When working with a personal manager, corporate clients of the bank rely on individual service. There is no practice of developed standards of personal customer service in Russia. Instead of a qualified assigned manager, clients risk finding a “personal” teller. At the same time, for banks, the staff of personal managers is one of the additional sales channels for their products.
As a rule, when a corporate client contacts, the bank itself attaches a personal manager to it. The bank does not care about the branch of the enterprise. The main thing is the very fact of establishing a connection, revenue, annual turnover, account balance and the company’s willingness to cooperate with the bank in the future.
Typically, the model of interaction with a corporate client through a personal manager is designed for enterprises with good revenue. Although medium-sized banks are ready to provide personal managers to clients with lower turnover. If the annual revenue of the company exceeds the limit, it becomes a desirable candidate for attaching a personal manager in all banks that provide this service.
The company conducts all operations through a personal manager, resolves conflict situations, and consults on controversial issues. And even though the personal manager is not omnipotent (the final decision is made by the heads of departments and the bank’s management), the speed of decision-making and delivery of information to the client depends on him.
Banks, even the smallest ones, understand that any manager’s mistake will be perceived by the client as a bank mistake. This means that the employee must comply. But there are no uniform standards of personal service for corporate clients. Each bank has its own job descriptions, which instruct personal managers to assist clients, be nice to them, correct and, if possible, offer new bank products. At the same time, it is not necessary for a personal manager to be a super-specialist and a jack of all trades. The main thing is to be able to navigate well in the programs of the bank, the work of its divisions and to understand who you can contact on this or that issue.
How it works
Interaction with a personal manager in different banks for a client is the same. Any authorized employee of the client can contact the personal manager in any way convenient for himself. When servicing a client through a personal manager in different banks, deviations in terms are possible due to the size of the bank, the speed of document flow in it and the personality factor – is the personal manager respected among his colleagues, are his arguments in favor of the client convincing enough.
If “outside” the work with a personal manager in different banks looks the same, then inside each bank the organization of the personal managers unit and its place in the bank’s structure may differ significantly. Some banks create a dedicated personal manager service. A separate subdivision of personal managers is usually structured according to the following principle: ordinary personal managers are subordinate to the senior client manager, who is subordinate to the entire “top” of the bank or an individual from the top management.
After talking with bankers, the management of corporate clients usually believes that the personal manager will only work with them. Although banks offer this service as a free privilege, in practice they are interested in connecting more clients to each manager.
A bank may have several corporate banking units, and each of them will be responsible for working with clients of a certain size or industry. The client can see the “mushroom cap” – a separate personal manager, but not guess that further the structure of the department grows in breadth and depth, like a mycelium. For example, in VTB’s branch network, each client is assigned to a senior client manager, communicates with him, and junior client managers perform auxiliary functions. And in Legion Bank, the head of the customer service department himself distributes clients among specialists, department heads, department heads and higher-ranking bank employees. He also oversees the work of all personal managers and, if necessary, transfers clients to other managers. For example, if their manager is sick.
Very important clients can be supervised by both the president and the chairman of the bank’s board. On one of the professional forums, the author of the article asked how companies work with their personal managers. Several users turned out to be bank employees. They perceived the questions as an attempt by a potential client to find a personal manager for their company. And they sent their suggestions to personal mail. Among them – providing the company with a personal manager from among the top officials of the bank. The letter indicated the phone number. The person who answered the call introduced himself as the deputy general director of one of the banks of the “first hundred”. The interlocutor asked not to name his name, but confirmed that he himself had given the order “in confidence” to report the phone numbers of the bank’s top officials. “The client believes that we have given him a privilege. This flatters his pride: he kind of tricked out to a bank employee and got a bonus, ”the interlocutor said gamblingly. Moral: Bankers browse client’s online resources and are good at psychology.
