ABSTRACT # Perceptions of Bank Services from the Personnel Point of View: Preliminary Findings

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1 ABSTRACT # Perceptions of Bank Services from the Personnel Point of View: Preliminary Findings Second World Conference on POM 15 th Annual POM Conference Cancun, Mexico April 30-May 3, 2004

2 Perceptions of Bank Services from the Personnel Point of View: Preliminary Findings Musa Pinar, Henry L. Crouch, Jerry D. Rogers, Pittsburg State University Department of Management and Marketing 1701 S. Broadway Pittsburg, KS Fax: Abstract This study examined the perceptions of bank personnel regarding bank services offered to customers. The survey instrument was designed utilizing the traditional mystery shopper studies and was administered to all the personnel at the banks and/or branches that participated in the study in a small mid-western town. The results showed that while the bank personnel generally consider all the banking service factors fairly important in providing high quality, highly satisfying services, some services were considered more important than others. Various comparisons of personnel perceptions of bank services found significant differences based on individual bank and personnel characteristics. These findings might have significant implications for the satisfaction of bank customers, as well as the quality of performance and competitiveness of the banks. INTRODUCTION Benchmarking has emerged as a prominent technique in improving the operations and offerings in the banking industry. In recent years, the scope of benchmarking in banking has shifted from an historical focus on financial assets to a broader approach that includes services and products. 2

3 Benchmarking in banking is typically used to focus internally or externally for the organization. Internal benchmarks create reference points for measuring improvements, while external applications allow a bank to measure its services and products versus those of its competitors. Benchmarking can be instrumental in allowing a bank to change its offerings to meet changing customer needs and preferences. Such awareness of the change is critical to maintaining sustainable competitive advantage. Banks that survive will be those that offer an array of products and services to meet the consuming public s needs, and at the same time pay attention to evolving technology and service quality (Bexley and Lewis, 2001). Previous benchmarking studies examined the customers perceptions of the bank services and attempted to identify the changing target market needs and preferences to better serve these customers. However, in order to better serve their target customers, banks must also know the perceptions of their personnel regarding the relative importance of bank services in providing high quality, highly satisfying service. Thus, the overall aim of this paper is to examine the banking services that are used at the same banks in the traditional customer mystery/secret shopper practices from the bank personnel s point of view. The first part of the paper will provide brief information on the general trends in bank marketing. This will be followed by the methodology to explain the survey instrument, its content, and banks surveyed. Next, results of the survey will be discussed. Finally, the paper will present the conclusions and limitations of the study. Trends in Bank Marketing The most prominent trend has been the increasing importance of new technological developments. Technology is increasingly being used to provide managers with tools and templates for guiding day-to-day marketing activities. The most common applications include planning devices for coaching sessions, performance evaluations, enhancement decisions, and 3

4 sales meetings. Technology is also being used to more effectively guide the marketing process. Applications range from automation of branch and call centers to customer relationship management, profitability, and data mining systems. Benefits of these practices include higher quality sales interviews, service transactions converted to sales opportunities and consistent revenue-producing activities across the organization (Sucec, 2001). Companies are recognizing these tremendous gains in technology and are struggling to match the benefits with a workforce better enabled to maximize them (Hall, 2001). The gains in technology have led to the transfer of decision making to central marketing and a corresponding decrease in local empowerment. This does not support the consumer desire for the human touch, as reflected by customer satisfaction levels that are at all-time lows. To create a strong position, many banks are seeking to balance efficiency and consistency with the personalization that customers expect (Hall, 2001). There are other notable trends in bank marketing. First, call centers are becoming an integrated part of banks sales initiatives. These distribution points are no longer being viewed as second class. Many banks are seeking to merge their branch networks with their call centers in a seamless fashion. Second, banks are strengthening their brand identities by aligning their brands with management strategies. The most common practice is to make sure that the bank s business strategy is congruent with day-to-day marketing processes and practices. With this practice, the bank certifies that the promises made by its brand are fulfilled (Sucec, 2001). Secret Shopping One powerful benchmarking tool that is commonly used both internally and externally is secret shopping, also referred to as mystery shopping. Benchmarking through use of secret shopping supports a variety of purposes, which include pinpointing service delivery weaknesses and 4

