Grazyna Landmesser
Title: Vice President, Regional Manager, First County Bank
Age: 55
Experience: 30 years
Grazyna Landmesser never planned to get into banking. In fact, she originally worked as a teacher in Poland, but when she came to America more than 30 years ago, she found herself in want of a job. Landmesser applied to just about every bank in the state before landing at a commercial bank as a customer service representative. But when she wound up at First County Bank, she knew, “This is it.” Now a regional manager, Landmesser tells The Commercial Record, “I never feel like I’m selling anything. Doing the right thing for the customer is always the most important thing.”
Q: First County just opened a new branch in Westport. What was the thinking behind the relocation?
A: We did relocate; the lease was up, so we were looking for something better. This was one reason. Then we decided to make this branch different, a little bit more modern, so technology was No. 1 here. We don’t have traditional teller lines at this new branch. We have cash recyclers, which makes for a very open floor plan with tellers greeting customers when they walk in through the doors. This is a very different concept, but both employees and customers love it.
Of course [customers] can make deposits or withdrawals, but in many cases, customers could go to the ATM, they could make deposits on their phone these days. They walk into the branch because they love the interaction. We have really wonderful people working for the bank, including our Westport branch, and people come to the branch to talk to the tellers, they come to the branch to see people.
Talking about the way we deal with customers and the way we interact, our customer satisfaction scores in our mystery shops exceed 97 percent, and this number keeps going up. I don’t know how much higher it can go. This tells me everything about why people walk into the branch.
Q: What’s the mix of business to retail traffic in the new branch? Have you launched any new promotions along with that?
A: It’s about 70 to 30, personal to business. Our big focus for the Westport branch right now and I’m really excited for it, is small business, and we do have wonderful promotions for this branch. We actually probably have the best accounts in the market for business accounts and now we have additional promotions for cash management, so customers who open new accounts with us can save a lot of money.
We’re always talking about new products and services, so we’ll be reintroducing a few products this year. We’re working on some new products and services, including expanding our cash management services. We probably will be introducing an interactive kiosk, so customers can do much more just than basic transaction with a computer. It will still be in the branch, so we’ll still be talking to customers, but it won’t necessarily be a teller doing those transactions for a customer.
Q: Since this is largely a tech-focused branch, does that change the way your front-line staff interact with customers? How do you focus your training toward that end?
A: With new technology, we can help customers to do their banking, but with this, we understand people don’t have to walk into the branch, so naturally, we become more attuned to customers’ needs. Our staff are acting as an advisor, in more of a consultative approach to customers’ transactions.
We’ve done this for many years, but the way we do it has changed. I started the coaching probably 15 years ago, but lately, the coaching and the focus on customers is a little bit different. With technology, we have to look at different ways and more consultative and advisory ways of talking to customers.
This type of coaching I would say we started probably one and a half, two years ago. Now every single day, I’m out in the field and spending time with managers, with employees, and we just practice, practice, practice. I’m coaching, I’m listening, observing and giving feedback. And we practice again.
We look more into our interactions with customers. This is the most important thing. We’re not going from branch to branch and asking, “How many accounts did you open today?” I look at the activities, and I ask them: “What did you do? How did you talk to this customer? What questions did you ask? How did you help this customer?” This is the most important thing for us.
Helping our customers is our No. 1 philosophy. This is why I liked First County from the beginning, because we did have this kind of approach with customers and now it’s much more visible.
Landmesser’s Top Five Vacation Locations:
- Aruba
- Orlando
- New York
- California
- The Jersey Shore
