This blog was updated in July, 2024, to give you the latest information.
Microlearning and sales enablement platforms offer innovative ways for retail banks to improve customer experience and improve productivity of frontline reps - Unit business managers (UBM), Sales managers (SM), Relationship managers (RM), SO - Sales officers (SO).
The last 4 years have accelerated the transformation in retail banking by several fold. The rise of online banking and competition from fintech firms has pushed retail banking leaders to rethink banking for a digital-savvy retail consumer. In order to maintain their competitive advantage, banks have to develop solutions, innovative products and services which address the educated consumers’ needs. Banks have pivoted to digital-first model for sales and services, upskilling talent with new-age skills to cater to retail customers. By making the learning process more engaging and efficient, banks can enhance product understanding, increase customer satisfaction, and ultimately boost the adoption of bundled services.
However, it is imperative that frontline team must have the required skills to executive business strategy and successfully sell bundled solutions to consumers. While digital banking transactions are exponentially growing and consumers are directly interacting with digital platforms, it is the frontline employees and Relationship Managers (RMs) who make sure the customer experience is seamless between the online transactions, branch visits and calls.
Fintech companies have changed how consumers bank. More importantly, they have redefined the way in which to bundle products and services. Providing a differentiated, seamless omnichannel customer experience therefore has become one of the biggest challenges for the retail banking industry. Customers are redefining their expectations in terms of personalization, accessibility, convenience, and ease of use. They want banks to anticipate their needs and not bombard them with product offerings. The need of the hour for retail banks is to understand the customers, based on their consumption and spending patterns and fine-tune their communication based on customer persona.
Hence, it is imperative that frontline teams must have the required skills to executive business strategy and successfully sell bundled solutions to consumers. While digital banking transactions are exponentially growing and consumers are directly interacting with digital platforms, it is the Relationship Managers (RMs) and other frontline reps who make sure the customer experience is seamless between the online transactions, branch visits and calls.
RMs must know products and services thoroughly to be able to sell them effectively. This is a result of successful skill development programs undertaken by the bank. It may become a challenge to fit skill-building activities into a crowded workflow of training programs for RMs. Today, microlearning, gamification and sales enablement are emerging as well accepted mediums for frontline teams coaching and readiness. Microlearning can provide detailed product information in easily digestible bite-size nuggets to RMs. It can help them to deliver customer service by upskilling them on call etiquettes, listening skills, empathy and other interventions.
Incorporating microlearning and gamification for enabling and upskilling the RMs can help retail banks improve customer experience in the following ways:
1. It Fosters Engagement And Provides Detailed Analytics:
Microlearning and gamified modules can be easily accessed on mobile phones. The employees can access the trainings at any time, on-the-go, providing multiple opportunities to reinforce their knowledge and sharpen their communication just before a customer conversation. Game based microlearning builds learning habits among employees. With game based elements like rewards, points, badges, it fosters healthy competition among peers while also ensuring they are updated on complex topics like financial regulations and digital products. Detailed analytics in terms of completion, attempts, skill gaps can enable the leadership to take corrective measures in real time and thus ensure frontline teams are ready to market in few weeks. One of the private banks in India, partnered with Master-O for microlearning-enabled training of sales managers from Liability Sales Team. The bank was able to achieve faster go-to market by providing the sales training in the form of microlearning modules called Microskills with supporting documents such as brochures, forms as part of sales enablement section.
2. Elevate The Customer Experience With A Digital Sales Kit:
Customers may prefer assistance while navigating through the different financial products. Sales readiness platforms can enable the Bank’s frontline sales team to have quality conversions with customers while offering engaging product content and videos in real time. See how one of India’s largest Small Finance Bank redefined the customer experience using gamification and microlearning. AI based sales training and role-plays can improve customer communication skills for the RMs and other frontline reps. AI based sales training provides immediate feedback to sales trainers and managers with an opportunity for timely course correction.
3. Sell Bundled Solutions Faster:
With technology at the core of new age banking, personalised product and services and bundled offerings will become highly successful as a strategy. A blended learning approach and use of game-based product trainings can lead to 70% faster go-to-market. Bite-sized microlearning modules are 100% faster to deploy & complete, more engaging to experience and have a 300% higher retention rate compared to traditional eLearning or virtual training using PowerPoint presentations and documents. Banks can use AI based role-plays to present real-life customers scenarios where RMs need to suggest the right products or solutions, helping the customers understand the value of bundles in practical situations.
4. Induction And Onboarding:
Decreasing the ramp up time for a new hire has become critical for all industries. Gamification and microlearning can enable Bank leaders to accelerate onboarding by addressing six onboarding pressure points. Gamification tools can boost knowledge retention and application of skills for new recruits and also incentivize them to consistently learn through rewards for successful completion, repetitive testing & mastery of the given skill set.
5. It Works At A Large Scale:
Retail Banks today have presence in multiple regions, often crossing country borders. Training the frontline teams at all branches and locations simultaneously can present several challenges. Gamification and microlearning is versatile and can be operated by the Bank’s RSM or CM anytime of the day using any digital device. It enables them to focus on what is more important – learning the skills – rather than being forced to take long, irrelevant courses. Axis Bank transformed their talent assessment strategy through game-based assessments for more than 20,000 frontline employees.
Empowered employees have the right skills and knowledge to sell bundled solutions to the consumers, address their queries in real-time and have better customer conversions. Microlearning and gamification makes learning part of everyone’s job, no matter when or where it is done. This is the key to attracting talent, retaining top performers and fostering an employee-centered culture necessary to provide customer-first experiences.
About Master-O®:
Master-O®, a frontline sales readiness and gamification platform, has powered several sales enablement & frontline readiness programs for enterprise customers and been a key driver of sales strategies for leaders across industries. To make capability development, sales enablement & engagement more personalized, Master-O® empowers sales managers tap into various data points and analytics for coaching & upskilling their frontline reps. This gives sales leaders and managers much-required objective perspective to reimagine their sales coaching, capability development & enablement approach and realign it with performance metrics.
To learn more about Master-O, please visit masteroapp.com or schedule a demo to discover how Master-O can redefine sales readiness & frontline capability development for your organization.