5 strengths, strengthening sales culture, and improving customer service. At its core, the technique utilizes a professional "shopper" who contacts the bank either in person or over the telephone. The shopper conducts a transaction such as inquiring about an account, asking a question or opening an account. Immediately following this transaction, the shopper completes a questionnaire that details the level of service offered by the employee (Lubin, 2001). According to Lubin (2001), a successful secret shopping program has measurement objectives in several key areas. These areas include customer rapport, needs discovery, product availability, demonstration of how products meet needs, and the effectiveness of closing. Customer rapport involves building a bridge between the employee and the customer. Needs discovery necessitates inquisitive action from employees. Demonstration of the product should allow the employee to summarize the customer s needs and then tie the bank s services to those needs, as well as explain in detail how they will be met. The final area is the effectiveness of the closing where the employee should offer an account application, provide the customer with brochures and a business card, and ask if the customer would like to schedule a follow-up meeting. Secret shopping can provide baseline data for the bank in all of these areas. The baseline could be internal in which the bank would strive to improve its operations. Conversely, the baseline could represent competitors banks, in which case, the bank would strive to exceed the level of service provided by its competitors (Lubin, 2001). Employers should look at the mystery shopping data as an opportunity to help their employees service their customers better, rather than using the information to punish the employees. Secret shopping data creates an opportunity for managers to improve problems the workplace might have. The main key in the mystery shopping process is to relate the information 5

6 and process to the employees so they are aware of how they treat the customers and to let them know they are being monitored (Dalglish, 2001; Keedy, 2001). A common misconception in bank benchmarking is the idea that a benchmark is a fixed achievement. What the customers value and expect must be the perpetual benchmark that the bank measures against. Banks must realize that customer perceptions of value and expectations continually change. The strategies and benchmarks of the bank must evolve with the changing customer perceptions. In today s dynamic marketplace, consumers have more choices and a wide variety of alternative banking services. An important question/issue is how a customer decides which bank to choose when many of the banks offer the same products and services, such as free checking, phone access, and on-line banking. According to Stickler (2001), two things that can attract the customer and differentiate one bank from another are (1) customer service and (2) how the bank presents and sells its products and services. A customer tends to go where he/she is invited and stays where he/she is made to feel welcome (Stickler, 2001). If a customer is not informed or is not aware of the products and services that a bank offers, he/she will have no reason to go to or stay with that bank. Therefore, banks must have effective communication with their customers and target market about their products and services. In addition, the banks must monitor and compare their services and performance against each other so that they can maintain and/or improve their competitive position in the marketplace. As explained before, the mystery (or secret) shopper approach is one of the best ways to gather information about the quality of the banking services and compare their performance to other banks performances. An earlier study, using customers as mystery/secret 6

7 shoppers examined the quality of the services offered by banks and compared the relative performances of banks (Pinar et al., 2003). It is also essential to examine how the bank personnel perceive the services and activities that banks offer to their customers. Whether or not bank personnel perceive the services as being important for customer satisfaction will have a significant impact on the quality of services actually delivered; and, in turn, impact actual customer satisfaction and banking performance. Therefore, the overall purpose of this research is to examine the banking services that are used in the traditional customer mystery/secret shopper practices from the bank personnel point of view at the same banks. The specific objectives of the study are: (1) to examine the perceptions of the bank personnel regarding the bank services offered to customers; (2) to compare personnel perceptions of the different bank services offered by the banks; (3) to analyze the personnel perceptions of bank services by selective demographics of the personnel. METHODOLOGY In order to accomplish the study objectives, the survey instrument was developed from the mystery /secret shopper form used by Pinar et al. (2003). The mystery shopper form has eight sections. These sections are: focus on customers and acknowledge them as they enter the bank; greet them with smile in a timely manner; build a good rapport; provide attentive service with sincerity and eagerness; determine the customer s needs by asking questions and listening; offer other products for cross-selling; give presentation with enthusiasm and good product knowledge; and complete with an effective closing. Initially, a series of items were generated for measuring each of the above mentioned sections. Then, these items were given to three bank managers as experts on the banking industry. They were asked to evaluate each item for its consistency with each part of the mystery shopping form and the customers banking experience, and if needed, 7

