Let’s imagine for a second that you spend a million dollars per month on the payroll expenses for people who are somehow associated with calls that come in or support that function in any way.

You’ll want to allocate some share of your overall payroll. Let’s say you invested an additional $100,000 in marketing expenses for that month. That totals $1.1 million in expenses that you need to now provide ROI from.

For easy math, let’s say you have a hundred inbound phone calls. Okay. When you take the $1,100,000 divided by those 100 calls, that gives you a cost per call of approximately $11,000.

Most banks average a 3.3 out of 10 on a true mystery shop designed to convert callers into customers. But let’s say your team is better. Let’s say that your team scores a 5.0 on average.

The lost opportunity for that month would be an easy $550,000, or a lost potential profit of $6,600,000 per year.

The likelihood is they’re not even getting half of them. Yet, doing the right things can help you convert 90% of them into customers, pay premium pricing, and maintain their entire relationship.

So, we bankers look at numbers and think we’re good at numbers, but what could be a more important number than knowing your conversion rate on inbound calls into customers with the entire relationship brought over without conceding rate?

If you want to knock your efficiency ratio down by 10 points, that’s the way to do it. If you want to ensure you don’t have to lay off people during challenging times or cut their salaries or other investments in your future, picking up this low-hanging fruit can solve many of those problems.

One of the biggest holes in your profitability is seeping out fast. Fixing that is a great place to start. During difficult times, this is not the time to move your phones over to being handled by voicemail. Humans need to answer those phones, and they better be good at what they do.

What’s your insurance policy to ensure you’re not destroying your profitability potential by not managing your first impression?

To your success,