To help bank branches improve struggling customer portfolios, a new training program focuses on the importance of action plans and follow-up.
Türkiye İş Bankası is one of Turkey's first true national banks. It operates more than 1,000 branches domestically, giving it the largest branch network among private banks in the country. Its international network comprises branches and financial subsidiaries in Europe and the Middle East, as well as representative offices in Shanghai and Cairo.
Under pressure to meet sales targets and improve relationships with clients, the ASTD Excellence in Practice Award winner launched a new customer portfolio management system. The financial institution's talent management division needed to add a program to its Sales Academy that would roll out the new system across the organization.
The opportunity
A new portfolio management system was designed to help "assist branch representatives in offering customers the right product at the right time," explains Zerrin Kocuk, assistant manager of the talent management division at İş Bankası. To get the program up and running, the organization determined that training to promote use of the new system was required, as well as technical knowledge of general portfolio management.
In addition, the retail banking division conducts many telephone campaigns throughout the year. Sales analysis found that the branch teams were struggling with persuading tough customers. The company needed to develop strategies that would help its sales teams improve telephone skills and exhibit more assertive behaviors.
The solution
In 2010, the talent management division decided to add the Retail Banking Sales Development Program to its Sales Academy courses. The solution was twofold. One portion focused on teaching branch sales teams how to analyze individual customer portfolios and create customer-specific product offers. The second portion concentrated on providing branch sales teams with tools and techniques for behaving more confidently during telephone sales efforts.
During the first phase of the program, invitations that outlined the curriculum were sent to participants, and branch managers received an email that informed them of the program's objective and the support that was expected from them.
Prerequisites for classroom training comprised the second phase. First, participants were expected to complete an online Excel spreadsheet to ensure that everyone was prepared to use the new portfolio management system. Then, participants were asked to complete an analysis of their own portfolios.
Next, the program moved into the classroom training phase, which focused on three specific areas: effective portfolio management, telephone skills, and persuasion skills in sales.
Effective portfolio management. After an in-depth examination of their portfolios, participants worked with the trainer to identify improvements for each customer and create action plans for themselves.
According to Kocuk, "As the class ended, each participant had developed a well-managed portfolio and an action plan to reach inactive customers. Using actual customer portfolios assisted with the transfer of training into the salespersons' daily work life as soon as possible."
To address a lack of knowledge regarding product features, competitions and games became a key piece of the curriculum. Also, trainers made sure to refer to the product catalog during every exercise in the classroom training. To ensure that employees would be able to properly communicate product features to customers, product-focused case studies were added. In addition, exercises taught participants how to present portfolio products more effectively.
Telephone skills. This portion of the course also used real-life examples. Trainees listened to positive and negative phone conversations to learn successful behaviors. They also watched videos of interviews with customers to gain a thorough understanding of what customers expected from them. "Videos helped to highlight what customers liked—and what upset them," says Kocuk.
Persuasion skills. Design for this part of the program included various scenarios in a role-play simulation. A professional actor attended each class and impersonated specific customer profiles.
Trainers made certain to consider the behaviors of the trainees when participating in individual scenarios to help them work on the persuasion skills they found most challenging. At the end of the simulation, the group discussed better methods of communication.
Follow-up between trainees and managers was the final phase of the program. All field managers visited program participants and encouraged them to put into practice what they had learned.
Next, sales employees gave a presentation to their regional assistant managers three months after training. During the presentations, employees outlined their accomplishments regarding their action plans and discussed continuing challenges. Afterward, a new action plan was established for the next three months.
The deputy CEO and management from both the region and the talent management division have occasionally attended the follow-up presentations. "Having senior-level managers attend these presentations indicated the importance given to the program, and it highly motivated our participants to continue with the program," says Kocuk.
The process
Various assessment tools were rolled out to key stakeholders during the training needs-analysis stage. To gather needs and expectations of the salesforce and uncover specific skills gaps, an online survey was sent to a target group of about 1,000 employees from various organizational levels and roles. Meanwhile, mystery shopping research obtained data from the customer's point of view. In addition, interviews and focus groups were conducted with various managers to pinpoint common problems and needs in the field.
Analysis revealed two main drivers for the design and deployment of the program. The first driver related solely to the technical aspects of the new portfolio management program and a lack of knowledge about specific product features, whereas the second driver focused on changing employee attitudes and behaviors with customers.
Once these key program elements were determined, the talent management division worked closely with the retail banking sales division to design the initial program. Randomly chosen branch managers and customer relationship managers were included in the design phase. It was determined that external solution providers were needed to help to sculpt the content design, thus a rigorous supplier-selection process was conducted.
A pilot of the program was rolled out to a target group of sales reps and managers. Feedback from the pilot guided modifications to the final version of the Retail Banking Sales Development Program. With changes in place, the program was implemented for all the retail banking sales teams throughout the entire organization.
Sales managers of the 24 local sales regions also participated in the program's classroom-based courses and attended coaching sessions to help them with the courses' follow-up procedures. Finally, face-to-face follow-up meetings occurred in the sales regions throughout the country.
Lessons learned and results
Sales figures indicate that the program has met its primary objectives, and sales reps have attained positive business outcomes. Evaluations of the retail banking sales division reveal increases in overall sales, basic product usage rate (average number of retail banking products used by customers), assets under management, funds under management, and profits earned by customers. Evaluations also denote a decrease in customer complaints.
Since the program's launch in 2010, profit earned from mass affluent and affluent customer segments increased by 28 percent. Likewise, assets under management increased 4.5 times and funds under management increased more than 2.5 times.
More importantly, the division has learned the importance of having action plans in place to monitor and evaluate future sales, and representatives and managers now have tools to help them transfer what they learned during the program into their daily work, explains Kocuk. The follow-up processes between trainees and managers have proved to be particularly effective for the business. "The organization definitely anticipates a long-term impact from the program," says Kocuk.