News & Updates
Sovereign Bank’s Brokerage Reaps Referral Windfall
BOSTON, Sept. 14 – Evidence shows that financial institutions’ cross-selling efforts have come up short, but Sovereign Bank is a major exception.
The $78 billion-asset bank has increased referrals to its retail investment unit by 15% or more for three years straight, according to senior vice president Casey Roberts.
“And the quality of those referrals has been higher as well,” he says.
Sovereign is one of several banks and credit unions that have significantly boosted their referrals while the industry at large has struggled in its attempts to do so. The institutions credit their success to an innovative system that replaces the traditional hard-sell approach with one that is built around customer education.
“In a financial institution, you can’t turn the staff necessarily into salespeople,” says Steve Ryerson, a vice president with United Nations Federal Credit Union, in New York, which reports similar success in boosting its customer referral rates.
Customer Education Delivers Image and Sales
It’s not just the largest banks that are being painted with an image of excess and irresponsibility. That picture of bankers is permeating into the world of community banks as well. Banks need to move quickly to get their own message out there before the damage gets worse. The question is – what positive message should banks convey? What message will boost their image in today’s economic crisis? The answer lies in looking at what the American consumer wants most today – answers. Their confidence level is at an all time low. They have been turned upside down by this economic calamity. Facing the dramatic erosion of their retirement assets, the plummeting value of their homes, and the increasing uncertainty of their jobs, they are scared and confused and looking for simple and easy to understand answers.
Banks have an opportunity to be there to provide those answers. They can be the source of information that helps their customers make better decisions and avoid mistakes as they go through life – buying a house, saving for retirement, managing their debt, sending kids to college, getting their estate in order. Customer education means going beyond what products “the bank” offers to include helpful information on what “the customer” needs.
This is a value-added service that banks can provide for little cost, and the rewards can be significant: more loyalty and more sales. Banks that become a resource for answers are in place to help their customers with more financial needs, including investments and insurance. It becomes much easier to create dialogues and make referrals. It helps ensure product suitability, a primary goal of regulators today.
A customer education approach becomes the backbone for a positive “education... Read More >>
What Financial Institutions Can Do to Acquire and Retain Customers in Today’s Economic Times
In a recent GonzoBanker newsletter, Steve Williams makes the case that sales culture in banks is dead and a new chapter of sales culture is about to begin with the hope that banks have the chance to get it right this time.
In this well written piece, he states, “Across the country, many banks have 10+ years of effort on sales culture without significant improvement in results, but fail to question if they are even building the right mouse trap.” He challenges banks to develop a new type of sales culture built by creating value for customers. In other words, provide a service that customers find valuable that, at the same time, initiates dialogues and creates sales.
What kind of service will do this for banks? To find the answer, you only need to look at what customers are facing today. Customers are scared. For many, the bottom has fallen out of their retirement savings. They are fearful of losing their job. They feel they have no place to turn for answers. The world as they knew it has changed.
And the world too has changed for bankers. In many cases – trust – the backbone of the customer relationship – has eroded. For banks to acquire and retain customers today they need to focus more and more on the value customers see in their bank relationship. The new customer experience needs to go beyond an array of product offerings.
To build strong relationships, banks should give their customers a service they are desperately looking for – simple and easy to understand information about the financial issues they face, whatever their stage in life. Help seeing and understanding the issues they may face before they are blindsided.
The world didn’t stop, it just changed. People will still get married, raise... Read More >>
Truebridge blog looks at financial services marketing with a focus on education and cross selling
Truebridge, Inc. announced today that they have launched a company blog, which can be found at http://www.truebridge.com/. “The site will provide information, opinions, and encourage feedback on marketing topics that we feel are important to the financial services industry”, says Stewart Rose, President of Truebridge. “We will have a particular focus on education based marketing and cross selling but it won’t be limited to that,” says Rose. “We want to explore what is being done well and what is not,” he added. “What are the factors behind the successes and failures? What can we learn from other industries?”
According to Rose, “There is just so much information out there, it’s a matter of sifting through, finding what may be relevant, and sharing opinions on what it means to the industry.”
Customer Education Based Marketing – Empowers Frontline Staff, Drives Referrals
Richard Shupick manages the investment and insurance program at the $15b Flagstar Bank. The program has twenty reps employed by Essex National Securities. Using an education based marketing system from Truebridge, Rich has developed a process that makes it easy for frontline employees to generate more referrals everyday.
From the Flagstar website, customers and employees can directly access an online Financial Answer Center that provides educational information on hundreds of topics. Customers get the information they need when they need it-based on their stage in life. The online content is packaged into a series of downloadable Quick Guides under the Flagstar name and with the picture and contact information of the exact person that can help them with that topic.
“These are not typical glossy sales brochures but educational white papers on various topics with a picture of the rep. They become personalized just-in-time marketing materials that we use to drive referrals,” says Rich.
“When it comes to generating referrals, our frontline staff were not comfortable starting the dialogues that need to occur”, says Rich. “They were afraid of being asked questions they could not answer. That’s all changed,” he says. “Knowing they have a series of Quick Guides to offer, they are comfortable asking customers; What’s Your Goal?.”Handing out a Quick Guide is the perfect time to set up an appointment with the person at Flagstar that can help them achieve that goal.
