Training plan puts marketing in the hands of branches.

Training plan puts marketing in the hands of branches

Many banks that instilled a sales culture "are wringing as much sales as they can from their people," says Robert Hall, CEO of ActionSystems, a Dallas-based training company. "They need to go a step beyond sales culture, to marketing

Marketing management, as Hall describes it, is an approach in which money centers and regional banks decentralize their marketing efforts. When branch managers and other employees, including front-line people, are involved in developing marketing strategies for their branch, the marketing efforts are more targeted and profitable and the employees are more enthusiastic about their jobs.

This is the general purpose of Action-Systems' new customer service and marketing training program, Managing Local Markets.

This program starts with top management. ActionSystems people explain to top managers the pros and cons of empowering branch people to make marketing decisions. Management determines how much authority it will hand down. For example, the branches might be allowed to change their layout or hours. The program also helps management define its new goals and clearly communicate them to employees.

The central marketing group is trained to slice up information by branch market area. The group is shown how to sort out, within each market, the profitable consumers that should be attracted and might be willing to pay more for special services, the customers who use basic services and should be kept, and the customers who use unprofitable services and should be discouraged through pricing and product bundling. The marketing group also learns to collaborate with the branch managers to develop marketing "road maps" for each branch.

Branch managers are trained to help develop and implement the road maps and to better respond to their customers and employees. One program they go through gives them techniques for reducing stress. They are trained to listen to and encourage their employees, and they might hold weekly groups at which front-line people can air their problems and frustrations. They are assisted in developing a three-year plan.

Tellers and other front-line people are shown how to identify people in different market segments and how to sell to them. During one exercise, branch employees shop a competing financial institution, putting themselves in the shoes of a member of a market segment their own branch is targeting, such as a senior citizen. They decide what the competition does right and what it does wrong for them as that type of customer. Then they take another look at their own branch and compare.