Why your credit union sales program may be lacking results

Sales are vital to the success of your credit union. Your institution requires new accounts and loans to generate the income necessary to cover expenses and build capital. Despite the technological advances in marketing and alternate delivery methods, branch employees continue to be the main point of contact for many of your members. A successful sales program is contingent upon tellers and member service representatives effectively referring products and services, opening accounts and closing new loans.

Over the past few years I have worked with many credit unions struggling with implementing or enhancing its sales program. As a training professional who has spent 12 years in the industry, created successful sales training programs and published a book on needs-based selling, credit unions often reach out to me to help improve their sales results. In my experience, your credit union’s sales program may be lacking results because it is falling short in these five areas:

1. Lack of Product Knowledge

Employees must be thoroughly educated on their credit union’s products and services, including product features and benefits, and how each impacts the member’s financial well-being. Provide incentives for employees to use the credit union’s products themselves. Product knowledge is not just about being able to state the product’s minimum balance, fees and perks. Employees must be able to align the member to the appropriate product to fit their financial needs. A good training exercise would be to offer a scenario where a member has a specific financial need, and have the employee describe which product would be the best fit along with the reason(s) why.

 

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