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Episode 79 - Building Successful Digital Sales and Service Teams at Your Bank or Credit Union

Episode 79 - Building Successful Digital Sales and Service Teams at Your Bank or Credit Union
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In this episode, Meredith Olmstead, CEO of FI GROW Solutions, and Danielle Fancher, Director of Sales, discuss the challenges and strategies of building an effective digital sales and lending team for banks and credit unions. They share insights on managing digital applications, creating strong team structures, and aligning marketing and lending teams for better collaboration and results.

Key Takeaways:

  • Digital Lending Needs Strong Teams: Building a digital sales and lending team starts with clear job descriptions and finding staff with exceptional customer service skills, not just lending experience.

  • Cater to Digital Preferences: Today’s customers want seamless digital experiences from application to approval. Institutions must structure their teams to handle online leads efficiently.

  • Collaboration and Trust are Key: Successful marketing and lending teams rely on strong communication, trust, and setting clear expectations, including service level agreements (SLAs) to meet goals together.

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Transcription:

Meredith Olmstead:
Hi there. I'm Meredith Olmsted, CEO and founder of FI GROW Solutions. We are a digital marketing and sales consulting agency. We work exclusively with banks and credit unions. And I am here with Danielle Fancher, she is our Director of Sales. Say hi, Danielle.

Danielle Fancher:
Hello.

Meredith Olmstead:
We were just revisiting a conversation that we were having last week with the CEO of one of our clients down in the Southeast of the US. And we were talking with him about lending and about the lending process, about lending teams, about working with lending teams to connect the dots with marketing. And I was like, "You know what, Danielle, I think we should do a podcast on this." So we hit pause as we were talking about it and decided that we were going to talk about this today with you guys and share what we learned.

So one of the things we were talking a lot about online applications is where this conversation started and about this individual's credit union is still working to get that up and running. It's huge priority for them. We're also talking about lending policies and procedures. And all of this is wrapped into building a good digital sales and service team basically. So that was where we wanted to focus today when we were having this chat and recording for the podcast. So Danielle, let's talk about this. There's a lot of different elements that go into building a really good digital sales and service team. What are some of the things when you were running your own consumer lending and retail team or working with retail teams at credit unions and banks, what did you find was most important to keep in mind?

Danielle Fancher:
Yeah. So to get started, something that I would do is make sure I had the job description completely defined because that can always be changing. And so you really need to figure out exactly what this role is going to look like and you need to build out a job description so we know exactly the type of person that we're wanting to hire for this type of position.

Meredith Olmstead:
And is it something that you want to layer onto people who are already there typically or is it something you want to hire separately for or could you do both? How does that work?

Danielle Fancher:
Yeah, you can absolutely do both. So at one financial institution that I previously worked at as their VP of Lending, it was my job to bring on an entirely new team. So there was no team, it was just me and then I had to hire a team. And so that was really exciting for me. However, at some financial institutions that I've been at, you get some employees and then you have to bring on new employees as well to make sure that they really fit the vision of where we're going. And so absolutely, I think you recreate that job description and you definitely implement it for existing employees as long as they fit that role and they're going to contribute to the success of it. But then you also bring it in for new hires as well.

Meredith Olmstead:
Gotcha. So the idea here is that you're at an institution, you've got branches, you've got a lending team, you've got underwriters, you've got retail staff, tellers, all these different kinds of roles. But you started to see lots more volume and leads coming in in your digital asset, in your website, emails, people calling in, potentially loans by phone, those kinds of things where people are trying to put in applications either online or over the phone. What are some of the differences that you have to build your team for with that follow up and those digital leads coming in?

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Danielle Fancher:
Yeah. So one thing that we all have to remember, especially in the credit union and community banking space, everyone says that branches are going away. This is always a big conversation. And we can argue that back and forth. There is one thing that we all know, we all like a digital space, a way to do things from our cell phones, especially when we're looking at younger generations. I mean, I think about it like this. When I order my coffee, I make sure to do it at a place where I can do it from my cell phone because I don't want to have to go in and tell anyone my order. So it's the same way when it comes to banking products and services. So if I want to apply for a loan, I don't want to go anywhere or call anyone. I want to jump on my cell phone and I want to start the application on my cell phone and I want to finish it the same way that I started it.

I don't want to go in somewhere to have to open an account or sign a loan document. If I started it digitally, I want to be able to finish digitally as well. And so you have to really envision that and you have to understand the user experience and cater your products and services and your offerings to make sure we're meeting the needs of what a consumer wants. And so to do that, you have to build out a department that can handle this type of volume. And we say this all the time, Mere, I hear you say that your online website is your busiest branch, and that's the truth. That's where all of your traffic is coming in. And so whenever we're talking about this, I think it's important that we realize you need a designated department that's handling all of these digital leads. That can look like a lot of different things, your loan applications, your online new account applications, your chat, all of that needs to be handled by a specific department that knows exactly how to handle those types of requests.

Meredith Olmstead:
Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing that's funny, so that's definitely a younger generation, they want it all digital. Even as you get a little bit older, I am okay to go to a branch, but I don't want to have to walk in and cross my fingers and hope somebody's available. I want to be able to make an appointment, know exactly what time I have to be there and exactly what I'm trying to accomplish. And when I walk in the door, if I have to go to a branch and that person's not available or it takes me longer or I have to wait 20 minutes or half an hour, I get really mad.

So it's like even if you do end up needing to interact with somebody, closing for a new house, say, of course you're probably going to want to do that in person. Some of that still happens in person, but you want to be able to be as efficient and as effective with your time as possible. And that takes digital responsiveness and interaction. So the funniest thing though that you mentioned to the CEO we were talking about that really got his attention was how you used to hire new lending team staff members and talk about that for a minute. Because that was so insightful.

