The Futility of Life?

[The BFO]

Between 09:00 this morning, and 15:30 this afternoon I served 128 customers. Of these 90 were ‘not interested’ in either of our Life Cover products, 29 I deemed as inappropriate for various reasons, such as; I know them to be over the age of eighty, couldn’t speak English, regular Business Deposit customers, couldn’t hear what I was saying and so forth. Only 8 were interested enough to take a leaflet from me. None of these wished to speak to the readily available, and bored looking, Financial Specialist and nor would they consent to giving their contact details. The final customer, a very pleasant lady, took great interest, and we had an excellent conversation, with questions being asked and answered by each of us in turn. When I finally came to ‘ask for the business’ a glint appeared in her eye, and she said ‘you do realise I am 89 don’t you?’ Thoroughly magnificent.
As billyhayes has intimated, it’s no skin off my nose – I get paid to play the game, but if I were a manager I would be asking a couple of questions:
1. Do I want my people wasting time on this?
2. What is the longer term effect on morale of this exercise in futility, and what will it eventually cost me?

[The BFO]

PS. If anyone wishes to suggest I ‘was using the wrong conversation’, they will need to send me a Personal Message so that we may agree to meet and they can tell me to my face.
It won’t be a long meeting though.

[obiwanknobe]

I know it, you know it, everybody who reads the posts on this forum know it (except of course our very own FS who will come to know it).

So why doesn't PV and friends know it?

If you offered to sell your 128 customers a can of coke for 30p I bet you would have probably sold 10 cases of the stuff. Ok you would only have made £10 profit at that price but, and this is the big but!, next week when the same customers came in you could have repeated it and not only that they would probably bring their friends in as well to buy some.

I am not talking about selling coke here, I am talking about selling something the customer you serve today wants and might want again next week. Financial products are not the answer for the customer profile of POL.

Put you in charge of a crown with the ability to offload unwanted staff, I bet you could turn it into a nice little earner for POL.

Paula? Are you listening? Give it a go. Call it a pilot or something.

PS at the checkout of my local pharmacy they sell sweets. Not drugs or perfume but sweets. They do that for a reason. They like to make a little extra profit. You don't HAVE to sell financial products in the PO (unless of course you have a multi-million loss making contract with BOI)

[FinancialSpecialist]

I agree with your post that we should diversify and that financial services aren't the be all and end all. What did make me laugh though was the thought of telling the staff in my office that as of next week we would be selling sweets. What sort of thing do you think we could introduce that would be acceptable and profitable and would have the same return as financial services?

IMO, more envelopes and things like that would be a start, a basic current account with no charges that doesn't allow you to go into the red would be another.

I also wholeheartedly agree that life days are a waste of time, in fact it makes my blood boil when branches come in with crazy numbers. Keeping aside life sales to claim on the focus day, or pressure selling to achieve a target in a day is completely the wrong idea and takes away from the concept of the right product for the right customer - as you said it just means bombarding everyone with one product no matter what their need. Desperate times call for desperate measures springs to mind, but it would be much better if we were targeted on income and nothing else, not an individual target for each product.

[obiwanknobe]

What sort of thing do you think we could introduce that would be acceptable and profitable and would have the same return as financial services?

Toilet Paper made from Sandpaper?

[FinancialSpecialist]

We already have that in the staff toilets, I don't think it will sell too well with Poundland across the road...

Seriously though, everyone speaks loudly about getting rid of financial services, but what would replace it? We are losing money, what would replace this long term? Sacking FS is not an acceptable answer ;)

[The BFO]

Recognise that this organisation is never going to be profitable, and put the Financial Service Specialists on the counter.

[FinancialSpecialist]

Recognise that this organisation is never going to be profitable, and put the Financial Service Specialists on the counter.

That sounds like a fine business mind there... they should put the FS on the counter and it sounds like you should be promoted straight up to Managing Director. The Post Office should be a profitable organisation, there are scores of Post Banks around the world which are profitable - what makes ours different?

[The BFO]

That sounds like a fine business mind there... they should put the FS on the counter and it sounds like you should be promoted straight up to Managing Director. The Post Office should be a profitable organisation, there are scores of Post Banks around the world which are profitable - what makes ours different?

That's where we differ - I don't see us as a 'business' I see us as a service for the less advantaged and well off to conduct their basic transactions. The overwhelming majority of the customers I serve, in the region of 150 per day, are not interested in our profitable products. I know because I regularly ask them.

I would be interested to know where the profitable Post Offices you refer to are based.

[bigjames]

Recognise that this organisation is never going to be profitable, and put the Financial Service Specialists on the counter.

That sounds like a fine business mind there... they should put the FS on the counter and it sounds like you should be promoted straight up to Managing Director. The Post Office should be a profitable organisation, there are scores of Post Banks around the world which are profitable - what makes ours different?

And there lies a question and a half - what makes us different? Well clearly lots of things, but here are a few things to consider:
- Location - a lot of our branches are in old buildings that were at the heart of the community when they were built, but not now. If it was your chip shop (as my regional manager likes to say) would you stick it where it is? Of course not.
- Transactions - too many, too complicated, around 170 different transactions, and we are expected to have a working knowledge of all of them. They can't all make us money, so if it was your shop would you keep them all? Of course not, but as we are usually doing them for someone else, we're lumbered.
- Benefits (payments & customers) - If there was any real money in paying out the dole, people like Paypoint would have cherry picked it years ago, it makes us virtually nothing, and the customers who come in for it, by definition, have nothing else, so are not likely to have a spare £500 to buy a bond or open an account, and even less likely to give up the price of a pint or a packet of fags to buy life insurance, so if it was your shop would you invite them in? Of course not. It is no coincidence that banks won't open accounts for a lot of our customers, because they don't want the hassle, but as we are the access point for government, again we are lumbered.
- Attitude - (staff & public) - there is a massive gap between what the customers and the staff on the frontline think the Post Office is there for, and what the top level management think. Until everybody in the business is pulling in the same direction (whichever way that is) and the customers realise and understand what we can do, we are unlikely to make any money