Real-Life Communication
Anyone who works with the public has to be prepared to answer questions.
A customer service manager also has to be able to answer the questions asked
by staff.
Cathy Giasson is a manager responsible for customer service
at a credit union. She says technical knowledge of the products and services
sold by her credit union are essential to delivering top-quality customer
service.
"You have to have a good balance of both people skills and
technical knowledge. Your staff and customers will look to you for answers
to questions they have about loans, investments and other accounts."
You're
a customer service manager and one of your staff members comes to you with
a question. It seems that more and more customers are asking if staff members
are paid to promote one investment over another. The staffer knows they don't,
but knows the bank does have incentive programs in place for certain investments.
The staffer wants some advice on answering such questions.
You decide
to write a quick memo to the whole staff giving them pointers about how to
handle this question.
First, you review the bank's policy book on which
you will base your memo. This is what it says:
"Certain employees
at OurBank and OurBank Securities, Inc. may be compensated using incentive
formulas in addition to or in lieu of salary. Incentive compensation may be
in the form of cash or merchandise and may be based upon sales of the OurBank
Mutual Funds and other products, but compensation formulas are designed so
that there is no financial incentive to sell units of mutual funds in preference
to other similar products."OurBank Securities, Inc. may also from time
to time offer incentive programs for the sale of mutual funds or other OurBank
Securities, Inc. products. The costs of these incentives are paid by OurBank
or OurBank Securities Inc. and not the unit holders."
Write
a short memo to your staff setting out the issue, along with a reply you think
the staff should use when asked this question.