PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Education Buzz: The Lost Art of Handwriting
CBA has implemented a brand-new training opportunity that is making a wave for our frontline bankers! This wave of customer service is promoting WOW Service. WOW service provides un-expected thoughtfulness to our community members. What are your banks doing to wow your customers. Let’s hear from Crystal Miller, the Customer Care Center Manager for BankSouth.
Kristi Greer
Senior Vice President Director of Professional Development Community Bankers Association of Georgia
The Lost Art of Handwriting On Valentine’s Day 2016 my grandfather gave my grandmother her Valentine’s Card. She told him to hold on and left the room. He thought she was going to get his card. Instead, she came back with the first Valentine’s Day card he had given her 65 years earlier when they were dating. Although my grandmother’s vision was almost gone, it didn’t matter. She had the message inside memorized. She recited his words back to him…word by word. That is how much his handwritten message had meant to her so many years ago.
Can you remember the last time you were given a card that included a handwritten message? A special envelope in the mail that was not a bill or junk mail. That card or letter probably stands out because they come so infrequently now. We now live in the world of emails, texts, and chat. Writing something down by hand using pen and paper seems so outdated and unnecessary. It is so outdated that you can hire a company to use AIDriven software to ‘write’ your handwritten notes for you. So why should we bother with such an outdated practice? It is all part of that WOW experience of Customer Service discussed in the CBA Customer Service Excellence training by Josh Collins. Sending an automated letter thanking a customer is good customer service. Sending a card with a handwritten letter is excellent customer service. Discussing specific details to let the customer know you listened and care about their experience goes the extra mile. This and so many more Customer Service tips are discussed in this wonderful training session that every community banker should attend.
Crystal Miller,
Vice President, Customer Care Center Manager, BankSouth
As manager of the Customer Care Center at BankSouth, each representative actively listens for opportunities to send one of these cards. It may be for an upcoming birthday, sorry you are under the weather or congratulations on the birth of your grandson, but it will be personal and related to conversation they have. I wish I could see each customer’s face when they get this in the mail and open a card that is full of so much thoughtfulness and customer service excellence it had to be written by hand.
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