Every sales person knows that referrals are prized opportunities. For a financial institution they rank especially high, and with good reason. There is perhaps no better indicator of a customer’s willingness to do business with your institution than when they inquire about a product or service.
Referrals can emerge from a general customer inquiry, or better yet, a specific request. Or an observant staffer may make a well placed suggestion that results in the customer agreeing to speak further with another member of the team. Here’s just one scenario of how this might go:
Banker A: “Mrs. Customer, I noticed you have a CD maturing soon. Would you be interested in speaking with someone about how that money might be able to work even harder for you?”
Customer: “Yes, I’d be interested.”
Banker A: “I’ll have Banker B give you a call.”
Customer: “Thanks. That would be great!”
But what happens next makes all the difference. If Banker B fails to follow up, the CD may expire and a prime opportunity to increase customer satisfaction, and quite possibly revenue, will be lost.
How does your institution handle referrals? Are they passed along verbally, jotted down on pieces of paper, or maybe e-mail is used to help document things? How do you know if and when the recipient gets each message? Was the recipient able to act promptly, or did their workload or schedule prohibit timely follow up? Is there a chance a referral can be misunderstood, or worse, misplaced?
Giving careful consideration to questions such as these will help you determine exactly how “at risk” your best sales leads are. And don’t forget to factor in how much time managers spend each month keeping track of and reconciling who gets credit for what.
Of course every institution “does referrals”. But there is big difference between referral management, and relying on a series of mostly manual steps that require a lot of time and effort (not to mention the chance for error) every time a referral is generated.
Referral management is a systematic approach to capture, manage, and track each referral to completion – it ensures that your team has what they need to follow up in a timely and effective manner. And there are several other major reasons to consider an automated referral management system.
First, a referral management solution will enable you to establish a true end-to-end process that fits your institution’s culture.
Second, the process can be applied across channels and multiple departments so that each referral is handled correctly every step of the way.
Third, it makes it possible for this process to easily become a part of everyone’s daily routine.
A good referral management system will accommodate both inbound (customer initiated) and outbound (agent initiated) inquiries, and automatically alert the appropriate agent.
The system should be flexible and accommodate automatic assignments (who’s up next?) and conscious choices (“this person is best able to handle this type of referral and never lets me down”).
Sometimes referrals need to be reassigned. For example, when a product specialist is out sick or on vacation the system should be able to handle this and track the “chain of custody.”
Additionally, since referrals are generally considered a more valuable type of lead, a referral management system should be able to calculate incentives, and if desired, tie those incentives into a compensation or incentive management system.
The value of referral management is indisputable. Simply put, with a referral management system, precious opportunities do not fall between the cracks.
Our customers routinely report an almost immediate positive effect. A referral management system will bring speed, accuracy, flexibility, and the full power of collaboration to one of the most important areas of sales.