8 suggest improvement and additional items for inclusion. After identifying the items that the bank managers considered to have a high consistency with the sections of the mystery shopping form and the banking experience of the consumer. The actual items were selected to be used in the various scales based on their appropriateness, uniqueness, and ability to convey to informants / respondents different shades of meaning about the concepts (see Churchill, 1979). This procedure, which was used to establish the face validity of the constructs (Narver and Slater, 1990), produced a list of items (or statements). There were four to six items for measuring each of the eight sections of the mystery shopper. These items were also submitted to two academicians who are experts on developing measurement scales for further refinement of the scale items. Based on their suggestions, the measurement scale which included a total of 39 items was finalized form (a complete list of scale items can be obtained from the contact author). Responses to these items were measured on a 5-point Likert type scale with 1 being least important, and 5 being most important. In order to avoid response biases, the items were not measured as very unimportant to very important, rather, they were measured as least important to most important. This scale suggests that all the measurement items were important, but some items might be more important than other items. The survey instrument also included several demographics questions. Respondents were asked their gender; how long they had worked in the banking industry and in their current bank; whether they worked full time vs. part time; whether their position was clerical, teller or loan officer vs. supervisor or managerial; their level of education, and the extent of their internal and external training. These factors were used for profiling and comparing responses. The study was conducted in a small mid-western town. A total of eight different banks in the town agreed to participate in the study, three of which were large national banks and five 8

9 were small local banks. Since some banks had multiple branches, the branches were also included in the survey, which gave a total of fifteen banks and/or branches to be included in the study. The survey instrument containing the measurement scales and questions regarding respondent characteristics was administered to all personnel at fifteen participating banks/branches. In order to increase the response rate, the bank/branch managers cooperation and support was requested. Every bank employee received the survey instrument. In order to preserve their anonymity, each was asked to put the completed survey into an envelop. A total of 165 useable surveys were returned for analysis. RESULTS Table 1 provides selected profiles of the respondents, the bank personnel by all banks as well as by the small and large banks. The results show that the majority of the bank personnel are female (78.2%), and only 21.8% are male; a relatively high percentage of the personnel work full-time (82.9%), and small percent (17.1%) work part-time; 28.0% of the personnel hold supervisory or managerial positions, and the rest hold clerical, teller, or loan officer positions (72.0%). Regarding education level, about half of the bank personnel have some college or associate degrees (48.5%); 29.1 % have bachelors or graduate degrees; and 22.4% have high school or GED degree. On average, the respondents have 9.4 years of work experience in the banking industry, and 6.69 years of experience at their current bank. Of the total, 83 respondents had an average of 32.3 hours of internal training, while 71 respondents had an average of hours of external training. Insert Table 1 about here Table 1 also presents these profiles by small and large banks. Of the 164 total respondents, 122 of them (73.9%) work for small banks and 43 (26.1%) work for large banks. It 9

10 appears that male and female personnel distributions at small banks vs. large bank are similar to the overall results, where the majority of the personnel are females. As shown in Table 2, this is also true for working full-time vs. part-time, work position, and education. These results suggest that the banks (small or large) have similar profiles in this study area. Overall Perceptions One of the objectives of the study was to examine the perceptions of bank personnel regarding the bank services they provided to customers. In order to accomplish this objective, a survey instrument was developed from the mystery shopper form that was used in a previous study (Pinar et al., 2003). The survey instrument contained eight sections covering banking services that customers experience from the time they enter the bank until they leave the bank after completing their transaction. From now on, these sections will be referred to as customer bank experience factors, or just factors. Personnel at participating banks were asked to evaluate how important they perceived each of these factors to be in delivering high quality, highly satisfying customer service, and experience. The item scores in each part were averaged to obtain the mean scores for each factor. These mean scores will be used in various analyses and comparisons. Also, overall mean, means for factors, and means for banks were calculated by averaging the ratings of all the items in all eight sections. The overall mean and means for each factor of perceptions of the bank personnel are presented in Figure 1A. The overall mean perception of 4.23 out of a possible 5 suggests that bank personnel perceive all these banking service factors to be fairly important for providing high quality, highly satisfying service. The means for each factor range from a low of 3.92 for building rapport to a high of 4.61 for closing. These results suggest that the bank personnel seem to consider these services important or close to very important. Of all the factors, the bank 10

