Meredith Deen In March 2014 when FMSI introduced its 2014 Retail Branch Lobby Study, a comprehensive study of 265,000 sales and service interactions by financial institutions across North America, several key findings emerged. A closer analysis of these metrics shows that despite making progress with more effective selling, many financial institutions have a long way to go before they will enjoy major productivity and customer service gains in their lobbies.

Lobby wait times are up.

Despite the focus many financial institutions place on service, the study found that customer wait times continued to inch up, by 5% since the last study conducted two years earlier. (Branch lobby wait times, overall, crept up from 4:46 minutes to 5:08 minutes.) Even more important, perhaps, was the discrepancy between top and bottom performers. The top 10 institutions had wait times that averaged 3:46 minutes (30 seconds longer than in 2011). The bottom 10 institutions averaged 6:59 minutes – nearly double that of the top performers' average.

An increase in wait times is understandable, given that many branches have cut staff to reduce operating expenses. However, understandable doesn't mean forgivable. Customer service is subjective, and if a branch is percolating with business, customers will generally accept a longer wait, especially if it results in a great service experience at the end. If the branch lobby is relatively empty and staff response is slow, customers are not as forgiving.

Assistance time explodes for bottom branches.

Customer assistance times showed a similar disparity, with average assistance times for top performers actually dropping slightly, from 17:58 to 17:38 minutes. For the bottom 10, average assistance times rose from 24:45 to 26:24 minutes, a whopping 50% longer than the average for the top 10 performers. Looking at these numbers, one can surmise that the excessive wait times at the low-performing branches are being driven, at least in part, by excessive assistance times.

Product-to-service ratios still off.

The final key metric from the study was that even the best performing financial institutions are not making the optimal 60%/40% product-to-service ratio. The best performers achieved approximately a 50%/50% product to service split, but the 10 bottom performers averaged 26% product interactions versus 74% service interactions. Given that these bottom performers are spending far more time with customers, as well, this metric is very disappointing. Overly long assistance sessions cannot be justified by these outcomes.

Analyzing the lobby study: What improvements do these metrics suggest?

The 2014 Retail Branch Lobby Study provides some interesting insights that financial institutions can apply to their own situations. Even without a lobby tracking solution, financial institutions can record customer wait times and assistance times on a limited basis. If the results are as poor as those of the bottom group of financial institutions, branch management must take action.

Excessive wait times are often caused by a lack of information available to branch personnel. If a manager has a means of knowing when waits are excessive (whether propelled by technology-based alerts or lobby personnel visually inspecting sign-in sheets), he or she can take action by moving a universal associate from another area, perhaps, or stepping in directly to help customers. “Pre-screening” customers through personal interaction in the waiting line, or the use of a tablet-based sign-in solution, can reduce wait times or make the perceived wait shorter.

Regarding excessive assistance times, these can result from both positive and negative interactions and it is crucial for branches to discern which is causing the issue. If assistance sessions result in higher sales figures, management might have justification for staff increases. If high assistance times are driven by “over socializing” or inefficient, non-productive procedures, management needs to address its personnel (through coaching), its processes or both.

Finally, to improve the product-to-service ratio, better/more training in “needs-based” selling is often effective. Simply asking members the right questions and active listening can have a profound impact in creating the right sales environment.

What's happening in your lobby and how can you improve it?

Although every financial institution and branch is unique, the statistics presented in this article are validated by an enormous body of evidence. We invite credit unions to use the study as a benchmark for their own analyses and improvement efforts. The first step, of course, is some type of lobby-data intelligence gathering and analysis. Without metrics, you can't initiate an improvement strategy. Once you have an idea where your lobby places, in terms of performance, your credit union will be in a position to make positive improvements.

Meredith Deen is chief operating officer of FMSI. She can be reached at meredithd@fmsi.com or (877) 887-3022.

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