Train Your Bankers to Talk to Gen Yers

Since the financial meltdown on Wall Street began in 2008, I have believed that we all, as bankers, could have done a better job of advising our customers in sound financial principles.
We talk about "selling" to our customers, and we measure our "cross-sell" ratios, and these things can be good objectives. But has your bank intitiated a training program for your front line people about how to advise your customers on basic financial topics? Shouldn't this be part of banking's "customer service" concept?

Today, I would like to talk about the new, young Generation Y group. These may be individuals just starting out on their own, or young married couples just starting a new life together. Their financial needs are different than other generations. Do you train your staff in how to talk to them?

For example, Gen Y looks at the world differently since they have grown up in the information age and are incredibly knowledgable and comfortable with things like the internet, computers, online anything, cell phones with many functions, and instant access to anything they want.

Yet they still need basic financial lessons. How many young people today get good financial literacy at home or at school? Not many. So, a couple of basic lessons we could help them with would be saving and managing their credit score.

I teach lots of bankers about cross-selling, but I always talk about how to really help customers with the financial needs they have based on their life cycle stage. Basic financial needs really are predictable based on where you are in your life stage... For example, these Gen Y'ers could be offered a suggestion like: "We recommend to our customers to save 10% of your take-home pay... is that something that we could help you get started with?"

Or how about "Managing your credit score is really important in today's world... have you established any credit in your name yet? How has that gone? I can share some ideas with you about managing your banking that will help protect a good credit score or help you improve a weaker one. Would you be interested?

In our Winning Team Training program, we then go into detail and examples of how to have these conversations, what options to offer, how to continue to connect with this generation in selling the related products and services, like online banking, mobile banking, and more. There is a "right" way to talk to them that lets them know you "know who you are talking to". It can make a huge difference in their loyalty to you and a huge difference in their financial lives....

After all is said and done, bankers can be the unsung heroes to our customers, if we are well-trained, if we take opportunities to be financial advisors, and if we are alert to each major group of customers and their life cycle financial needs.

I will discuss more about the "Charlie's" next time. Those families with children and how their financial needs are different and how we should be helping them.

Until then, think about your financial institution's sales training programs... are you addressing the real financial issues your customers are concerned about or just training to "sell"?

Email me your concerns or issues at slovejoy@marketmatch.com.
Happy Tuesday!
Sharon