Selling at the Teller Line

Lana J. Chandler
November 11, 2008 | COMMENTS

Tellers typically have the most contact with retail clients. Transactions, computer screens, and friendly conversation are ideal for uncovering sales opportunities. Given the need to drive profit through the sale of new or additional products, it's easy to say, “All tellers need to focus on selling products, especially when the branch has a promotion in progress.” But is that always the best strategy?

“Before it sends tellers off to sell, management should ask if it is appropriate for tellers to play an active role in selling,” cautions Shelley F. Hall, managing director of Catalytic Management LLC in Stow, Massachusetts. “Heresy, I can hear some say. But the role tellers should play in your sales process depends upon two main factors.” These are:

• Market activity levels. Branches in high traffic areas with the potential to attract significant numbers of new clients should maximize the teller role in the sales process. Branches with a stable market and a client base of mainly existing clients must be careful to balance “aggressive selling” against the benefit of reinforcing and maintaining personal relationships with their existing clients.
• Branch traffic. Branches that serve high volumes of clients with high transaction levels should never jeopardize client satisfaction by increasing wait times in order to sell the latest promotional product. Ensuring that clients return for their next transaction dictates that wait times should be kept to a minimum.

Selling Must Be Consultative

After carefully evaluating the client base and volume of each branch, management should clearly and realistically define the role tellers should play in the branch's overall selling process. “The foundation of that definition must be that selling is consultative and involves introducing clients only to the products that will deliver benefits the clients want and value,” Hall says.

“Adopting the ‘flavor of the month' approach and asking tellers to sell this month's promotional product is antithetical to consultative selling and can be counterproductive in building long-term client relationships.”

“Sales Detectives”

Regardless of the industry, the basic selling process is the same:

• Target
• Approach
• Discovery
• Presentation
• Agreement
• Manage

“The role tellers and CSRs play in the sales process are different, not necessarily by being involved in different phases of the process but by the depth of their involvement in each phase,” Hall says. “The teller role in the sales process should primarily be focused on uncovering the client's needs. Tellers are the ‘sales detectives' who search for and identify the needs of individual clients—the discovery phase of the selling process.”

Once the need is uncovered, the teller briefly introduces a solution and just as briefly determines the client's interest in the solution—the presentation and agreement phases of the selling process. “A teller's greatest value is in discovering what a client needs by consistently reviewing client profiles, looking for unmet needs, and then introducing the solution to the client to create interest in an institution's solution,” Hall says. “In the above sales process, the CSRs and branch managers can and should execute each phase of the selling process and should be deeply involved with the client in each phase.”

Should Tellers Close Sales?

Before you ask tellers to close a sale, consider these two questions:

1. How much training has the teller had in the product?
2. To be proficient and comfortable at selling a product, how many times do you feel the teller must make a sale before reaching that confidence level?

The closer role should only be played by someone who knows the product, the opening process and all the regulations in-depth. “Because the teller role tends to have the highest turnover rate, many tellers are deployed on the line without adequate training, are rarely given the time to attend training later due to scheduling issues and in too many instances they leave before reaching the needed level of confidence to be truly successful,” points out Hall. “Furthermore, tellers don't have the time to manage the sale as it becomes reality.”

Tip: While tellers do not need to be involved in the sale, they should be informed if a sale is made. Then the tellers can thank the clients when they come in again.

Essentials for Success

Tellers are rarely comfortable with the selling role, regardless of the definition of that role. New hires for the teller line often have little work experience. When they do have experience, it's generally in a work environment that is not considered as professional as a branch.

“These are young people at the beginning of their careers and yet we ask them to sell to clients who are more sophisticated, more knowledgeable in general and who are older than a teller. This is hardly going to create instant confidence in a teller and confidence is critical to persuading someone to purchase your offering, especially a financial solution,” says Hall.

Once you accept the reality about most tellers' initial capabilities, it's easier to understand why the primary selling role of a teller should be kept to the “discovery” phase. Furthermore, just giving sales goals to a teller or to any employee will not guarantee results. They need product and sales training and they need mentoring and coaching in a formal, structured process.

What does it take for tellers to be successful in their limited selling role? Hall recommends:

• In-depth, current product knowledge
• Training and practice in needs assessment questioning
• Understanding the difference between presenting benefits to the client and merely listing the features of a solution
• Understanding and knowledge of different buying styles so they can present in a manner that matches the way the client buys
• Ability to present solutions without the crutch of marketing materials
• Ability to determine if a client is interested in their solution
• Ability to professionally “move the sale” to the CSR for closure

The Bottom Line

“What we are asking tellers to accomplish—determine a need, present a solution, and generate interest on the client's part—is a sophisticated skill. And we are asking them to do it in record time,” Hall continues. “Tellers fail in sales because management does not understand that we are asking our least-sophisticated employees to perform a sophisticated skill and usually with minimal training and support.”

Few institutions devote sufficient time, attention, and training to tellers in their selling role. Any training tellers receive is usually focused on transaction accuracy and meeting regulations. “When it comes to the sales function, institutions generally focus expenditures of time and money on the CSRs and branch managers,” Hall says. “If we are going to ask tellers to play this critical role in the selling process, the industry must re-examine how it prepares tellers for the role.”

This article appeared in Lana J. Chandler's Branch Manager's Letter at www.branchmanagersletter.comand is reprinted with permission.