ABA Banking Journal
No Result
View All Result
  • Topics
    • Ag Banking
    • Commercial Lending
    • Community Banking
    • Compliance and Risk
    • Cybersecurity
    • Economy
    • Human Resources
    • Insurance
    • Legal
    • Mortgage
    • Mutual Funds
    • Payments
    • Policy
    • Retail and Marketing
    • Tax and Accounting
    • Technology
    • Wealth Management
  • Newsbytes
  • Podcasts
  • Magazine
    • Subscribe
    • Advertise
    • Magazine Archive
    • Newsletter Archive
    • Podcast Archive
    • Sponsored Content Archive
SUBSCRIBE
ABA Banking Journal
  • Topics
    • Ag Banking
    • Commercial Lending
    • Community Banking
    • Compliance and Risk
    • Cybersecurity
    • Economy
    • Human Resources
    • Insurance
    • Legal
    • Mortgage
    • Mutual Funds
    • Payments
    • Policy
    • Retail and Marketing
    • Tax and Accounting
    • Technology
    • Wealth Management
  • Newsbytes
  • Podcasts
  • Magazine
    • Subscribe
    • Advertise
    • Magazine Archive
    • Newsletter Archive
    • Podcast Archive
    • Sponsored Content Archive
No Result
View All Result
No Result
View All Result
ADVERTISEMENT
Home Commercial Lending

Beyond the Cross-Sell: Deepening Relationship Banking

June 7, 2017
Reading Time: 4 mins read

By Evan Sparks

Twenty-seven years ago, Micah Bartlett was a first-time bank teller at a small community bank in central Illinois. A few months in, the bank CEO gathered the staff to discuss the topic of the day: cross-selling. “Going forward, we were all going to be about cross-selling,” he remembers.

The idea never had a chance. “I never changed my habits at all, and most of my coworkers didn’t either,” he remembers. “The whole initiative went nowhere.” Why? As a newbie teller, Bartlett didn’t feel like a salesperson—and he didn’t feel confident that he could be one. Moreover, the bank didn’t provide tools and processes to help employees cross-sell, and “there was no discussion about why this is in the interest of our customers. It was all about the bank’s objectives.”

That kind of cross-selling—with a maniacal focus on hitting the bank’s internal metrics—has cast a pall on the whole concept in the wake of the Wells Fargo scandal. But when anchored by knowledge of and tailoring to customers’ goals and desires, cross-selling can be a useful tool for growing business. “You have to have an authentic intention with regard to the customer’s financial goals,” says Bartlett—and you have to provide employees with the tools to understand and meet those goals.

For the past decade, Bartlett has been president and CEO at Town and Country Bank, a $516 million bank in Springfield, Ill. He knew he wanted the bank to be a source of financial empowerment for customers in a way that would deepen customer relationships. So he found himself in the same role as his first CEO—pitching employees on a new relationship approach. “When we first started talking about this at our company, most employees looked at me like I had three eyes,” he laughs. “They were just waiting for this thing to blow over.”

But as Bartlett points out, deepening customer relationships isn’t a trend bank employees should let blow over. It’s core to the banking model. Here are three approaches banks are using to deepen customer relationships:

Outreach, not onboarding

“In many banks, [onboarding] is the end of the relationship,” says Barbara Sanfilippo, a banking sales coach with High Definition Banking. They make sure online banking is set up, the debit card is activated—and not much more contact happens. But Sanfilippo argues that knowing customers’ goals is essential to those deeper relationships.

At Town and Country Bank, Sanfilippo helped Bartlett develop an outreach process that worked. The process includes a sequence of onboarding questions designed to discern goals—plus regular follow-up as appropriate for the customer and their goals.

Sanfilippo urges banks to coach employees to ask questions without pitching products. “When you haven’t built trust with a customer, you don’t want to [sell] first.” For example, instead of offering financial planning for college, an employee can ask, “What are you thinking about for college for your kids?” She also emphasizes the importance of “reboarding,” since many bank customers aren’t receiving regular personal contact. (For example, Bartlett says only 10 percent of Town and Country customers visit branches—until he launched the new outreach program, the bank had little personal contact with the remaining 90 percent.)

The new approach to outreach, only in place a few years at Town and Country, is already paying off. Before 2013, when the program launched, the bank saw 14 percent attrition but only 11 percent new account acquisition. In 2016, those numbers were reversed. “When we are not making our outreach calls on schedule, our attrition numbers rise,” says Bartlett.

Keep track of their goals

For the bank to capitalize on these new relationships, it has to know their goals. Sanfilippo recommends that bank employees enter notes into each customer’s profile with each outreach call.

But banks can also leverage technology to help customers apprise the bank of financial goals themselves. That’s made easier with personal financial management tools. Peter Glyman, co-founder and president of Geezeo, notes that for most customers, major life events—marriage, a baby, a big move, starting a business—are the “trigger to start looking at finances.”

Geezeo offers an ABA-endorsed personal financial management platform that banks can provide as a white-label tool for retail and business customers. Goals entered into the platform make the bank aware of these life events, which—paired with access to transaction data—enables bank employees to target sales to customers who would find the product or service uniquely suited to them. Adding the data capabilities of PFM can help provide a “dynamic experience” with the bank, Glyman says.

That’s especially important with small business customers. “I think the biggest thing you’re fighting is apathy,” says Glyman. “The business customer is not necessarily going to be beating down your door telling you exactly the product and service that they want. Chances are they’re going to go with the product that showed up at the right time.” Instead of just hoping for lucky timing, banks can use PFM and customer outreach to make sure they make strategic offers to their business customers.

