One of the hardest parts of a business relationship is the beginning. How can your bank attract new customers? How can you make them happy from the first day?
This is called the onboarding process. It is when you work directly with new customers to get them acclimated to your business model and your employees. The goal is to make them as happy as possible, so they not only stick around, but spend more at your bank.
Onboarding is a lot easier said than done. Here are four smart onboarding tricks that you can use at your bank:
1. Offer something unique
The best banks offer something that differentiates themselves from their competitors. For the big banks, this can be more products, services and branch locations. For the rest of us, however, it can be a bit harder than that.
Some potential differentiators you can use include:
- Personalized customer service
- Fewer tellers in favor of the universal banker
- Creative branch redesign with pods
- Lower fees
- Longer hours
While these will have to weighed against your costs, a small change – like learning regular customers’ names – can make a big difference.
2. Go over customer needs
When you bring on a new customer, you should sit down with them and go over their banking needs. While this can be a tempting opportunity to sell customers on your products, it should instead be about what they want out of you. Most importantly, this is a chance for a face-to-face meeting. Get to know each other, and figure out what you can do to make their banking experience easier.Face-to-face meetings can help with onboarding.
3. Maintain regular contact
For the early days of the relationship, you should do everything you can to be an active presence in your customers’ lives. This high level of communication is great for onboarding. It will make your customers feel more appreciated and demonstrate a level of caring on your part.
Mark Hogan, president of the small-business banking unit at Bank of America, told American Banker that his bank’s representatives are available as often as possible either by phone, online or in-person.
“At every one of those touch points, we look to onboard them and deepen that relationship,” he added. “It’s really about getting them to become a full-service customer, getting them onboarded very early in their life cycle with the bank.”
4. Prioritize trust over selling
A new customer relationship can take a sour turn with an overabundance of selling. Pushing your products and services on customers is to be expected, and it is necessary for business growth, but it can be risky this early on. When onboarding, you should instead focus on trust over the sales pitch. Getting to know the other person, staying in contact and working with them on their financial needs will help you sell at a later date.
With these four tips in hand, you may have an easier time onboarding new customers and getting them to stick around for a longer period of time.