On the frontline

Jim Callan outlines how technology and a consolidated approach to staff training can help improve frontline performance in financial institutions.

“The principles and good practices outlined in training programs need to become embedded in the operation on a day-to-day basis”
-Jim Callan

According to your customers, what are the primary challenges they face in managing frontline operations?
Jim Callan. In today's environment, financial institutions realize they need to raise the performance bar in all areas of the business with particular emphasis on those areas directly touching the customer - branch centers, contact centers, web, mobile devices and so on.

There has never been more focus on improving the quality of customer engagement at the frontline to gain better understanding of their lifestyle and financial requirements and ultimately to impact the cross sell rate which is becoming a key metric in retail banking. The big challenge for the industry has been providing managers with better reporting and visibility of frontline day-to-day activity. It has been extremely difficult, if not impossible for organizations to gain real insight into frontline performance and to measure how effective they are at identifying sales opportunities, engaging with customers and generating cross sales or sales referrals. As we all know, what cannot be measured cannot be managed and this is a real issue.

What other factors, in your opinion impede frontline performance for financial institutions?
JC. There are two key elements that stand in the way for most financial institutions. The first relates to the capability of existing frontline systems. They have served well at performing core banking functions however they are inflexible, generate poor management information and provide almost no support to frontline staff in executing a sales process or embedding good selling techniques. This is a huge obstacle for the industry today.

The second relates to the skill set of frontline staff. Despite the dollars that are spent each year on training, BAI and other research consistently shows that over 70 percent of frontline staff still struggle to identify sales opportunities and fewer still are equipped to handle such opportunities due to a lack of experience or real time system support, coaching prompts etc.

These two factors combined explain why we, as an industry, are poor at engaging effectively with customers and fail to become the trusted advisors that banks and credit unions aspire to be.

Do staff training programs help to deliver frontline sales effectiveness?
JC. Training clearly has an important role to play but will not deliver the required results on its own. Take the typical sales training programs for staff in the branch network and contact centers for example. While the course material might be very good and staff will return to the field feeling motivated, such activity rarely has long term, sustainable impact on cross sales or the generation of quality sales referrals. 

Why?  Because, it is impossible to track, measure and report accurately on staff behavior. Consequently, it cannot be managed or coached effectively by frontline managers. After a short period, staff retreat to their comfort zone, old behaviors return and the investment is lost.

The principles and good practices outlined in training programs need to become embedded in the operation on a day-to-day basis. This requires targeted on the job coaching by managers backed up with comprehensive reports, scorecards and performance management programs.

What is needed to bring frontline sales performance up to the required standard?
JC. A consolidated approach is required that brings together the good work that has been done on sales process and training to embed these within the DNA of the frontline operation. Technology clearly has a role to play in bringing all of this together to present a seamless and consistent frontline experience across all channels.

I believe there is little appetite for long and expensive system replacement projects so our approach is one whereby we leverage the existing legacy technologies and place a thin layer on top that fills in the gaps. The result is a real time frontline automated sales process, comprehensive management reporting and best practice performance optimization to instill the type of culture that is required.

Visit www.econiq.com to hear how organizations have addressed these issues to achieve 20-25 percent uplift in frontline sales.

Jim Callan is CEO of Econiq and combines deep business experience and market understanding with the technical knowledge that comes from years of successful project implementations. He is recognised as an entrepreneur and innovator in the financial services software sector and was the founder and CEO of Eontec, which was acquired by Siebel Systems in 2004.