“It’s all about confidence”, Rich says, “knowing they are adding value to the relationship.” “Bankers come and go,” he says, “so you need a tool and system that is easily taught and repeatable.”
About Flagstar... Read More >>
Truebridge has launched a new design of the Financial Answer Center
Truebridge has launched a new design of the Financial Answer Center, a key ingredient to the Cross Sell Advantage system that delivers financial education to a financial institutions customer base while at the same time increasing sales. Below is an overview of the new design along with a description of the new “E-newsletter Opt-In” feature.
Financial Answer Center Design (Version 5)
Truebridge has enhanced the navigation by adding new features called “Info-Centers” to the Financial Answer Center. The new home page of the Financial Answer Center showcases these Info-Centers, which cover a wide range of topics such as Paying for College, Investing for Retirement, Buying a Home and Cash & Debt Management.
Behind each Info-Center is a customized home page that provides the customers with access to all areas of the Financial Answer Center related to the Info-Center topic. This includes direct links to pages of content, Quick Guides, Real-Life audio stories and quick access to contact a professional who can help them at their institution. Truebridge also has the capabilities of integrating existing online tools such as calculators and applications into the Info-Centers where appropriate.
E-newsletter Opt-In Feature
A new option has been built for the Quick Guide request form that gives visitors the option to optin to an E-Newsletter if the institution has one in place. A report is available to extract the visitors who have selected the box to sign up for your email updates. This feature is only available upon request and requires activation. Please contact your account manager if interested in this feature. If you have any questions or comments about the new design or the E-newsletter Opt-In, feel free to contact... Read More >>
New survey by Truebridge, Inc., in conjunction with the Bank Insurance & Securities Association (BISA)
New survey by Truebridge, Inc., in conjunction with the Bank Insurance & Securities Association (BISA), on cross-selling investment and insurance products at financial institutions in the United States.
Truebridge, in conjunction with the Bank Insurance & Securities Association (BISA), is conducting a survey, which studies cross-selling investment and insurance products at financial institutions in the United States. This research will probe several dimensions of the cross-selling environment across different areas within financial institutions including management, marketing, branch employees and investment and insurance sales people.
The results will enable them to benchmark their institution against industry results and identify internal gaps between the perception and reality of what is working and what is not. It will point them toward the most important action steps that could be taken to make improvements. This survey is the first part of a series of surveys being developed by Truebridge. Other surveys to be released will cover institutions that offer trust services and institutions that own insurance agencies that sell P&C and Group Benefits to their commercial clients. For more information about this study, or if you would like your institution to take part in the survey please contact Jenna Baran at 800-476-6118.
Launched new features to the Cross Sell Advantage system to help enhance both employee usability and referral opportunities.
Truebridge launched new features to the Cross Sell Advantage system on Monday, June 2nd 2008 to help enhance both client usability and referral opportunities. Below is an outline of the new features for various aspects of the system:
Reporting
1. Contact Reporting
a.) A new drop down in the reporting console will develop a full report of all the contacts in the Financial Answer Center. Please contact your account manager if you do not have the information on how to access your reporting console.
b.) This will make it much easier to keep track of who is in charge of locations and content inside the system.
AnchorBank Announces Customer Education Based Marketing System
AnchorBank has announced a new cross selling marketing system that uses a customer education approach to generate sales leads for all their products and services, including investments and insurance.
“While earning more revenue per customer is very important to us, even more important is how we go about it,” says Christopher Boyce, Managing Officer. “We decided on a marketing process that is based on customer education. By taking this approach, we will build stronger relationships, by making it easier for our customers to come to us for more of their financial needs.”
“The marketing system combines online content, marketing collateral, and employee training into a unified process,” says Stewart Rose, President of Truebridge Financial Marketing, whose company provides this customized turnkey marketing system to financial institutions. “It makes it much easier for AnchorBank to generate sales leads from all of the points of customer contact – in the branches, through the mail, and from their website. And they do it in a way that their customers appreciate.”
The marketing system works in two ways. An online AnchorBank Financial Answer Center provides customers with answers that help them make more informed decisions about many aspects of their financial life, at home, at work, in retirement, or running their business. Customers find easy access to pages that showcase the individual at AnchorBank that can provide personal help and allows online customers to ask for more information, to receive a call, or to set up an appointment. The Financial Answer Center can be accessed via AnchorBank’s website at http://anchorbank.com
The marketing system also provides frontline branch employees with... Read More >>
Langley Federal Credit Union has announced a new online educational system featuring a Financial Answer Center
Langley Federal Credit Union has announced a new online educational system featuring a Financial Answer Center. The education-based system provides members with immediate answers to hundreds of financial questions and provides an opportunity for the member to send an email to the appropriate credit union employee for further assistance.
“We want to give members the information they need to make informed decisions,” said LFCU President/CEO Jean Yokum. “People need financial help in many aspects of their lives. When our members look for help, we want them to turn to us.” Members can access the Financial Answer Center by clicking on the Education Center tab on the web site.
Langley Federal Credit Union has been in business since 1936. The credit union serves 140,000 members and has over 1 billion dollars in assets, ranking the financial institution as one of the top 100 largest credit unions in the nation.
... Read More >>
