Are there any more traditional banks out there? Has everyone moved to the retail bank now? Just curious.

What's your definition of a traditional bank?

Traditional Banking:
One where the tellers are normal tellers and are not trying to sale anything. They just do transactions and that's it. Nothing to it.

Milburn Drysdale and Miss Jane Hathaway.

Quote:

---

Sounds like my bank, so I guess maybe I qualify.

---

Where do you work??

At a community bank in Iowa

I'll move up there and work! jk

Sounds like my bank. We don't sell investment products or insurance. Sure, we ask the tellers to refer people to the new accounts desk but they are not required to "sell". Their job is to give our customers a high level of friendly, fast and accurate service. I often describe us as the "Vanilla Bank". We are not trying to be all things to all people. We are just trying to satisfy those that like vanilla! No doubt your next question is "How's that working for you?" Answer: For the last 2 years we have been named to the 1)Boston Globe's 100 Top Performing Publically Traded Companies in Massachusetts and 2)ranked #1 of the 192 smaller thrifts nationwide by Thrift Investor magazine. This year were named to the Boston Herald's list of "Least Risky Companies" where we ranked #5 in the state. The bank was established in 1834, has 6 branches and assets of $450 million. We are located in a very competitive, affluent market about 15 miles south of Boston. Not too bad for a "vanilla bank"!

I'm at a $385MM community bank in Montana - and we aren't a HMDA bank either!! Great bank, great town, great recreation! Only downside - lower wages than most of the country, oh - and cold weather in the winter.

The only cross-selling our tellers do is ask "Is there anything else we can do for you today?" However, our new accounts people do attempt to cross sell other products.

Anyone near or around Dallas that has traditional banking?

In the 30 years I was active in banking in what I believe to be traditional banks The tellers were always expected to cross sell. The industry goes through cycles as someone gets an idea that becomes the current fad.

Eventually that falls out and what always seems to happen is it reverts back to what was being done many years before.

At one point it was promoted that teller lines could be shortened if tellers stopped cross selling. The real consideration was the cost of training them in products and services and to recognize sales opportunities. Due to the high teller turnover rate, some thought not spending the money to train was a good idea and rationalized it with it would speed up teller transactions providing faster customer service.

This sounds like when the poster must have started in the business. They then saw the transition back to cross selling, but their base comes from what was in place when they started.

Are there any traditional banks? IMO it all depend on what era you pick. What seems like new to many working today, is generally a rehash of something that was tried in another time.

As an ex teller (yup I've done it all) I never found cross selling to be a difficult thing to do. In fact, having the ability to offer clients better products or services than they were using at the time, actually felt like a good thing.

We all have the 80 year old client who has one big savings account. Perhaps she should be laddering CD's or investing her money in bonds?

Cross selling often gets a bad name out there. It's unfair. Cross selling is just offering your current client something that might be of more benefit, and the opportunity to learn how it could be. They still make the choice themselfs but if they just came in to deposit that monthly check...and no one mentioned the potential benefits, they'd probably just sit in that stupid old savings account for years, at a lower rate.

And if there is a traditional bank...we're probably it We haven't really gotten into cross selling like we should (IMO) and we just started offering IRA's last year It's a new century and stuff...so we thought we'd just jump on out with em....

There are a two good reasons to cross sell, first you help grow the bank and second you do your customer a favor by offering them products that they will need.

The real key is matching your customers with the products that they have a high propensity to buy. For instance if the customer has a checking account with you and no loan relationship with you, in general, that customer would be one to target for a loan.

I can get more specific if you would like. Just send me a note.

Bottom line, if you target correctly and know what the next most likely product to sell that customer- cross selling is not that difficult.

It all changed when A.P. Giannini died. Now all the banks want tellers that are paid $9.00 per to be sales people and not let the lines get long. It's a damned if you do and damned if you don't scenario and one of the toughest jobs in banking. Plus, you've got to stand up all day!

I think cross-selling is a great thing and yes it is beneficial to the bank and the customer. I also agree that the more your staff is cross trained the better your office runs. But I do not agree with or like to have the pressure of manditory selling and /or quotas.
Our bank is heading in that direction and I hate it. We are still labeled a community bank and I think that all the sales calls and quotas, takes away from the friendly courteous accurate service that our customers are used to.
Having to meet sales quotas is distracting.
I think a good teller or customer service rep. knows enough to recommend a product to a customer who may need one. Like the indiviual that comes every Fri to casha payroll check. A good teller will say, "hey maybe you should try a our payroll direct deposit acct." Or say to the little old lady who has a bizzillion dollars in her 1.00% savings acct that maybe CD's or Mutuals or Investments are a better option for her.

T - has it right. There was a time when to be a teller required a person to have knowledge of bank products and services as well as practices and policies. It was several months, and in many cases, a year or more working in bookkeeping, proof before a person developed the knowledge required to be a teller.

It was decided that replacing Professionalism with Automation would be less expensive, and the industry started down that track.

Some of you are commenting about identifying customers that need products and services. There is an inexpensive program that does some amazing stuff along those lines.

If you want info or an on line demo contact cbrodbeck@raddon.com

No I am not affiliated with this company in any fashion. It an intriguing product that addresses some of the above comments.

Quote:

---

I've heard that Wells Fargo regularly cuts commission when you sell too much and berates you if you sell to much of one thing but don't achieve quotas in all areas.

---

This makes sense. BofA did the same thing (well no berating, but less incentive). This keeps you from product popping just one product to everyone who walks before you. Not everyone needs that one product. If you acheive quotas in all areas, it shows you're offering the right product to the right client verses the easiest, or best incentive paying product to every client.

I've heard that Wells Fargo regularly cuts commission when you sell too much and berates you if you sell to much of one thing but don't achieve quotas in all areas.


That is what I am talking about, either no incentive to cross sell, its just manditory, or if you do and don't do it right or sell enpugh or too much in the Wells Fargo case, you are repremanded.
I heard of some places that sells insurances that pay commission, but if the customer cancels the acct before 1yrs time the commission has to be refunded, what's up w/ that.

I drift constantly T The world is much more fun if you drift daily.

And no, I actually believe that statement. I've worked at a bank that allowed incentive on product poppers. The result is that oodles of clients end up with the highest incentive paying product, verses the product they actually needed. As a private banker, I cleaned up the messes in the other private banker's portfolio from these stupid product pops. It was a nightmare for me, and a nightmare for the clients, but the stupid bank didn't care, they made big bucks on the one product so...the more the merrier.

Sure the clients left and now bank here with my bank, but the same product popper is back over there doing the same thing...and I'm told, making the other banker's life miserable.

I always took my clients interests to heart, which is why many of them moved their accounts from Washington to Alaska just to continue banking with me because they knew I cared. When I offered an idea they listened, because they knew I had their interests in the forefront of my mind. Sure I was a top seller, and made great money off of the sales, but I NEVER sold a product to a client that they didn't have need of.

Mixed product sales shows you're thinking about the client, and not about yourself and your financial gain. NOT offering a product you see a need for...is in my opinion...financial malpractice. (I didn't coin that phrase, but I believe it).

Dawnie: Well, that's Consultative Selling at it's best - putting out the data - based on your perception of what the customer needs and not going over the line to push products that do not suit the customer. If you think that that is what banks are actually trying to do with the new selling programs, you are still pure white.