BEHIND THE SCENES– In this behind the scenes, two GreenStone employees speak about the business initiatives they are championing for 2020, why they have been prioritized as top areas of focus, and how each will support the cooperative in better serving customers. Ian McGonigal Senior VP of Regional Sales 19 years of service East Lansing, MI How will your work on sales training and prospecting benefit new customers, improve customer satisfaction, and ultimately help GreenStone grow to continue being a financially strong cooperative? Our marketplace demands high quality service, which is why our goal is to develop, train, and implement a process that best ensures prompt, customer focused, consistent engagement with customers and prospective clients. Our new sales training program will allow GreenStone to support our staff in providing outstanding and professional customer service to the marketplace. This will help GreenStone maintain and strengthen its strong customer satisfaction results and continue to be a financially strong cooperative. How does your experience assist you with championing this initiative? I was a financial services officer for 12 years and since then a sales leader. These roles have taught me how critical strong and healthy relationships are for both GreenStone and our customers. This sales training program will help our team develop and maintain strong, productive relationships that last for generations. How will this initiative benefit our members? Our members expect professional and knowledgeable customer service and we understand this. These initiatives will train our staff to ask better questions, have more productive and efficient conversations and help us uncover the current and future needs of our customers. We hold ourselves accountable to very high standards when it comes to servicing our members with respect, knowledge and professionalism. What are some of the key changes you have seen at GreenStone in your tenure? When I first started as a financial services officer with GreenStone, I did it all! Everything from meeting with customers, analyzing credit requests, completing appraisals – all were a part of the job back then. Today, GreenStone has advanced with our customers, and has specialized staff in each of these areas. This provides a faster and higher quality service. It also allows our financial services officers more time to spend with customers and understand their businesses and their financial needs. 15
Winter 2020 — Partners