Gallup: Banks Should Improve Call Center Performance to Increase Revenue in Struggling Economy
September 23, 2013
By Christopher Mohr, TMCnet Contributing Writer
According to research performed by Gallup, one of the best ways banks can improve revenue growth is to improve the performance of their call centers. The profitability of banks in recent months can be attributed more to operating more efficiently and laying people off than to increased sales.
Job cutbacks have been a common strategy among big banks in the U.S. JP Morgan (News - Alert) Chase & Co. announced in February that it was going to reduce 17,000 jobs from its workforce by the end of 2014. Back in the spring Bank of America planned to eliminate 30,000 jobs; American Express (News - Alert) planned on cutting 5,400. Morgan Stanley announced in January that it would cut 1,700 and Citigroup in December announced a plan to cut 11,000 jobs.
When combined with the 5,300 jobs that Wells Fargo (News - Alert) eliminated in 2012, these six companies alone account for over a workforce reduction of over 70,000 jobs in the past two calendar years.
Gallup stated that these kinds of reductions can help profitability in the short term, but implied that banks reach a point where they can no longer realize significant gains in efficiency or cut back the workforce to increase profits.
Gallup found that banking call centers that engage the customer have a huge potential for long-term, sustainable revenue. When customers have a good experience with a call center, they are more likely to open accounts and seek banking services.
The recommendations that Gallup makes go into further detail about how companies can improve call center performance, which leads to happy customers. A simple 2 x 2 matrix of service and sales and identifying whether a customer service rep (CSR (News - Alert)) is strong or weak in those areas helps management take the right action to make improvements.
In a nutshell, CSRs that are great at both sales and service should be challenged to improve on past performance even more and be given appropriate rewards. These are basically the rock stars of the call center.
If a CSR struggles with sales, but is good with service, they are trained to recognize that sometimes there is no sale to be made and that helping customers solve problems is also of high value.
CSRs that are great with service but not so much with sales are trained to look for opportunities to offer more products and services to the customers that they have done a good job assisting.
As for those that are weak at both, identifying the problems means digging deeper to find the cause. If it’s not correctable, then CSR work is not for them. Those who can be helped can benefit from working near the “rock stars” to learn what makes these CSRs successful.
Gallup has identified a growth opportunity that conceivably could help other companies, not just banks. Many companies have resorted to layoffs, which cannot go on indefinitely as a way to increase profits. Having enough customers who are engaged and open to using more products and services a business offers is the best way to be profitable.
Edited by Rory J. Thompson