Economic turbulence, continued interest rate compression, high fee sensitivity and intense competitive pressure continue to challenge regional and community banks. One of the most competitive sectors in community banking is retail banking. Building, improving and maintaining your customer loyalty and share of your customer “wallet” are keys to demonstrating your competitive advantage, but many community banks remain challenged by incorporating their business strategies into a strong sales and service culture throughout their branch channel, call centers, business development officers and lenders. Product silos, inconsistent customer communications, personnel issues, and the inability to act on customer insight across the enterprise typically block retail and small business banking strategies from achieving their objectives.
The branch, historically the primary distribution channel of the bank, became even more main stream over the last ten to fifteen years for gaining new small business and consumer accounts. Alternate channels –ATM, mail, phone, kiosks, door-to-door sales, PC and Web – offer the promise of lower transaction costs and competitive convenience features. Many community bank customers, however, continue to rely on the branch for personalized service as it remains the premier delivery channel to improve visibility, market awareness, attract new customers and for servicing and cross-selling to existing customers Retail banking is multi-faceted and dependent upon many factors working in concert to achieve desired results. Most of our clients are not sure where and how best to push certain buttons more or less to further improve performance. Adding, decreasing or just tweaking locations, products, services, incentives, staffing, rates, advertising, training, operating procedures, etc. are all considerations.
Our Retail Banking Assessment provides you with a independent perspective and scorecard on how well your bank is doing on each of the following elements of your retail banking business (sales and service practices to small businesses and consumers): NEBSG Retail Banking Assessment Areas
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We benchmark your bank along all twelve of these elements against our experience with numerous other community and regional banks.
We compare your Bank’s posture in these areas against our proprietary knowledge base to assess your relative performance in each area. This will provide management with a targeted set of opportunities to improve the overall performance of your retail banking business.
We accomplish this by visiting your bank, touring branches, interviewing personnel at all levels in the front and back-office, gathering statistical data, reviewing your products, services, pricing, operating practices and technology environment. We then compare these facts to our direct experience with numerous other banks, large and small, to identify differences that may be symptoms or causes of some of your operating issues or holding back your bank’s performance.
Why NEBSG?
What sets NEBSG apart is our ability to efficiently collect and rigorously analyze the facts and benchmark all aspects of your business against other regional and community banks. We work closely with our clients to help them tackle difficult questions and convert insights into actionable strategies and tactics.
The NEBSG team has worked with numerous community banks throughout New England and New York State. Our team can work with your management team or independently to develop realistic proven business strategies while also providing the depth of expertise to assist with new systems, streamline processes, and strengthen organizations for the future. Retail Banking ServicesAssessment Program (noted above) Strategy Services:
- • Retail Banking Strategy (Assessment & Development)
- • New Market Entry Strategy & Analysis
- • Branch Rationalization
- • Product and Services Competitiveness (Assessment & Design)
Retail Operations Services:
- • Branch Staffing Program
- • Productivity Improvement
- • Front to Back-office Process Reviews
- • Deployment/Integration of Call Center & Internet Banking Services
- • Introduction of, or review of, integrated mortgage and consumer lending
Sales Performance Services:
- • Branch based promotional programs
- • Sales culture program
- • Retail incentive compensation program
- • Relationship banking program
To make arrangements for our Retail Banking assessment or to discuss other services, call Tom Grottke or Amy Giguere at (860)-436-6149.