Driving Results Through Customer Focus at Fifth Third Bank
The Situation
Fifth Third Bancorp is a diversified financial services company headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio.
The Company has $117 billion in assets, operates 15 affiliates with 1,315 full-service Banking Centers across 12 U.S. states. Fifth Third operates four main businesses: Commercial Banking, Branch Banking, Consumer Lending, and Investment Advisors. The organization's vision is to be "the one bank people most value and trust," and its strategy is to differentiate itself by providing smart financial solutions and superior customer service to its business and consumer customers–an approach Fifth Third calls "One Bank." The successful execution of the One Bank strategy requires a strong customer-focused organization; all customers must be able to expect the same high level of differentiated banking service provided by Fifth Third's sales and service people and systems.
The Solution
Fifth Third developed a uniform model of sales and service that applies to each of its lines of business. Forum worked with the bank to design and deliver business-specific training to support the model by fostering common, core, and consistent skills and behaviors throughout the customer-facing organization. Thirteen training programs were created and delivered to nearly 7,000 participants. These programs ranged from consultative selling skills development for bankers to service excellence training for customer service representatives and sales and service coaching for managers across all the bank's businesses. In addition to training, Forum provided ongoing coaching and feedback to participants and conducted impact and sustainment workshops to develop a process for identifying, tracking, and sustaining results.
The Results
One Bank has achieved significant results to date. All four lines of business at Fifth Third report evidence of improved operational performance during the first year, including:
- A 12 percent increase in the customer engagement index score of the Business Banking Group
- More than tripling (329 percent) of sales of complex products in the bank's Customer Contact Center
- Highest revenue averages in 5 years achieved by Retail Direct Sales
While some participants expressed initial skepticism, they went on to learn and apply customer-focused skills in working with their customers, achieving results for themselves, their customers, and the bank. For example, a personal banker who had been on board less than a year attributed the training to helping him hit 176 percent of his quarterly goal in less than a month. Based on preliminary success, Fifth Third has incorporated the sales and service coaching and skill training as a foundational component of new hire training for all sales or service roles and plans to quadruple deliveries of additional training and coaching in the upcoming year.
For more information contact Forum.
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