Danielle Fancher:
Yeah, absolutely. So of course there's a lot of trial and error whenever you hire people. So I don't think I did it right from the beginning. I would always, originally and initially, I would start looking for people like, okay, who has lending experience? I only want people that have lending experience. Well, sometimes I'd get those people in the door and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, why did I hire this person?" So I started taking a step back and realized, what am I looking for? Am I looking for someone that has lending experience or am I looking for someone that has extremely good customer member service?
And really I was looking for someone that had really high quality member service. I started in lending with zero lending experience. I only had customer service experience and I also had a lot of passion and desire for serving and helping people. And so I looked at myself like, okay, who am I? What qualities and characteristics did I have that really pushed me forward, that gave me this real heart to serve people and to solve problems? And it was really customer service and just really the heart of people. And so I actually started looking for individuals that just had really high quality service experience. And that can look different because for financial institutions, we're often hiring in at the teller line. And when we hire at the teller line, we're not looking for someone with a master's degree, we're looking for someone that maybe just has some good customer service that we can train and hopefully grow into a lending position.

And so whenever you take a step back and you start looking for people that really exhibit and exude those high qualities of service and have a passion and desire to help people and just want to be a good quality person, it was a game changer for me. I started looking for people like Chick-fil-A, my pleasure. They have outstanding customer service. I never ever question going there and thinking I'm going to interact with someone that has bad service. I know it's going to be a very consistent experience. That's what we want in the banking industry. We want a very solid, consistent experience for every member and customer that walks in the door. And you have to have the right people in place to make sure that that happens. And so I stopped looking for lending experience all together and just started looking for people that had really high quality customer service, just a heart of service as a part of who they are.

Meredith Olmstead:
Yeah, that's so funny. So we'll probably do another podcast where we're talking about then how you really train those people up and what are the different kinds of interactions you have with team members to get them up to speed on lending and all the other things in the midst of that. But a couple of other things when you're building a team, I know one of the things that we really look for is a service level agreement, an SLA. Basically where if you're trying to build a team and you've got lending and retail and marketing and all these people in the mix, what you really want to do is be super clear at, "This is what we're trying to do, this is what we're trying to accomplish as the marketing arm of this team. And this is what we're trying to accomplish as the lending side."
So if marketing is driving leads and is agreeing to try to meet the volume on a regular basis for new leads in the door, that sales and lending and retail says they want for new accounts, new loans, all those new applications, all of that, we have to have on the lending side an agreement that we're going to follow up with those leads. We're going to make sure they're all called two to three times. We're going to make sure that our sequences are going or that we're reaching out to them in a timely manner like hours, not days, so that we know that those leads are not going to be dying on the vine if marketing is doing their job. Anything you can say about that or about managing expectations between those teams as they're communicating?

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Danielle Fancher:
Yeah, I think it's really simple. It really comes down to trust. And so whenever we talk about sales, which is service in the financial industry, it's about trust. If there's not trust developed in the sales process, it dies very quickly. When you're trying to sell something to someone, you don't talk at them, you let them have a conversation back and forth, and you build trust very early on. And that's how those processes convert to a closed deal. It's very much the same internally. So you have to have trust between departments. Your lending and your marketing department have to be on the same page. Your retail and lending and marketing department all have to be on the same page. And they have to feel that trust and relationship and they can cross collaborate and really come up with a vision of where the financial institution is moving together. And then you get that buy-in. Once you have the buy-in, the whole process, there's some other things that go into play with that as well that we can maybe talk about in the future, but trust and cross collaboration is key to that process for sure.

Meredith Olmstead:
Yeah. And I think the last thing that we can just finish up with today is just that it's really important that you're measuring, that you're looking at where the wins are. So where are you hitting your marks when it comes to driving leads in the door, new applications? Where are you hitting your goals and your marks when you're talking about new accounts open, new loans closed, all of those kinds of things? Celebrating those successes across departments. But then understanding that you're not going to win. Not every time are you going to win. You're not going to get it right every single time.
Not every marketing campaign comes out the door as a success. But empowering that team to take risks and to be super transparent when they are successful, and then also when they're not, so that they can say, "You know what, here's we learned, here's how we can take these as lessons for the future." And then potentially pivot a strategy and go in a slightly different direction in the future. So can you think of any examples or thoughts you want to have on that last kind of measuring and moving in a different direction?

Danielle Fancher:
Yeah, I love everything that you said and I totally 100% agree with you. Don't try and shift too quickly because all of this is very new, especially for financial institutions to be in this digital space and learning how to handle leads and loans and online accounts. Don't shift too quickly. So really start from making sure that you have a good job description in place. Making sure that you do have those SLAs in place. Make sure that expectations are set. Make sure that you are tracking and measuring your success and your progress, but don't shift too soon because it does take time. And so I think sometimes we can try and make changes too quickly and unfortunately that's just not reality whenever it comes to learning a new space like this.

Meredith Olmstead:
100%. I mean, complicated financial products can be, it's funny, the sales cycle can be really short. You need a new credit card, you need to move some debt, consolidate some debt after the holidays, you found a great car, you need an auto loan, that can take a matter of a week or two. Or you're looking for a house and it could be 18 months. So it can be a very long process or very quick and it's good to be flexible. Well, this is really useful, Danielle. We'll do another podcast where we're talking a little bit more in depth about actually training lending and sales in the digital space and what were some of the techniques you used about that. But thank you so much for hitting record with me. And if you guys want to learn more about sales and marketing for banks and credit unions, please visit us at figrow.com. Lots more podcasts and blogs and all kinds of other resources. But otherwise, let's just all get out there and make it happen.

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