The Future of Salesforce Management – Re-shaping customer interactions in a virtual setting

On May 19, 2021, community bankers from across the country met virtually at Gather 2021: Illuminating insights in community banking to discuss current trends in community banking, the important role that community banks play in serving and supporting their communities. This blog summarizes the breakout session on “The Future of Salesforce Management.”

Jimmy Pittenger, Senior Director and Global Head of Commercial Banks at S&P Global Market Intelligence, moderated the session that featured Jack Hubbard, Chairman and Chief Experience Officer at St. Meyer & Hubbard.

The roundtable focused on:

Customer interactions in a virtual setting and the need for leadership and coaching.

A few highlights:

• Hybrid cultures that include face-to-face and virtual meetings are going to continue. We're in BEC — a blended environment conversation.
• Bankers need tools and resources to be successful, and leadership and coaching are important.
• Whether it's virtual or face-to-face, there are the five Cs of trust-based selling: (1) conversations, (2) curiosity, (3) collaboration, (4) customization, and (5) coaching.
• Conversations are probably the most important thing bankers sell, and the approach is very different than in pre-pandemic times.
• Virtual settings can take advantage of the ability to easily bring in multiple people on a call for collaborative interactions.
• Customization is needed, so interactions are personalized and don’t just rely on technology.
• One of the things that is missed in this environment is seeing facial expressions and body language, so coaching bankers on questions to ask and follow-up is key.
• Banks with a formal customer onboarding process with numerous touch points are getting many referrals.

Questions to the Panelists:

What will you cover today?

Jack Hubbard: The headline here is very clear. Hybrid cultures are going to continue. This is not the next normal, it’s the forever normal. And what we need to be thinking about as managers and as leaders is how we keep the culture together. How do we hire really well in a flexible work environment? How do we lead in this kind of hybrid environment?

Only 26% of buyers believe bankers are skilled at leading them through a virtual discovery process. Why is that? In part, it’s because we haven't given bankers the tools and resources they need. In a study that we did, we found that in January of this year about 70% of bank executives said they still hadn’t provided the tools and resources for their people to be successful. How can we scale our leaders up? What tools can we provide? What are some best practices that can help leaders get better in a more virtual environment? We're in a new era here. We're in what we call BEC — a blended environment conversation. But how do we go about making sure that we can be good both in a remote setting and in a face-to-face setting?

Whether it's virtual or face-to-face, we have the five Cs of trust-based selling: (1) conversations, (2) curiosity, (3) collaboration, (4) customization, and (5) coaching.

1. Conversations are probably the most important thing bankers sell, and the way we're selling them today is very different than in pre-pandemic times. So, we need a different skill set. We have to be very comfortable at staring at the green light. I believe that we've had a hall pass for a little while in these conversations from March of 2020 to maybe January of 2021. That’s going away, and people now expect us to be a bit better.
2. We need to establish a level of curiosity. In the pre-pandemic era of 2019, it took about seven calls on average to make a sale at a middle market customer. In addition, bankers were getting back in the door for a second call only about 17% of the time. Customers weren’t curious enough to learn more.
3. We have to collaborate because working together works. That means internally and externally. In this remote environment, leaders have failed to capture the partnership aspect. We have a treasury management professional in one location, a resource manager in another, and a branch manager in yet another, and we're not taking advantage of the opportunity to rehearse the call ahead of time. We want to make it happen and do that in a collaborative way.
4. We have to customize it, and that starts with the invitation and goes all the way through the process, such as customizing the waiting room, for example.
5. Finally, we need to coach, as that is really important.

I want to touch at a high level on some of the technical things that we need to be thinking about. How do we have conversation savviness? How do we integrate the partners? And most importantly, what about that level of behavioral and empathetic leadership? How do we make sure that our people are doing okay, and how do we coach them in a behavioral mindset?

I call this the Oprah pyramid because it's something we deal with every day. We all want outcomes. We want more sales, more loans, and more deposits, and those outcomes are controlled by the customer.