11 personnel consider the closing the most important factor (mean of 4.61), followed by focus (mean of 4.54), greeting (mean of 4.48), and presentation (mean of 4.44). Insert Figure 1A and 1B about here In order to gain a better perspective regarding the relative importance of each factor, these factors are compared to the overall mean, which serves as a reference or benchmark. Comparisons of factor means to the overall mean are presented in Figure 1B. The results show that the means for the four factors: focus, greeting, presentation, and closing, are higher means than the overall mean. This suggests that the personnel perceive these factors as more important for high quality, highly satisfying service, than the other factors. The means for the other four factors are lower than the overall mean. Of the four factors, building rapport and need determination show the highest negative deviations from the overall mean, which indicate that the bank personnel do not perceive these factors to be very important for high quality, highly satisfying service. The negative deviations for these factors might point out the current weaknesses and/or deficient areas where banks need to train their personnel for delivering high quality, highly satisfying service. However, since building a good rapport and determining customer needs, are the two weakest factors, it is very important to offer customers the right products or services. These two factors might need the most and an immediate attention among all factors for improvement. Thus, the overall average score, serving as a benchmark, gives the bank managers an excellent opportunity to identify the right areas that may impact customer satisfaction and their competitive advantage in the market. Comparison of the Banks One of the objectives of the study was to compare the perceptions of personnel at different banks in the local area to determine if the perceptions differed among the bank personnel. In order to 11

12 accomplish this objective, the means covering all the measurement items was calculated for each bank and presented in Figure 2A, along with the overall mean, where the banks are also designated as small bank with S and large bank with L. Based on these mean scores, it appears that (1) the personnel of each bank consider these factors important for high quality, highly satisfying service, and (2) the personnel at large banks perceive them generally more important than the personnel at the small banks. Insert Figure 2A and 2B about here Again, using the overall mean as a reference or a benchmark, Figure 2B shows the deviations of bank means from the overall mean. The positive deviations suggest that the personnel at these banks perceive these factors to be more important than the personnel at the banks with negative deviations. While all large banks have positive deviations, two large banks (Bank 7 and Bank 8) have the largest positive deviations, which indicate that their personnel perceive these factors to be relatively more important than do the personnel at other banks. Three small banks also have positive deviations. Bank 2 has the largest positive deviation among the small banks, while Bank 1 and Bank 3 have smaller positive deviations. Although personnel at these banks perceive these factors to be important, they are not as strong as those at the two large banks. The two small banks (Bank 4 and Bank 5) with negative deviations should be concerned about their personnel s perception of these factors. If the bank personnel do not perceive that these factors are important for high quality, highly satisfying service, this could have an adverse effect on the quality of service they provide, on their customer satisfaction, and ultimately on their competitiveness and performance. In order to gain more insight into how each bank performs on these factors and also how each compares to other banks, the means for each bank on each factor, as well as means for each 12

