Engagement – Most important tool of a Banker

Meaning:-

Engagement can be defined as an effective communication between two parties i.e. in banking scenario

it can be between Bank and general public / employees / customers and for Bankers it can be between

customers , prospective customers and own team members.

Examples of engagement can be advertisements, interviews of management representatives published

through media, branding, branch ambience, employee appearances and etiquettes, interaction quality

between banker and customers /prospective customer and within the bank it can be email

communications, interactions between various team leaders and teams etc.

Importance:-

Character and quality of the bank is judged by the engagement quality of the bank as a whole, for

example public view MNC Banks differently to a state run bank notwithstanding now a day state run

banks offers everything under the sun as probably done by MNC Banks. But still MNC Banks remains

preferred Banker for many high net-worth individuals in India compared to state run banks.

This is where the importance of engagement comes in, MNC Banks brings with them American and

British flavor in their engagement style which is far more classy compared to Indian Banks and thus

customers looking at prestige and class look towards MNC banks against Indian peers.

Similarly there are customer groups who prefers to bank with a particular bank based on pure

preferential treatment assigned to them for years by that particular bank. This is prevalent in many

region centric banks. Here again the differentiator is engagement style of the bank with particular

groups, where services are offered in the most desired manner.

When we analyze the employee behavior it is often surprising to note that same individual who hardly

used to cross sell in a tradional old private sector bank suddenly turning out to be the best cross seller in

his newly joined bank, where cross selling is the mantra of banking. Difference here is again

engagement.

Using engagement tool for improving results:-

Thus engagement comes out as an important factor or tool in Banking which plays a dominant role in

enabling the bank to capture its market share.

Let’s now discuss factors needed to be taken care while improving the quality of engagement.

Bank level engagement:-

At Bank level, most important is the match between bank’s aspirations and engagement quality; unless

there is a perfect match bank will fall short of its aspirations and ground results.

Team level engagement:-

Every bank has its own process of business and it is important that the process is conveyed to the team

by effective engagement. Unless everybody in the organization speaks same language and subjects

macro level aspirations won’t be reflected at micro level.

Team to customer engagement:-

Bank level engagement with public at large should be followed at ground level in both letter and spirit

and perfect level of uniformity should be exhibited in the engagement between team and customers or

prospective customers through all channels.

Conclusion:-

Considering the importance and criticality of engagement, banks should use engagement as the most

important tool and start managing engagement quality at all levels. Unless the quality of engagement

remains uniform across Bank / Team and Customer level, aspirations of the bank may remain pretty

distant from ground realities.