Turkish government they planned to rebuild it from scratch: new premises, new staff , new name of BankEuropa and a focus on serving all the needs of affluent account holders in Turkey's most Europeanised cities.

This was a massive vote of confidence when Turkey was still in intensive care after the collapse of the economy. The newly appointed middle management were literally building the whole bank from the ground upwards and Setanta was tasked with building a learning framework for front desk and back office teams alike.

Over 20 working days 17 newly appointed branch managers were trained as facilitators for the front line. Also the 15 head office department managers agreed SLAs and then trained their teams in how they should support customers and the branch network (not the other way about!). These young trainers did not just work a full 8 to 10 hour day on systems, product mastery, relationship selling skills, management practices and how to facilitate all of these for their people. As soon as the workshops ended at 5 pm they went straight on into two further hours or more of recruitment interviews, user acceptance testing and other project management tasks before joining rush hour traffic.

They were due back next day, having completed pre-reading and review of Turkish language translations, for an early morning sales huddle. All of this took place in the coldest weather, snow and ice that Istanbul had seen in 20 years. One student fell heavily, injuring her neck but came straight from the doctor wearing a plaster collar. Within four months:

• Senior management developed a matrix of daily and other management practices
• Branch managers agreed a fully detailed sales choreography
• Marketing created a client benefit led product manual
• The Credit Manager designed the policy, test questions and case studies and took an active part in training the front line.
• Remote channel staff worked closely with front line staff in the training and beyond
• Branch and front to back office procedures were agreed and documented
• Over 1,200 pages of participant training were designed, translated, tested with the pioneer managers and loaded onto an intranet training server

In spite of builders and systems suppliers who missed nearly every deadline, all the branches opened for business on time. Customers had been intrigued by the marketing campaign and visited initially out of curiosity. They came again and again when they found that even the security guard was a part of the customer focused choreography and that meeter greeters, teller staff and senior relationship managers were professional as well as welcoming.

Within two years BankEuropa was in net profits and meeting all its targets. CEO Cuneyt Gen commenetd: When I told our cadre of branch and department managers that they were pioneers even I did not realise just how true this would turn out to be. They worked through every challenge imaginable and always came through smiling. Competition is certainly getting tougher. But more and more we are leading the way in providing integrated teams of front, back and remote channel staff. They insist on providing outstanding service to our affluent customers. The clients love it and they keep on coming back for more!