Postbanken - A sales training program via email and voice response

How do you educate 6,720 employees for less than 350 kr. per person?

Right from the beginning, Postbanken was Sweden’s fastest-growing bank. After 2.5 years, the bank had 457,000 customers – every one of them with a checking account. This result had been achieved with only 7 employees. That’s because the bank sold its products via the post office, so that 8,300 employees had daily contact with 450,000 customers. But a training program for the post office employees was in order to develop and refine sales – one that wouldn’t be too expensive.

Solution: “A day at the post office”
The solution became a combination of a package and a voice-response program with the theme “A day at the post office”. Here the employees could train themselves in sales techniques on fictional characters and thereby feel more confident when real customers came to the post office. Training took place over 5 rounds and focused on Postbanken’s products.

When an employee called the voice-response program, he or she was personally bid welcome by the administrative director of Postbanken. When the training then started, the employee first heard a sound byte from the post office that was about one of the stories described in the training booklet. Every customer meeting was divided into 4 phases: contact, interview, argumentation and decision. In every phase, the employee needed to find the best way to handle the customer from a choice of 3 actions. If the employee answered correctly, he or she heard the customer’s positive reaction. With wrong answers, a voice-over instructor would help with some good advice.

Results

• 81% of those employees with customer contact participated in the program for all 5 weeks
• On average, the employees used the telephone more than 30 minutes a week
• No employee needed to leave his/her workplace in order to participate
• The training cost 350 kr. per employee
• Postbanken had a foundation for future training programs
• Postbanken became the post office’s preferred supplier
• After the project, Postbanken’s sales comprised a larger share of the post office’s total sales

FEDMA Best of Europe GULD 2000

Echo USA, 1999, Leader Award