September was an exciting month for the Thailand project. After a long break due to COVID-19, not only local project activities could be resumed but also international assignments. This time the project welcomed an international expert of the partner Sparkasse Allgäu for a training mission for the partner organisation GSB: demand-oriented/holistic customer consulting.
The training was conducted by Anja Schwärzler - Sparkasse Allgäu’s Human Resources and seminar leader for financial concepts – and took place in one of GSB’s northern Regional Offices. In order to achieve a greater contextualization of the training content, Ms. Schwärzler was invited to visit a bank branch to familiarize herself with the bank processes, cultural particularities and customer approaches. The insights gathered during this visit were integrated by her into the training concept and considered during the entire assignment.
The main topics presented and widely discussed during the training were: cross-selling-approaches, demand-oriented consulting, and identification of customer’s needs through questions asking techniques.
The participants – customer service bank staff and branch executives – were both curious and excited. The more they understood the concept, the more intense the discussions on how to implement the new insights and methods in their operational work with the customers. Especially intrigued were they by the haptic picture-based sells techniques. Making their communication with the customers as simple and precise as possible is their new priority in order to achieve a greater understanding and a more fostered relationship with old and new customers.
At the end of the training the participants received a visit from the regional director GSB Chiang Mai, , where they had the chance to share their insights on one hand and express their wish to pilot the newly learned techniques in their branches, on the other hand.
The project team is keen to assist the freshly trained Regional Office in its initiative and hopes to replicate this impact in other regional offices of the partner institution.