13 factor, are presented in Figure 3. Since these means are factor specific, it is possible to compare how the personnel at each bank perceive these factors. According to the results in Figure 3, the personnel at all the banks seem to perceive the factors of focus, greeting, presentation, and closing as being more important for high quality, highly satisfying service than the factors of building rapport, giving attentive service, determine need, and cross selling. In addition, Figure 3 shows that the banks with overall high mean also have high means for almost all the factors. These findings are consistent with the overall results presented. Insert Figure 3 about here Banks could utilize the findings in Figure 3 to assess how their personnel perceive these factors by examining their scores in each category. This will allow the banks to identify the specific factors/services they need to improve, change, or maintain at their current status. Since the mean score for each category is included in Figure 3, it can serve as a benchmark against which the banks can compare their personnel s perception to those of other banks. This could allow them to identify the relative importance of these factors in providing high quality, highly satisfying service. Then, the banks could design more effective training programs in the specific areas that need the most improvements in order to become, or maintain, their competitiveness in the market. Earlier, the results in Figure 2A and 2B suggested that the personnel at larger banks seemed to consider these factors more important than did the personnel at small banks. In order to further examine this, the comparisons of mean scores of each factor for small banks vs. large banks are presented in Figure 4. An overall mean comparison shows that the personnel at the large banks (mean of 4.31) perceive these factors to be more important than the personnel at the small banks (mean of 4.21). However, the difference is not statistically significant (p =.104), 13

14 suggesting that overall these factors are equally important to the personnel at large and small banks. The mean comparisons of each factor indicate that there is no significant difference between the perceptions of personnel at large banks vs. small banks for all factors, except cross selling. The results show that personnel at the large banks (mean of 4.28) perceive cross selling significantly (p <.05) more important than the personnel at the small banks (mean of 4.10). This could be the result of the fact that large banks have more products and/or services to offer. As a result, their personnel might feel that offering these products/services is an important part of high quality, highly satisfying service for customers. Insert Figure 4 abut here Effects of Gender on Perception Figure 5 present the comparisons of the perceptions of these factors for male personnel vs. female personnel. On an overall base, female personnel perceive these factors more important (mean of 4.24) than male personnel (mean of 4.20), but the difference is not statistically significant (p =.464). The comparisons of the individual factors in Figure 5 show significant difference between the perceptions of male personnel and female personnel for only two factors. The study found that female personnel perceive focusing on consumers (mean of 4.59) and greeting them (mean of 4.52), more important than male personnel (means of 4.32 for focus and 4.34 for greeting); and the difference was statistically significant for focus at p <.01 and for greeting at p <.05. These findings indicate that female personnel place more importance on first impression by focusing on consumers and greeting them properly when customers enter the bank as a part of high quality, highly satisfying service than male personnel. Both male and female personnel at these banks seem to perceive the other factors equally important for high quality, highly 14

15 satisfying service. The implication of these findings is that, given the importance of first impression, the banks may consider employing more female personnel for initial customer contact points to reduce the potential of creating a negative first impression. This is especially critical for first time customers where the first impression is very important to gain them as customers. Insert Figure 5 about here Comparing Full-Time vs. Part-Time Personnel The comparisons of the perceptions of the factors by full-time personnel vs. part-time personnel are presented in Figure 6. A comparison of the overall mean shows that full-time personnel (mean of 4.26) perceive these factors significantly (p <.05) more important for high quality, highly satisfying service than part-time personnel (mean of 4.11). This suggests that full-time personnel might be more concerned about the service quality they provide, in turn, the level of customer satisfaction than part-time personnel. The mean perceptions for full-time personnel are higher for all factors, except in building rapport ; however, only two factor means are statistically significantly higher. As shown in Figure 6, the full-time employees perceive giving attentive service and closing significantly more important than part-time employees at p <.01 and p <.05, respectively. Also, the mean score for focus or initial meeting is higher for fulltime employees (mean of 4.56) than for part-time employees (mean 4.39), which is significantly higher at p =.07, which is acceptable for an exploratory study. Insert Figure 6 about here These results suggest that the area banks may need to examine their personnel hiring policies. While hiring part-time employees might be a good strategy for cost saving and shortterm profitability, such a policy might have an adverse effect on the long-term performances of 15

