Marketing is part art – part science. Having more information about a customer should make cross selling much more effective. Some banks have been very sophisticated here both capturing data directly and buying data overlays and doing predictive modeling to forecast a propensity to buy certain products. But in many cases it has had limited success and high costs.

I agree that personal interactions are far more effective. And I very much agree with John W., that the sale is simply a by product of a well serviced customer relationship.

Although not a golfer myself, I like use of an analogy to make the point that making money in banking is relatively simple – acquire more clients, sell them more stuff that is profitable, and keep the good / quality ones for as long as possible.

But “simple” does not translate into “easy”. Take the idea of “selling them more stuff that is profitable” – i.e. “cross-selling”. Banks have forever touted their ability to capture share of wallet – but what does that really mean – how do you first determine the size of each clients wallet and then ascertain what share you have? In the simplest form, you get to know your clients through a thorough needs based discussion – and you build on that initial discussion with every interaction you have with the client – whether in person or through the transactions they perform with your firm or through your firm. But how many of us bankers have really spent the time and resources necessary to fully understand our clients? I would argue that while banks should have more data on their clients than nearly any industry, we are loath to actual translate that data into useful and actionable information. Until an organization can effectively utilize the data resident inside its systems/databases, and through the transactions and interactions it has with clients, it can not act in an efficient manner. Stated in other words – a sale is a part of the process of serving a relationship – not the end goal.

Training front line employees on the importance of asking the right questions and recording the responses – whether that be to ensure that phone numbers and email addresses are correct or whether it includes information about where else clients have banking relationships and what the extent of those relationships are … that is where it has to start … then the importance of managing and slicing and dicing that data into discrete and useful information needs to become a “C level” issue … then we can begin to make useful and informed offers and “cross-sell” our services.

Unfortunately in today’s world consumers view bankers and those associated with financial institutions in a fashion not seen before – where there was trust before, there are skeptics today … so uncovering the data is ever more difficult.