Clients,
As summer winds down, our travel schedule at CU Lending Advice starts getting very busy. We have a busy Fall on the books as credit unions enter planning season. One area that we focus on when working with clients is the productivity of their lenders.
Sometimes we are called into a client because the leadership is dissatisfied with production of their individual lenders or they want to grow the profitability of their portfolio. Whenever we get into the discussions with our lending leaders about productivity of their employees and begin to dig down into the actual reports credit unions should be looking at, the numbers usually tell the story.
One data set that we key in on in our consulting is the call statistics. In many cases, we get into the raw data and do quite a bit of analysis into the actual flow of the calls. If you’ve been a client for a long time or a short time you know we emphasize the phone. It is the number one source of loan applications at your credit union. We’ve been telling you for years and more and more of the industry is beginning to listening.
Do you know how long the average loan phone call is in your lending department? I do, it’s right around 280 seconds. What? How do you know that? Well, I have looked at scores and scores of data sets over my consulting career and analyzed thousands of calls from credit unions in multiple geographies. Go check (if you know where to look), I’ll wait….. So how close was my estimate?
I was working with a lending leader recently and he said “Four minutes and forty seconds is the average loan call? My reps should be taking 12-15 applications an hour!, they could each be taking 100 apps in an 8 hour shift!”. That is not how averages work, more importantly, that is not how work force management in a call environment works. Averages can be deceptive. I am frequently reminded the words from my former CFO, Russ – “Don, you can drown in a pool with an average depth of 6 inches”. What do we do with an average call length statistic?
The primary purpose of averages is to measure changes over time in the same sample group. Maybe your average call time is 300 seconds, stretch that out across thousands of calls and that means something. Maybe your average call time is 230 seconds, what does that tell you at a 50,000 foot level? The average call length is important to look at, but it can easily be misapplied by management. Think it through, what goes into that number?
- Long applications with multiple opportunities being sold
- Call backs awaiting answers on loans (this is on you, they should not be chasing you down for answers!)
- Misdials ( members mashing the keypad with their fingers to just get someone to answer the phone)
- Transfers to other departments (that is partly in your design of your auto attendant)
- Calling out for “homework” on a loan – getting payoffs, insurance, paystubs etc (this is subject to your org design)
- Employees calling the cable company to cancel their overpriced cable package
This average call time means something, it is one factor that determines staffing levels and scheduling. It is one number among many that need to be considered to set your loan reps up for maximum results. It is one number among many the leader of your lending department needs to be attending to.
Everyone in your loan sales department can’t be above the average production in the department for a fixed period of time. It’s called an average for a reason. Applying industry average production metrics to your department may be helpful if you want industry results. If you want to exceed industry averages, the first step is knowing the industry numbers and building a plan that will get you above industry average results. You have a lot of data in that phone system of yours, you just need to know how to interpret that data and what to do with all those reports!
Reach out and let us know how close we were to that 280 second call time. Our clients don’t hire us to be average.
Don Arkell
Owner
CU Lending Advice
don@culendingadvice.com