Building Customer Connections

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Business Issue - Your bank's sales and service associates and their managers are key figures in providing high-caliber service that satisfies customers’ needs and sustains their loyalty to your organization. These employees need top-notch sales and service skills to create exceptional customer experiences, pinpoint customer needs, match them to appropriate products and services, explore additional needs, and lay the foundation for profitable connections over time.

Omega Performance’s Solution - Building Customer Connections is a two-day, facilitator-led sales and service skills workshop that enables participants to create a customer experience that satisfies needs and strengthens the relationship. The focus is on exploring the customer’s initial request and "tagging" and transitioning to additional needs that arise during the conversation. Participants also learn how to respectfully handle customer objections.

What Is Included

The two-day Building Customer Connections workshop features authentic activity-based learning in which participants engage in videotaped skill development that includes all of the steps in Omega’s CON²ECT Customer Experience Model. An advanced one-day session that focuses on the "follow-up meeting" to expand the relationship can be added within 90-180 days of the initial workshop to deepen skills and create speed to performance.

Upon completing Building Customer Connections, participants are able to:

Utilize best practices for making personal connections with customers
Apply a questioning strategy for gathering information about customer needs
Use the techniques of noting and tagging to identify additional customer needs that arise during conversations
Apply the link between needs and benefits and how this relationship contributes to making effective recommendations
Use the process for transitioning to explore additional needs that were noted and tagged
Apply Omega’s Handling Objections Model to practice handling typical customer objections
Prepare for and practice two customer conversations in small groups led by certified skill practice coaches. One practice session is a conversation using a real-life scenario from participants’ branch files. The other practice session is videotaped with the skill practice coaches playing typical customers. In both cases, participants receive balanced and robust feedback about what they do well and could improve in their customer conversations. To assist them in building their customer experience skills, they will use Omega’s CON²ECT Customer Experience Model, and the CON²ECT Conversation Guide
Develop an action plan for on-the-job skill application and growth

Results You Can Expect

Building Customer Connections helps your staff:

Enhance customer experiences that differentiate your organization in the marketplace
Increase customer satisfaction, retention, and loyalty
Improve sales results, on the individual level and the team level
Increase products per household, cross-sell ratios, and sales growth

Who Should Be Trained

Building Customer Connections is for your bank's sales and service associates and their managers.

Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites for Building Customer Connections.

Delivery Options

Building Customer Connections is a two-day workshop conducted by Omega Performance consultants. An optional advanced one-day session on following up to expand customer relationships can also be added. Maximum attendance is 12 participants. Leader training is also available.

Sustainment Skill Development

Building Customer Connections is followed in 30 to 45 days by a "plug-'n-play" team meeting on Exploring Needs. This narrated, automated interactive DVD is aptly called a Skill Builder and includes brief exercise materials and instructions for managers to facilitate learning, with minimal preparation, for their sales and service associates in the field. This Skill Builder assists associates with one of their greatest challenges, learning to ask effective questions to explore customer needs so they can deepen the connection and make the right recommendation. At the same time, it guarantees consistency of delivery among managers.

Participants will review and practice sequencing their questions using the "funnel" approach, taking notes during interactions, and using listening skills to help customers self-discover needs and opportunities. Participants will apply these skills in a recorded skill practice activity in which they will share balanced feedback with each other.