Add value without a sales pitch

Banks can build customer trust by providing opportunities to engage in an environment without a direct sales pitch but where they are experiencing added value. Jill Castilla—president and CEO at Citizens Bank of Edmond just outside Oklahoma City—has become famous in the banking world for Heard on Hurd, the bank’s monthly street festival with live music and food trucks. But smaller efforts work too.

For the last four years, Charie Zanck—vice chairman and CEO of American Community Bank and Trust in Woodstock, Ill.—has convened periodic breakfasts for business clients on relevant topics like marketing, operations efficiency or labor law. “Getting your commercial lenders in the room to just listen to customers is a great way to understand their needs,” she says. Her bank also arranges frequent networking events for its business clients, which has resulted in numerous referrals for new products.

Ultimately, programs to deepen customer relationships are a win-win. Bartlett has a story about how Town and Country’s outreach program worked. An employee noticed that a customer had several hundred dollars in magazine subscription payments coming out of her account and called to see if she realized this. The customer didn’t, and she “realized the immediate, tangible benefit of a banker engaging with her.”

ADVERTISEMENT

That one call resulted in the customer refinancing her mortgage, taking out a stock purchase loan, having a trust meeting and referring more customers. It amounted to $1.1 million worth of business and six new relationships—a big payoff for a little outreach and a little learning.

Tags: Big dataMarketingSalesSmall business lending
ShareTweetPin

Author

Evan Sparks

Evan Sparks

Evan Sparks is editor-in-chief of the ABA Banking Journal and senior vice president for member communications at the American Bankers Association.

Related Posts

ABA, associations urge lawmakers to finalize deal on debt ceiling

Updated: President signs ‘big beautiful bill’ including numerous ABA-backed provisions

Ag Banking
July 3, 2025

Included in the bill were several ABA-supported tax provisions related to banks, including a modified version of the ABA-advocated ACRE Act and the permanent extension of the Section 199A pass-through deduction rate of 20%.

Using Artificial Intelligence to Make Sense of Mountains of Data

Three myths about AI in banking

Technology
July 3, 2025

Common myths and misperceptions might confuse about what to expect and misdirect investment and efforts.

Chair’s View: Celebrating a century of giving back

Chair’s View: Celebrating a century of giving back

Community Banking
July 1, 2025

Not only do we celebrate the 150th anniversary of our organization, we also commemorate an important milestone for the ABA Foundation.

Fighting fraud on the frontline

Fighting fraud on the frontline

Compliance and Risk
June 30, 2025

Customer inquiries and complaints are important tools for detecting scams, but structural barriers in the bank may prevent them from being fully utilized.

Research finds finance industry leads in corporate social responsibility

Research finds finance industry leads in corporate social responsibility

Community Banking
June 27, 2025

Financial institutions are at the forefront in volunteering engagement at 22.2%, nearly a 50% increase from 2023.

Marketing Money Podcast: You don’t need a bigger budget — you need a better plan

Retail and Marketing
June 27, 2025

What matters most in bank marketing. And understanding how to deal with common obstacles.

NEWSBYTES

OCC allows Texas banks affected by flooding to close

July 7, 2025

U.S. Bank survey: Small-business owners focus on succession planning

July 6, 2025

FDIC report: 97% of supervised institutions rated satisfactory or better for consumer compliance

July 6, 2025

SPONSORED CONTENT

Navigating Disruption in Ag Lending – Why Tariffs Are Just the Tip of the Iceberg

Navigating Disruption in Ag Lending – Why Tariffs Are Just the Tip of the Iceberg

July 1, 2025
AI Compliance and Regulation: What Financial Institutions Need to Know

Unlocking Deposit Growth: How Financial Institutions Can Activate Data for Precision Cross-Sell

June 1, 2025
Choosing the Right Account Opening Platform: 10 Key Considerations for Long-Term Success

Choosing the Right Account Opening Platform: 10 Key Considerations for Long-Term Success

April 25, 2025
Outsourcing: Getting to Go/No-Go

Outsourcing: Getting to Go/No-Go

April 5, 2025

PODCASTS

Podcast: Inside ABA’s new Treasury Check Verification System API

June 25, 2025

Podcast: Staying close to clients amid tariff-driven volatility

June 18, 2025

Podcast: Old National’s Jim Ryan on the things that really matter

June 12, 2025
ADVERTISEMENT

American Bankers Association
1333 New Hampshire Ave NW
Washington, DC 20036
1-800-BANKERS (800-226-5377)
www.aba.com
About ABA
Privacy Policy
Contact ABA

ABA Banking Journal
About ABA Banking Journal
Media Kit
Advertising
Subscribe

© 2025 American Bankers Association. All rights reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Topics
    • Ag Banking
    • Commercial Lending
    • Community Banking
    • Compliance and Risk
    • Cybersecurity
    • Economy
    • Human Resources
    • Insurance
    • Legal
    • Mortgage
    • Mutual Funds
    • Payments
    • Policy
    • Retail and Marketing
    • Tax and Accounting
    • Technology
    • Wealth Management
  • Newsbytes
  • Podcasts
  • Magazine
    • Subscribe
    • Advertise
    • Magazine Archive
    • Newsletter Archive
    • Podcast Archive
    • Sponsored Content Archive

© 2025 American Bankers Association. All rights reserved.