Mind Reading:
Customer and Employee “feedback systems”
It’s surprising how much you can learn when you ask questions and listen to the answers. Customers and employees know a lot about what’s happening in your company: the good, the bad and the “you-know-what”. Here are some inexpensive ways to feed your mind-reading habit.
Lunch with the Suits. Invite some customers, particularly those in the 25-45 age group to come have lunch (or hook up a Zoom with a gift card to Panera) with senior management. Give them a little presentation about your company and what your goals are – maybe 3 minutes, certainly no longer than five. Then ask them some questions about how they rank you with the competition. Ask them where you’ve been smart and where you were not so smart. Listen. Take notes.
This same idea works with employees. Every month, bring the suits and sit down with 8 – 10 employees and tell them about the bank and where you are going. (Don’t leave remote workers out. Include them by Zoom.) Then ask them: are you happy here? What would be better for you? What do our customers know that they aren’t telling us?
Internet Surveys. Technology has made it easy and inexpensive to survey customers (and segments of customers) and employees. These technological tools can be up and running in a few days. (If you’ve been doing surveys and not getting the results you want, go read these two articles: Article 1 and Article 2.)
Management by Walking Around. You can learn a lot just by showing up. So, drop in, personally, on some of your best commercial customers (and bank employees) and see for yourself how things get done. (Yes, of course, an appointment might be good. But, you can always ask for one when you get there.) Look for ways you can make things better. Be prepared to listen well. Take notes. Look for ways to do this by Zoom for those who are “remote”.
Now that you’ve been immersing yourself in the mind of your market and employees, it’s time to become a fanatic about the customer experience. And, here is where it gets harder for a bank to execute.
It’s not easy to execute a program to improve your customer experience. But if you’re willing to put in the resources, it can be done–and it pays off handsomely. Here’s a video you should spend 10 minutes viewing.
