Bank customers have an insatiable desire for products and services that meet their specific, personal needs. Banks spend countless hours designing products that win customers and stymie the competition, and more hours developing systems to support the products and marketing devices to sell them. But every new feature or system adds a layer of complexity -- and the potential for serious error.
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Every time a bank launches a new product, adopts a new system, introduces new technology, or gears up a marketing campaign, the bank's staff has to learn it. That takes time, and no bank has an excess of that. But customers expect their bankers to be experts. As soon as they open the glossy marketing brochure, customers are under the impression that their bank is ready to deliver everything the brochure offers.
Too often, however, product announcements from the corporate office precede the training that the front-line staff needs to sell or service the new product. As a result, there's a gap between what a bank's staff should know and what they actually do know. In fact, First Manhattan Consulting Group says that 65% of the time, bankers must read the brochure to discover the features of a new product. This hardly inspires bankers' -- or customers' -- confidence in the product.
The wrong way
Most complex bank products are designed with high-value clients in mind -- for example, a home equity line with a floating rate against prime with an option to lock in part of the balance at some point, or a money market account with a sweep option so excess funds can be swept to a higher yielding account. Catering to high-value clients requires bells and whistles like these. But if 80% of a retail bank's revenue comes from the 20% that are its high-value customers, it's terribly risky to roll out a new product before the staff is up to speed. Unfortunately, this is a risk most banks unwittingly assume.
When a new product aimed at the best customers rolls down the pike, banks typically respond by training one person, expecting him to be the expert who trains everyone else. So "Bob," for instance, becomes the go-to guy on the new home equity line. If a client comes in with a question on that new product, send him to Bob. But Bob doesn't work the 8:00 a.m.-noon shift on Saturdays, and Bob has his regular work to do too. But now Bob has to spend half his day training other people so he can get back to his work while still being the go-to guy on the new home equity line.
Imagine the experience of the customer who comes in one Saturday morning to get a straight answer on that home equity line the bank is aggressively promoting. She's not going to find Bob. She's not going to find anyone with any product knowledge. She's not going to be happy, and she's probably not going to buy that home equity line. The "expert" strategy is too risky for good front-line execution.
Another common method is delivering a training packet to branch managers, asking them to train their teams at their earliest convenience -- and it had better be early, as the product has already gone live. Often, the training packet is written by well-intentioned marketing folks, but it doesn't work with how branch managers conduct team meetings. Thus, the product launch must be retooled by each local manager for real-world application. Not only does this take time, it frustrates front-line managers and hobbles staff -- and can compromise the plan that the marketing team took great pains to develop.
Worst of all are system applications for new products and services that are so cumbersome, they waste more time than they save. Building on legacy systems and patching applications together creates endless complications: Enter this code here, enter that code there, print this form but not that form, then have the customer sign in three spots. Oh, and do it again, because you got something wrong on page four, but the system won't tell you what. Clearly, cumbersome system applications and paperwork make it hard to train and easy to make mistakes.
The right way
So what is a bank to do? How can it launch a new product effectively?
- Reverse the typical method to ensure that everyone who touches the new product is trained before the product goes to market. Build training time into the launch timeline. Fight the urge to get to market as fast as you can -- keeping a new product on the shelf represents a financial loss, but bank errors and incensed customers present even bigger ones. The most lucrative customers, the ones at whom the most complicated products are aimed, are exactly the customers you least want to alienate.
- Design the training packets for quick delivery in the branch. The manager should be able to read through a packet once and be ready to conduct the meeting without any retooling for his own staff. If computer-based training is the norm for branch staff, then design the perfect computer-based training. If the manager does a 15-minute stand-up meeting, then design the packet for a 15-minute stand-up meeting.
- Avoid the use of the "expert" strategy. This approach inevitably results in customer wait times, callbacks, and frustration. Customers expect bank employees to be fully competent in everything the bank offers, because that's the image banks project. If only one person at the bank understands a product, the bank is inadvertently destroying that image.
- Consider employee needs when designing the system that supports the process. Build in prompts -- don't make front-line staff memorize what they need to know when the software can do it for them. Make it difficult to make a mistake, instead of inevitable. Challenge the IT folks to design an application that is so easy to use that a senior executive can walk into the lobby and complete the process herself.
The perfect launch
Banks must introduce new products, systems, and technology. The bank that doesn't is the bank that will be left behind. But it's important to recognize that new products will only be as successful at the managers and front-line employees who sell and service them. Making it easy to deal with complexities is the best way to foster success -- and making it harder than it has to be is the surest way to ruin a product launch.