Maritz Poll: Banks Miss the Boat on Cross-Sell Opportunities at the Call Center, According to Maritz Poll

Contact:

Jennifer Larsen, jennifer.larsen@maritz.com, 636-827-1523
Beth Rusert, beth.rusert@maritz.com, 636-827-2949

BANKS MISSING THE BOAT ON CROSS-SELL OPPORTUNITIES AT THE CALL CENTER, ACCORDING TO MARITZ POLL

Study Also Reveals Celebrity Role Models for Call Center Employees

ST. LOUIS (February 11, 2008) - Banks are missing out on opportunities to cross-sell new products to satisfied customers who phone call centers, according to a recent Maritz® Poll, which asked bank and credit card customers about their experiences with call centers. Only 31 percent of customers reported being talked to about an additional product or service offer – and nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of those customers listened to the product pitch.

Customers who are highly satisfied with their call center experience are approximately
50 percent more likely to listen to a sales offer made during their call, according to the study. Furthermore, customers who are dissatisfied with their call center experience are at least twice as likely to decline a new product offer during the call (after listening to the offer details).

“Because the representative’s performance is far and away the key driver of whether a customer will even listen to a sales offer during their call, banks need to train their call center employees to not only ensure the customer is satisfied, but also on how and when to ‘sell’ to this captive audience,” said Thad Peterson, financial services division vice president at Maritz. “Call center representatives earn the right to make a sales offer when they have provided good service. Banks need to leverage this opportunity as much as possible by ensuring that the offer is relevant, attractive and clearly described to the customer. The result will be a significant increase in product sales and incremental revenue.”

Helping Reps Create a Positive Experience

About half of the people (55 percent) who have used a call center are highly satisfied with the service they received during their most recent experience. Banks (61 percent) tend to do a better job than credit card companies (49 percent) when it comes to satisfaction with the call center experience. When asked to focus specifically on their satisfaction with the call center representative, 56 percent were satisfied.

To help respondents identify ideal characteristics for call center reps, the study allowed them to choose from a list of celebrities. Oprah Winfrey (23 percent) and Kelly Ripa (19 percent) were the celebrities most often chosen as the “ideal” personalities for call center representatives, indicating that empowered, confident and easy-to-relate-to are the most valuable personality qualities a financial services call center employee can possess.

Celebrities at the bottom of list included Britney Spears, Whitney Houston and Rosie O’Donnell – only 1 percent of respondents selected them as ideal personalities for call center employees. Other celebrities that respondents selected as ideal call center personalities included Bill Clinton (10 percent), Ellen DeGeneres (9 percent) and Bill Gates (9 percent).

“The celebrities that topped the list have a few personality traits in common that banks and credit card companies can learn from when it comes to training employees who regularly interact with customers,” said Peterson. “Customers want call center employees at financial services companies to be easy to relate to and empathetic. They want to speak with someone who genuinely cares about their problems and is enthusiastic about finding a solution. Banks need to work harder to recruit, motivate and train their call center employees accordingly.”

What’s the Solution?

“Many banks have found that technology and process improvements as the solutions to their call center problems have taken them about as far as they can,” said Peterson. “CRM tools and other measures cannot by themselves bring about change, and processes designed to give representatives more power only work if employees know what to do with them and are engaged and motivated to do it. People are the key to improvement today.”

Peterson recommends the following steps:

• Conduct individualized research to understand each representative’s performance and how it relates to customer satisfaction. It’s imperative for call centers to understand what’s happening between customers and representatives at the individual level in order to create lasting change. It’s also important to understand the representatives’ perceptions of the work they do and their engagement levels.
• Provide learning that allows employees to advance their capabilities by individual learning styles and enable non-traditional, peer-to-peer instruction. This is critical because call centers demand employees who thrive in a fast-paced environment, meaning they may inherently learn differently than others. Reinforcement of learning at intervals of 24 hours, 7 days and 30 days after training can also increase retention.
• Support employees with mentors who understand what it’s like to work on the front line and can help employees build new skills and strategies for success. This mentoring or coaching skill isn’t necessarily natural for many managers and needs to be taught.
• Implement employee motivation programs that will appeal to inherent drivers specific to each individual, making employees feel recognized and rewarded in meaningful ways. With an increasingly diverse call center workforce, it’s important that motivation not be one-size-fits-all.

About Maritz® Poll
Maritz® Poll is a copyrighted poll conducted since 1988 by Maritz Research. Maritz Poll comprises regular surveys on topics related to the automotive, financial services, hospitality, retail, technology, and telecommunications sectors as well as workplace issues. Respondents for this poll were split evenly between males and females and were randomly drawn from a national e-mail panel. Sampling error for the overall poll is +/-3 percent. Results of the poll may be used in print or broadcast media, provided credit is given to the Maritz Poll and/or Maritz Research.

About Maritz
St. Louis-based Maritz is a sales and marketing services company, which helps companies achieve their full potential through understanding, enabling, and motivating employees, channel partners and customers. Maritz provides market and customer research, communications, learning solutions, incentive initiatives, meetings and event management, rewards and recognition, travel management services and customer loyalty programs.

ADDITIONAL FAST FACTS

MARITZ FINANCIAL SERVICES CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE STUDY

• The Silent Generation (64 percent) was significantly more satisfied than Gen Y (47 percent) and Gen X (54 percent) with the call center rep. Also, more than seven out of 10 customers with yearly incomes higher than $100,000 (72 percent) were satisfied with reps, compared to 57 percent of those with incomes less than $30,000 and 54 percent of those with incomes between $30,000 and $100,000.
• Women are more likely than men to be unsatisfied with their call center experience (17 percent of women versus 13 percent of men), and are also more likely than men to talk to their family and friends about their experiences (52 percent versus 46 percent).
• Wait time to speak with a representative is the biggest complaint among bank and credit card customers. Approximately 20 percent of respondents were extremely unsatisfied with the wait time during their most recent call.
• Nearly one quarter of respondents (23 percent) perceived the call center rep as being “pushy.” This proportion remained roughly the same for satisfied customers, as well as those unsatisfied with their call, suggesting pushy reps may not negatively impact satisfaction.
• Eight out of ten customers (81 percent) calling into their institution’s call center had their call answered by an automated IVR system. Only a third (32 percent) of those who had experience with an IVR system were satisfied with the service. Banks were more likely than credit card companies to answer their calls with a live rep (23 percent banks versus 11 percent credit card).