Les Dinkin Featured at BAI's 2006 Retail Delivery Conference, Speaks on the Customer Sales Experience

November 15, 2006

LAS VEGAS – Especially in a tight market, top banking performance hinges on the design, quality and consistency of the customer sales experience, Les Dinkin today told attendees at BAI's 2006 Retail Delivery Conference.

A Managing Director at Novantas LLC, Dinkin led a workshop titled "Focusing on the Customer Experience for Peak Sales Performance." Other speakers included Cleve Cogswell, a Senior Vice President at Webster Bank, Waterbury, CT; Nick Miller, President of Clarity Advantage Corp., Concord, Mass.; and Martha Crawford, a Program Manager at Novantas.

Dinkin said the typical branch sales experience is lagging, both compared with other areas of financial services, and with the retailing industries. Instead of focusing on customer interaction, he explained, banks are preoccupied with products, tactical pricing and promotions.

"Managing by the numbers" compounds the problem, he said, since descriptions of outcomes usually don’t shed much light on how the results were actually achieved.

Dinkin advocated four steps to improve the customer sales experience: 1) use objective assessments to measure the customer experience, including service and sales defects, successes, and best practices; 2) adopt a structured sales management system with disciplined practices and metrics; 3) strengthen on-the-job training; and 4) reinforce desired staff behaviors through active coaching.

While pricing and promotional tactics still will be prominent in the short term, Meleis said, leaders will gain extra traction by tailoring their marketing and sales efforts for target customer segments and local markets.

BAI's Retail Delivery Conference and Expo is the largest meeting of its kind in the retail financial services industry.

Novantas is the acknowledged leader in customer science and revenue strategy for the financial industries. The Firm specializes in applying advanced analytics and technologies to help clients make better decisions in marketing, product, pricing, customer management, and distribution.