16 the banks. Results indicate that, except in one case, part-time employees do not appear to consider these factors as important as full-time employees in delivering high quality, highly satisfying service to the customers. Banks should pay special attention to the three factors, which are statistically significantly different. Comparing Front Line vs. Managerial Personnel A study also compared the perceptions of the front line or contact personnel (clerical, teller, and loan officer) to those of managerial (supervisors or managerial) personnel regarding the importance of these factors for giving high quality, highly satisfying service. The results are presented in Figure 7. On an overall base, the managerial personnel (mean of 4.32) perceive these factors more important in providing high quality, highly satisfying service than contact personnel (mean of 4.20), which is statistically significant (p <.05). Higher means for managerial personnel on all factors indicate that managerial personnel perceive these factors to be more important than do contact personnel for high quality, highly satisfying service. However, not all means are significantly higher. The mean comparisons found that the means for greeting and cross selling are higher for managerial personnel than for contact personnel at p <.05 level. Also, managerial personnel consider closing to be more important than the contact personnel, which is significant (p =.06). The other factors are not statically significant, which suggests that both managerial personnel and contact personnel seem to consider these factors equally important in providing high quality, highly satisfying service. Insert Figure 7 about here CONCLUSION AND LIMITATIONS This study examined how bank personnel perceive the services offered by their banks. To accomplish the study objectives, the survey instrument was designed utilizing the previous 16

17 mystery shopper study. The survey was administered to all the personnel at fifteen banks and/or branches that agreed to participate in the study in a small mid-western town. There were a total of 165 useable surveys returned for analysis. The selected profiles of the respondents show that most of the bank personnel are female; the majority work full-time; a large percent hold clerical, teller, or loan officer positions; and the largest percent have some college or have an associate Degree. Respondents have an average of 9.4 years of work experience in the banking industry and have worked 6.69 years in the current bank. They have an average of 32.3 hours of internal training and hours of external training. The small banks have more personnel (122 vs. 43) than the large banks in this study area. The overall results show that the bank personnel in the study generally consider all the banking service factors fairly important in providing high quality, highly satisfying services. Regarding the individual factors, the positive deviations from the overall mean for the factors of focusing on customers as they enter the bank, greeting them, giving a good presentation, and closing a transaction, suggest that personnel at all banks collectively perceive these factors more important than other factors for quality of services they provide. The negative deviations suggest that the bank personnel consider building rapport, need determination, giving attentive service, and cross selling as less important for high quality service. The findings of the study indicate that personnel at large banks seem to perceive these factors more important than the personnel at small banks for high quality, highly satisfying service. The banks can use the overall mean, as well as each factor mean as benchmarks to identify the factors, or areas of bank services to improve their service quality for better performance. For example, it seems that personnel at all banks do not consider building rapport, 17

18 need determination, and cross selling as very important for providing high quality service. Banks can improve their performance by addressing these specific areas. The mean comparisons of large vs. small banks indicate that there is no significant difference between the personnel of large bank and small bank regarding the perceptions of these factors, except cross selling. It seems that the personnel at large banks consider cross selling as an important factor for high quality service. This could be attributed to the fact that large banks offer more services, where personnel might perceive that offering additional products/services (cross selling) is important for highly satisfying service. If this is actually the case, small banks might have to offer these additional products to compete with the large banks. The results of the study show that female personnel perceive the factors of focusing on customers as they enter the bank and greeting them significantly more important than the male personnel, while the relative perception of other factors was not significantly different. Since the first impression plays a very important role in customer satisfaction, banks might have female personnel greet the customers as they enter the bank. The study found a significant difference between the overall perceptions of full-time vs. part-time personnel. Also, full-time personnel perceive giving attentive service and closing significantly more important than part-time personnel. While it seems that having part-time personnel is important for saving money, lost sales resulting from poor service and/or the inability of closing sales might be more costly in the long term. The banks might be better off by having competent, qualified full-time personnel. Finally, the findings indicate that there is a difference between the perception of managerial personnel and contact personnel. The differences are significant for overall perception, as well as for factors of greeting and cross selling. These results suggest that the contact personnel may not consider these factors as important as the managers/supervisors do for 18

