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Earlier this year, mystery shoppers from Achieve Competitive Advantage went into established (legacy) Banks, challenger Banks, Building Societies and  former Building Societies to see how easy it is for a customer to set up a current account and a savings accounts.

We visited branches across the country and assessed each branch on a number of key measures. (Where Banks didn’t have physical branches, we telephoned their call centres.) You can watch a full video of the results we found here.

In this article, we’ll be outlining the five biggest opportunities we saw for increasing the open rates of current accounts and savings accounts.

How to help your customers open current and savings accounts:

 

1.    More proactive ‘meet and greet’

A number of the branches we visited across the country had been recently refurbished with new seating areas, new staff stations and new 121 meeting areas. Some of the Banks, such as Barclays, had a consistent greeter at every Branch. This gave a great first impression. However some customer areas were huge empty areas with an unmanned reception area. If this is your operation consider removing these reception areas unless they can be covered the majority of the time. It looks odd to a customer if there is nobody on a clear reception area.

There is a real opportunity to build better rapport, give a better reflection of your brand and ensure the customer completes their intended action by putting more focus on ‘meet and greet’. This doesn’t have to be a costly exercise. Could it be a ‘duty of the day’ that is shared amongst different people? Could there be a policy whereby at least one person must stay on the ‘shop floor’ at all times?

Another reason this is important is because a lot of the brand values of the organisations we visited put a focus on putting the customer first and showing that the brand really cared about their individual needs. However, the negative first impression did not deliver on this.

Test if for yourself: go into a number of your own branches and think about how you’re met and greeted. Is it welcoming? Could the people in that branch do more to help you feel that you’re in the right place, making the right decision to choose your brand? Does it match the values your promoting to the public?

2.    A more consistent customer journey

When our mystery shopping teams visited the branches we did not experience a consistent customer journey. By this we mean a process (or journey) that follows the same overall blueprint for each customer.

In the legacy Banks not one Branch could open an account immediately, a few invited us to sit down with a member of staff but this was an unstructured discussion which focussed on the product details.

Very few offered to book an appointment and the majority struggled to find product information to give out (average time for this was 10 minutes).

The Former Building Societies and Building Societies did better in this area, with Nationwide providing the most consistent journey: they provided a reception area which recognised the shoppers previous enquiry and an opportunity to see someone immediately in a significant number of visits. Full details were taken while seated in a private area so the customer advisor understood the needs of the researcher.

Finally the challenger Banks were the best performing group, most likely to offer refreshments, to move to a seated area and to record information about the customer including their needs. They were also the most likely to discuss the Brand and what the Bank was trying to achieve in the market place along with the benefits to the customer.

Ensuring you understand the process for dealing with a new enquiry throughout your distribution channels is essential. Are the staff implementing the target customer journey? Does it make it easy for a customer to do business? Do you miss an opportunity to talk about what makes you different? Do you miss the chance to create a buying environment? If a customer has more than one product with you they are likely to stay as a current account customer far longer than those that do not.

 

3.    Asking more questions and having information to hand

As we entered each branch, we were asked one question on average: ‘How can we help?’.

Whilst the mystery shopping Researchers followed the flow of the individual customer advisor, the customer advisor did little to understand any hidden or even obvious requirements we had as shoppers.

When we proactively asked about the rates for current and savings accounts, it took on average ten minutes (in legacy Banks and former Building Societies) for the staff in each branch to find the most up to date information. Some members of staff wanted to print off the rates to give them to us to take away, some went off to find the rates on a screen and the minority used an iPad. The Building Societies had the best supply of promotional information.

There is a significant opportunity here to ask more customers whether they would like to open a current or a savings account and to be more efficient with the information needed for customers to make that decision by utilising technology.

 

4.    Booking follow up appointments

In terms of opening more current accounts and more savings accounts, this was the biggest opportunity of the day. At most of the branches we visited, we were unable to open a current or a savings account and very few customer advisors offered to book in an appointment. This means our researchers were leaving with no appointment and no current or savings account despite this being their explicit intention.

By making the simple shift of booking in people for follow up appointments, even by phone, your organisation could significantly increase the number of current and savings accounts it opens for customers each month.

100% of Call centres contacted could open an account immediately.

 

5.    Cross-selling products

We are all given the impression the papers that the banks favour a hard sell. However, in our experience as mystery shoppers, very few members of staff actually tried to sell or cross sell products.

Following the same format each time, our ACA mystery shoppers allowed the member of staff to lead the conversation. In the conversation, each mystery shopper talked about an upcoming holiday or their mortgage, giving the member of staff an opportunity to offer a product or service. Despite our desk top research showing some of the fantastic offers available to customers, very few people saw the opportunity and took it. We experienced NO ‘hard sell’, especially at the level often mentioned in the press.

There is a significant opportunity in all organisations across all branches to identify customer needs in conversations and talk more proactively about the services available. Especially where they have loyalty schemes, product discounts, special offers etc.

In summary, we found it very difficult for any researcher to open a current account and a savings account, particularly in the more established legacy banks. We saw significant opportunities in the way in which branches dealt with a customer looking to open a savings or a current account.

Brands that put greater emphasis on living the brand values – really trying to be of service to each customer, those with greater access to key information (such as rates) and those proactively booking in appointments for customers interested in products or services – will see significant increases in their new current and savings account numbers in the next 12 months.

 

Want to see the data?

To view the full results of this half year mystery shopping audit and find out howestablished (legacy) Banks, challenger Banks and Former Building Societies scored in other areas such as ‘regulation’, click here to watch the full 10 minute results video.

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