Liberating people to do what is required of them is the most effective and humane way possible. Thus, the leader is the servant of his followers in that he removes the obstacles that prevent them from doing their jobs. In short, the true leader enables his or her followers to realize their full potential. (Max DePree, Leadership is an Art, p. xx).
At the bank I love to hate, employees might be engaged, but they are not enabled. They are very friendly, and they smile real big, but their ability to really impress me is constrained by crappy systems over which they have no control.
For example, every time I visit my neighborhood branch of this bank to give them some of the money I worked hard for, they ask me to do more work. The first thing they do after I say “I’d like to make a deposit” is to slide me a slip of paper to fill out. Do you have your account number memorized or written somewhere in your wallet? I don’t! When I ask for help, and I always to, I often get the lecture about their policies. Their employees can never really impress me because the process pisses me off. It irritates me because I know they could do better.
One of my previous banks taught me to expect more. At that bank, all I had to do was walk in, show my identification (only until the teller learned my name) and tell them what I wanted. Then the teller did all the work for me. With a deposit, I would just give them my money. They would look up my account number, fill out all the paperwork, and hand me a receipt at the end. And once they learned your name, they could do all this VERY fast. As I approached the counter, they had already typed in my name, retrieved my account, and were prepared to serve. The process enabled the employees to consistently impress me.
Are your processes and policies enabling or disabling your employees from impressing the socks off your customers? How do you know? What system do you have to address both the issue of improving the process and the issue of improving how you know what you know?
Partner with your employees to remove the obstacles that prevent them from doing their jobs.
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Hi Bret,
Banks are the same everywhere. Their service really sucks.
I have serious doubts that banks are interested in improving their services at the branches. Banks make profits not from our checking accounts but from mortgages, stock broking, insurance and other financial products.
There is really no incentive for them to serve customers at their branches – they are not the high-yielding target customers. Another thing is there are additional bank fees for those who use the counter services.
In fact, many banks have new fit-outs that reduce the number of tellers but increase the number of consulting rooms.
More recently, they have set up private banking which serve customers who have more than $1 million to invest. I’m sure we will be thrilled by the services they provide over there.
The bottom line is if they intend to drive us out from their branches, why would they bother enabling their staff to serve us?
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
August 27th, 2009 at 6:39 am
Michael, great points – thanks for sharing! I personally refuse to give my money to a bank that can’t take care of the small stuff. If they don’t care about me as a customer in the lobby, I think it is a great indicator they won’t care when I really need them in my larger transactions. It’s the cock roach analogy – where there is one that you do see there are hundreds you are not seeing. Thanks!! Bret
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