The first Tuesday of nearly every month, BankWest, Inc., holds a mandatory all-staff training called Product Huddles. The purpose of this training is to continue to educate BankWest staff on the products and services the company offers so they can better serve their customers. The program aims to increase customer relationship management (CRM) recommendations—where an employee identifies a customer need and recommends another product or service.
Program Details
Each Product Huddle lasts no longer than 30 minutes, and each month highlights a different product or service. Subject matter experts (SMEs) for that month’s product or service develop the training materials—typically a PowerPoint—and facilitate the training through Webex. All Product Huddles are recorded and stored on BankWest’s documentation storage platform, accessible to all employees at any time.
A follow-up course in BankWest’s gamification platform, Centrical, includes the recorded training and several questions relating to previous Product Huddle trainings to highlight key points. Additionally, learning checkpoints throughout the year include questions around the Product Huddle trainings.
Product Huddles held last year include:
- Investment Management & Trust
- Home Equity Lines of Credit versus Closed Ends
- Retail and Commercial Online Banking
- Mortgage & Manufactured Housing
- Titles of Dakota (Abstract Services)
- Ag and Commercial Lending
- Private Banking
- Credit Cards
- SMS Text Messaging to Customers
- Cash Management Products and Services
- Personal Financial Management (PFM) Through Online Banking
Results
As a result of the training, BankWest has seen more employees doing activities to educate customers on the products and services the company offers. In 2023, BankWest exceeded its CRM recommendations goal by more than 35 percent. It also was ahead of pace on loans and had a loan-to-deposit value of 73 percent.
