Branch managers are vital investments for sales effectiveness

A recent study by Booz Allen Hamilton Striving for growth: Best practices in retail banking sales and service channels revealed that the majority of banks are failing to fully meet customer needs and maximize sales channel performance. This comprehensive study, which used customer research and mystery shopping assessed 100 banks across 17 countries including 12 banks in the GCC, looked at what customers want from their banks, how banks are performing and best practices to drive profitable growth. The study revealed that, globally, customers still prefer banking in branches despite the trend towards online — 63% choose to use a branch for purchasing current and savings account products and 54% choose their branch to purchase mortgages. The situation in the GCC is very close to that of the global average. However, despite the importance of the branch channel to customers, many banks in the region under-perform and have yet to