By Michael Neill, CSE
Imagine your dream house, a structure that is the culmination of all your financial goals. What is it made of? How was it built? I can guarantee this house would consist of more than just basic materials, like lumber and nails, and the building process would be longer and more complex than just connecting the pieces of lumber with those nails.
The same goes for building an optimal sales and service culture at your credit union; you still require the lumber and nails, but you also need a blueprint. Many credit unions require employees to attend training—the lumber and nails—to learn how to best serve their members. But, often the initiatives they learn never get implemented, or fizzle out after a short period of time, because they lack a plan—the blueprint—to drive employees to do what they learn.
The key to a lasting, and relatively quick, change in your sales and service culture is a purposeful, mindful and intentional effort focusing on all areas of your credit union on driving sales and service forward. Making an intentional culture change will give it the foundation to develop organically—making it as powerful as possible.
To ensure your culture change is successful, focus on the following:
- Appoint someone as the leader of the culture change. Make sure this person has authority, clout and visibility within the organization.
- Have managers add coaching behaviors to their management style to develop employee sales and service talents.
- Change job descriptions to reflect your sales and service culture’s mission.
- Track sales and referrals closely.
- Continue providing employees with sales and product knowledge training—but realize these are only pieces of the larger puzzle.
- Recognize great performance and enforce accountability for a lack of performance.
- Ensure your new member on-boarding process does just that—brings members fully into your credit union.
- Make sure the new employee orientation process is effective at integrating new employees into your team.
These changes are all part of a long-term effort that will build a strong sales and service culture at your credit union.
Michael Neill is president of Michael Neill & Associates, Inc.
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