19 providing high quality, highly satisfying customer service. These discrepancies or GAPs, if not taken care of, might become a serious problem for the performance of the banks. As a short-term solution, the bank management might communicate the importance of these factors to the contact personnel. In the long-run, the contact personnel might be offered training on these factors. While this study provided very useful insights into the perceptions of bank personnel regarding the services offered by banks, the study has a number of limitations. Therefore, caution should be exercised when interpreting the findings. One limitation is that the study was conducted in a relatively small market. While the results are important and valid, a larger market area and more banks could have further strengthened the results of the study. The other limitation of the study is that the scale developed for this study needs to be replicated in different market areas so that the results can be compared to these results. 19

20 REFERENCES Bexley, J., & Lewis, R. (2001), Seven Ways to Bolster Marketing, Bank Marketing, 33:3, (April), p. 24. Churchill, Gilbert A. Jr. (1979), A Paradigm for Developing Better Measures of Marketing Constructs, Journal of Marketing Research, 16 (February), Dalglish, B. (1994), Snoops in the Shops: Canadian Retailers Hire Secret Agents to Check out Service, Maclean s, 107, (, December 19), pp Hall, Robert (2001), Restoring the Workforce to the Customer Equation, Bank Marketing, 33:3, (April), p. 14. Keedy, J. (2001), Taking the Mystery out of Shopping, National Petroleum News, 93:4, (April), pp.32, 36. Lubin, P. (2001), What s the Mystery? Bank Marketing, 33:7, (Sep), pp Narver, J. & S.F. Slater (1990), the effects of a Market Orientation on Business Profitability, Journal of Marketing, 54 (October), Pinar Musa, Brianne Taylor and Henry L. Crouch, (2003), "Benchmarking: A Marketing Tool to Increase Customer Satisfaction and Competitive Advantage, Marketing Management Association, the 39the Annual Meeting proceedings, March, 12-14, Chicago, Illinois. Stickler, Kent (1999), Top 10 Characteristics of a Sales-driven Bank, Texas Banking, 9, (September), pp Sucec, Jeff (2001), The Evolution of Bank Sales Cultures: Top Trends to Watch, Bank Marketing, 33:1, (January/February), p

21 Table 1: Selected Characteristics of Bank Personnel Total Small Bank Large Bank Gender n Percent n Percent n Percent Male Female Total Work n Percent n Percent n Percent Full-time Part-time Total Work Position n Percent n Percent n Percent Clerical, teller, or loan officer Supervisor or managerial Total Education n Percent n Percent n Percent High School / GED Some college or Associates Degree Bachelors degree or Graduate Degree Total Descriptive Statistics n Mean n Mean n Mean Years worked in the banking industry Years worked in this bank Total hours of internal training Total hours of external training

22 22

23 23

24 Factors Figure 3: Comparison of All factors for All Banks Closing Presentation Cross Selling Overall Bank 8 (L) Need Determination Giving Attentive Service Bank 7 (L) Bank 6 (L) Bank 5 (S) Bank 4 (S) Bank 3 (S) Build Rapport Bank 2 (S) Bank 1 (S) Greeting Focus Scale: 1=Least Important; 5=Most Important 24

25 Scale: 1=Least impt. & 5=Most Impt Figure 4: Mean Comparisons of Small vs. Large Banks Focus Greeting Build Rapport Giving Need Attentive Determin Service ation Cross Selling * Presentat ion Closing Overall Small Banks Large Banks * p < Figure 5: Comparison of Male vs. Female Perceptions 4.50 Scale: 1=Least Impt. & 5=Most Impt Focus ** Greeting* Build Rapport Giving Attentive Service Need Determin ation Cross Selling Presentati on Closing Overall Male Female ** p<.01; *p<.05 25

26 Scale: 1=Least impt. & 5=Most impt Figure 6: Comparson of Full-Time vs. Part-Time Employee Perceptions Focus Greeting Build Rapport Giving Attentive Service** Need Determin ation Cross Selling Presentat ion Closing * Overall * Full Time Part Time **p <.01; *p <.05 Scale: 1=Least Impt. & 5=Most Impt Figure 7: Comparison of Contact vs. Managerial Personnel Perpections Focus Greeting * Build Rapport Giving Attentive Service Need Determina tion Cross Selling * Presentati on Closing Overall * Front Line Managerial *p <.05 26