SITUATION
A major financial institution had invested heavily in automated banking services—yet its teller transaction costs continued to increase. Research proved that its customers were not aware of the automated services available to them. It was time to talk up technology… Anderson Performance Improvement wrote the script and motivated the players!

OBJECTIVE
The bank needed to inform and sell—its customers on the advantages of automated banking. The challenge was in the message; which had to be informative, yet easy to understand and delivered in a friendly manner. It was imperative that existing and potential customers would continue to feel welcome at the bank, trust that the bank had their best interests in mind, and not feel pressured to buy.

A second challenge was the aggressive timeline: In three months, the bank aimed to significantly increase the use of automated services and significantly reduce teller transaction costs.

SOLUTION
Anderson Performance Improvement created a multifaceted, 90-day incentive program that benefited the bank, its employees, and its customers. The program name “Win Time” leveraged the bank’s current consumer advertising theme.

Employees were trained to conduct automated-service demonstrations for customers. Through these relaxed, informal learning sessions, employees showed customers how to use the automated services as well as understand their intrinsic advantages. 

Each month, the employee team in each branch that conducted the most demos were rewarded via E-Points. (Managers were also rewarded.) In addition, both employees and customers earned sweepstakes entries for a $10,000 travel award and other prizes.

COMMUNICATIONS
Simple, but effective communications included program launch materials and manager guides, large door cards for bank entrances, break-room posters, weekly progress reports with success stories, and employee badges (“Ask Me About Win Time!”).

RESULTS
In just 90 days, employees conducted 37,000 demos; by program-end, the number of automated-service users had doubled. Also, thanks to employees who volunteered to conduct demos at community events, the bank estimated 17,000 potential new customers were contacted!

In addition to immeasurable customer satisfaction and retention, the bank reported a measurable cost savings of more than $1,200,000 (annualized) because of teller reduction and increased use of direct deposit. “Win Time” was so successful, the bank ran the program for three consecutive years.