How do you treat your customers in the chase for revenues?
At the recent BFA FIBR conference, I was chatting to a lovely lady about her life story and she got to reflect on a moment in her previous employment in banking where she was promoted to a business development role and very quickly removed from it!
When she had to ‘sell’ credit cards, she would advise customers to pay off all their debt if it was in their capacity as otherwise, they would incur astronomic fees. Brilliant as most people don’t really know how cards/debt work — but the bank did not think so.
Similarly, when it came to deposits, she would make recommendations on products that would earn the customers higher rates when they were asking for other products. Brilliant — but the bank did not think so.
Essentially the bank saw her as a liability and moved her to an operations role, but did not understand that her treatment and honesty with their customers were creating advocacy that was going to bring a lot of brand benefit to the organisation.
Many thanks to Akshay Shah for this story.
