Much ink has been spilled over the transformation of the branch, but as consumer preferences have shifted in recent years, bankers are also changing the way they train their front-line staff – with the intent of ultimately building better relationships with their customers.

You know the story by now: with an increasing array of digital channels, the traditional teller line is now outmoded, replaced with smaller, high-tech and often eco-friendly branches that more resemble an Apple store than a bank branch.

Sure, the physical footprint of the branch itself is important, but bankers also think the human touch could be part of the key to building relationships that put their bank top of wallet.

Simsbury Bank, for instance, experimented with a smaller, high-tech branch staffed by cross-trained universal bankers in West Hartford early this year. President and CEO Martin J. Geitz raved about the success of the bank’s new West Hartford branch and said Simsbury Bank would be rolling out that approach to all of its branches.

“We’re training everyone now to be able to handle transactions, as well as provide great advice to our customers for whatever their needs are,” he said.

Simsbury Bank has taken advantage of a universal banker training program created by the American Bankers Association and supplements that with training programs out of a Connecticut-based firm called Learning Dynamics.

“Now we’re training the tellers to be able to handle the entire conversation and over time,” Geitz said. “Certainly we’ll continue to handle transaction as quickly as the customer wants it to be handled, but the person who’s handling that will also be able to have those bigger conversations. There’s no need to hand off the customer to somebody else. There’s no need to schedule time to come back. So it provides a better experience for the customer.”

In other words, bankers increasingly want their front-line employees to be able to converse with their customers and listen for clues that might tip them off to an impending need the bank can meet.
Count Norwich-based Chelsea Groton Bank among those banks.

“The industry is changing, the regulations are changing, the laws, the technology is changing,” said Lori Dufficy, senior vice president and director of sales and service. “We train every single day in retail banking because look at technology alone and our use of technology. If you have one simple software upgrade, that is going to require training.”

To meet the frequent need, she said that Chelsea Groton takes advantage of both classroom training and online curricula, so that employees aren’t taken out of the branch any more than is necessary.

Soft Skills Wanted

While many customers have grown accustomed to using self-service banking channels, they still often seek out advice from an actual person when they’re facing a life event or when they think something might be wrong with their account. That means that so-called soft skills – like written and verbal communication skills and the ability to work with other people – are an increasingly valuable asset for front-line bank employees.

At Chelsea Groton, that even comes down to little things like greeting customers by name and presenting one’s self professionally, Dufficy said.

“We need to make sure we’re continually training our employees on really asking the right questions in an environment that fosters comfort. There’s no judgment here. We want people to come in and just be honest and say, ‘This is what’s wrong,’” Dufficy said. “A lot of people don’t want to talk about their finances, so we want to create this safe and trustworthy environment where they’re able to talk to us. A lot of times it’s many, many conversations because we don’t want to overwhelm them.”

That often begins in the hiring process, she said. It means teasing out whether those potential employees enjoy working with people or whether they’re more comfortable working alone on a project for hours at a time.

From there, Chelsea Groton assigns each new employee to a mentor or coach to guide them through that initial training period, which encompasses time spent observing in the branch, classroom training and further training in the branch.

While Geitz thinks the human connection banks offer (when customers want it, of course) will also give traditional depository institutions leverage in competing with fintech companies, he acknowledged that sometimes the transition isn’t always made so easily.

“Asking a platform person to take on teller responsibilities and asking a teller to take on platform responsibilities, in both ways there are some who find it a little more daunting,” he said. “But I would say certainly the majority of our team is embracing it and we’re very pleased that that’s the case.”

Email: lalix@thewarrengroup.com.