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St. George has poured cold water on accusations of channel conflict following a change to its customer contact policy.
In an email from St. George obtained by Australian Broker, general manager of mortgage broking Clive Kirkpatrick has informed brokers that the way broker-introduced customers are contacted by the bank will be changed.
"In the past, broker introduced customers have received a 'welcome on approval' call from our Customer Contact Centre, these calls will now be made from your friendly local branch," the email said.
Kiran Saldanha of The Finance Professionals Sydney told Australian Broker the change represents clear channel conflict. Because the contact from the branch happens at approval rather than after settlement, Saldanha said there is nothing to deter branch workers from taking brokers' clients.
"At that point in time the client has not signed any documents with the broker. The timing is too early in the piece to let a branch person contact the client and decide they're not going to touch the deal. They're going to find some way or other to walk away with that business," he said.
But Kirkpatrick told Australian Broker the change has come following broker feedback, and is to ensure a better broker and customer experience.
#pb# “We already do this contact, but it’s come from our call centre,” Kirkpatrick said. “We had gotten complaints quite often that we hadn’t gotten accounts set up properly at settlement, or direct debits weren’t in place or that credit cards hadn’t arrived in time. This just gives a much better customer experience. A stickier customer from a broker’s perspective is a happier customer which means they stay longer and trail income is assured.”
Kirkpatrick assured Australian Broker that branch staff would not attempt to take existing business away from brokers.
“We ring the broker first to see what discussions they’ve had with the customer. If they’ve got a financial planning business in place or they’ve met the customer’s needs in terms of general insurance we won’t touch that. All we want to do is contact the customer to understand what’s been discussed, and if there are any unfulfilled needs we address that.”
Saldanha said his experience working as a Westpac branch employee raises concerns about the pressure branch staff feel to peel away broker clients.
#pb# "Coming from this environment I know how these guys think, and with this new structure there's no way in hell a branch guy is going to let a deal go when he sees the broker has them on a 0.05% discount and he can give them a 0.07% discount," he said. "They've got their buckets to fill, which are way beyond their task. They have to fight to get the gates open for business, and they have to do this kind of stuff.
If this call happens any time before settlement, there's nothing to hold the branch guy off from smashing the broker out of the deal. To me it's a no-brainer, and I can see that this is not going to end well," Saldanha added.
But Kirkpatrick said that branch staff contacting clients would not be home loan officers, and would only address products and services not already covered by the broker. He stressed that any strategy involving stripping away brokers' customers would be counter-productive, and end up hurting the bank in the long run.
“To be honest, it would be foolish to cut our nose off on this because brokers bring in around 50% of bank customers. Why would we cut that off?”
