What's It Like To Be Our Customer?

What our customers are thinking, and what we think is on their minds are often times two different things. For your small business customers, before you have a meeting or pick up the phone, you should always review the following questions that may either uncover an opportunity or bring to light a festering issue before it becomes a major problem for the customer.

Think of your customers and ask yourself the following questions:

• Is it easy to do business with us? - Perhaps the process of opening new accounts, etc. was created in a vacuum and is onerous for customers providing an unnecessary pain point.

• How do they perceive our customer service? - Your sales and marketing departments may be doing a great job but other areas of the bank may be creating customer service issues. Most customers won't say anything until they're ready to hit the road.

• Are we taking care of their business and personal needs? - Do you have too many single-service customers? If you never ask a business customer about their personal needs they will only think two things--you aren't interested or you just don't care.

• Are we suggesting better or more innovative ways to meet their present and future needs? - Is your bank truly a trusted advisor to your business customers? That's only possible if you demonstrate a willingness to help the customer to achieve their long-term goals through advisory services. It's sometimes about sacrificing short-term sales goals. The more the customer grows their business the more opportunity the bank will have to develop deeper, more profitable relationships.

• Are we asking the right questions to uncover their concerns? - Effectively profiling business customers to gauge their long-term strategies enables the bank, and the banker, to provide valuable strategic financial advice to become a true partner in the success of the business owner.

• If concern areas are outside your scope responsibility, am I alerting the appropriate people so the problem can be addressed and corrected? - Too many times bankers fail to act on customer cues because "it is someone else's responsibility." This is one of the leading causes of customer attrition. It's the banker's responsibility to uncover concern areas, notify responsible parties, act as the conduit for problem resolution and then close the loop back to the customer.

• Are we employing all of the bank's resources for the benefit of the customer? - Has the business customer been introduced to the cash management expert or wealth management professional at the bank to advise on various business and personal issues?

It's human nature that we tend to think that customers will automatically offer their thoughts to us just because we are sitting across the desk from each other. The lesson here is that if you don't ask the right questions you'll never get the answers necessary to advance a relationship or to stop a valuable customer from leaving.

From now on, before you visit or call a customer, ask yourself these questions and see if you can effectively answer them without the input of your customers. You may find that your conversations with your customers will take on a whole different perspective.