All we can control are the activities that we do and how we do them. That's why I call this the Oprah pyramid because she used to say if you do the right things right, the outcomes will take care of themselves.

So what are the activities we want our people to do either in a virtual setting or in a face-to-face setting? What are the behaviors that we need to be teaching so they do them well? So, what are some considerations around leadership? Well, if I'm going to coach something, I need to know what I'm looking to achieve.

I was talking to a treasury management professional at a large bank very recently, and she didn't even know that their Zoom software could record the call. I think that's a tragedy. When a banker records a call with a client’s permission, they don't have to worry about taking notes and losing eye contact with the camera. Then, after the call is over, they can review the conversation and send a follow-up email that addresses the client’s needs — not products, but needs. In addition, the manager can review the call and the email and provide feedback on the questions that were asked, as well as the conversation and follow-up. The manager can also role play. The coaching can be immediate, behavioral, and long-lasting in terms of the results. Then we need to focus on action plans, not lengthy 500-page action plans, but cocktail napkin things.

How much of what you just walked through is different from 15 months ago in pre-COVID environment?

Jack Hubbard: It's a great question, and the answer is probably yes and no. One of the things that I think we missed in this environment is seeing those facial expressions, the body language. I'm still going to do team meetings, but my observation skills need to be even more attuned. But there's a twist. I'm probably going to ask more blended questions, such as how many face-to-face meetings did you have and tell me about your virtual meetings. One of the things that bankers asked us to do was look at the behaviors around virtual conversations and make suggestions on how to improve this process. So, there are a series of check-in questions that both a banker and their manager address about setting the right agenda with a client, using visuals to reinforce key points, discussing appropriate action plans, and such. Then, the answers are compared to identify the gaps and where coaching is needed. When the banker has the self-knowledge and the manager has a good, solid behavioral knowledge of the banker, then the banker is going to get better and the ultimate winner is the customer.

Speaking of the customer, a few years ago we did a study with commercial banks and how they brought on a brand new customer during that first year. Only about 4% of commercial bankers said they had any kind of formal onboarding process. One of the things that being virtual has helped with is getting a lot of people together on the screen on behalf of the customer. So a couple of our forward-thinking clients are doing what's called team onboarding, which is a 1-6-3-1 process.

One week after the brand-new relationship is established, the banker, the resource manager, the team leader, and others do a virtual call with the client to make them feel comfortable. Six weeks into the relationship, the loan assistant has another meeting with the client because they got their first statement.

Three months into the relationship the sales manager calls to discuss the experience with the resource manager and the branches. Finally, one year into the relationship, the marketing department sends an embossed anniversary card signed by the president thanking the client for their business. Banks that are doing this are getting more referrals than they could ever imagine.

Even though we're in this virtual environment, I still feel people want to have that personal connection. They want to be able to pick up the phone and call their banker and feel like they're in their corner. So, what does personalization look like in this virtual environment?

Jack Hubbard: So one of the five Cs of trust-based selling is customization. I think there needs to be a blend, so it’s not just technology. If you want to have a performance culture, the five C’s need to be embedded in the culture. What I’m speaking about isn’t a campaign.

As you well know, there are a lot of community bankers who struggle trying to find experienced commercial bankers. Part of the challenge is that there aren't many out there. I think bankers have to think about finding people with the right DNA and skilling them up. I'm interested in your perspective because a lot of times people are looking at, say, a credit analyst who can bring over a big portfolio, but they've never sold. What's your perspective on how to skill up somebody who doesn't have the sales skills that bankers are supposed to have in the context of the world that we're operating?

Jack Hubbard: In my mind, you need to find someone with the entrepreneurial spirit of a banker, and part of that is uncovered in the interview process. One human resources person said they wanted salespeople, but were getting portfolio managers. In the interview, though, they asked questions about lending and concurrence and bad debt — nothing about prospecting, so they didn’t uncover potential capabilities. Also, there is a tendency to look for bankers at competitors. We don't go far enough in our parameters. We aren't flexible enough. Finally, we have got to make banking more exciting for young people, so we can continue to sustain this industry.