Solutions by Industry

Branch Staff Specialization: A Case Study

As retail banking becomes increasingly complex, leading banks need to know how to get the most from a specialized labor force.

  • A leading bank wanted to leverage specialized staff to improve cross sell, increase retention, and bring in new customers.
  • With limited resources, the bank needed to know which branches should employ specialized staff and which customers to target.
  • The bank used APT’s Test & Learn™ solutions to optimize branch staff specialization and improved profitability by millions of dollars per year with the same level of investment.
The Company:

A leading North American bank with 1000+ branches

The Challenge:

Banks offer a growing array of products to a diverse set of customers. Employing specialized staff adds complexity and challenges existing staffing models. One bank was adding specialists but struggled to see if or where they were working. In branches that had a specialist, the bank also had difficulty determining which customers these “relationship managers” should target. So many factors influenced branch and customer performance that it was difficult to measure any improvements attributable to specialized staff and determine the best strategy going forward.

The Solution:

For each branch that hired a specialized staff member or each customer that was targeted, APT's Test & Learn™ solution found a comparable set of branches or customers.  Branch and customer performance was noisy and influenced by a variety of factors, but this custom tailored approach provided a clear measurement of the improvement in performance.

The bank also used APT’s software to scan thousands of factors and determine the branch characteristics and customer profile where specialized staff worked best.  Using predictive models built with APT, management knew exactly where to add specialized staff and which customers to target.

The Results:

The bank used APT’s software to determine which branches responded best to specialized staff and which customers those employees should target.  The bank was able to increase annual profit by millions of dollars and better meet its customers' needs.