Push Pull Boundary

"Service inventory includes all process steps that are completed before the customer's arrival." (Chopra & Lariviere, 2005) Before reading the "Managing Service Inventory" article, I had not thought much about inventory held by service companies. (Chopra & Lariviere, 2005) For a bank, any information that we can gather about a client before meeting them can help us identify a need.

A credit report contains a wealth of valuable information, but a consumer credit report can only be pulled with the customer's prior authorization, so it is only useful for existing customer. For existing customer with credit reports, we can look for mortgage information, car loans, home equity lines, and credit cards.  From there we can ask a few probing questions and uncover a need.  We also have their tax returns and other financial documents that can be used to identify needs.

For commercial credit reports, we do not need permission to view their business credit.  We use these reports as a prospecting tool before a cold call or marketing campaign.  We can submit a list of prospects to our marketing department, and they will pull each businesses credit report.  Again, we use this information to learn about their payment history, current debt, trade payables, and failure risk.  We then use this information when we conduct cold or warm calls.

We sometimes pay a third party company to pull a batch of UCC filings for a particular bank and zip code.  A UCC filing allows a lender to put a lien on a specific piece of equipment or all business assets.  When another bank purchases a bank it is, a good time to poach their customers.  We can ask the third party company to pull a list of the BB&T clients in a zip that has a UCC filing with them.  From the list and filings we can see the type of loan and when it was made, allowing us to have a more education conversation with the prospect.  These lists can be referred to at any time.  All of this information is managed in digital files on our secure servers.

Supply Chain Incentives

I will use our mortgage department as an example.  As commercial lenders, we have full access to most of our client's financial status.  We are supposed to use client's personal financial statements to look for opportunities to refer them to our mortgage department.  In the past, there was little financial incentive for us to focus on these referrals.  (I know it is part of our job.) Recently, our executive management began offering a 20 basis point fee for any closed mortgages that we refer.  I am sure that the financial incentive will make referring our clients to the mortgage department a priority.

The bank is actively trying to increase our mortgage loan production and in the past had not aligned the mortgage broker's commission with the best interest of the bank.  We sell 90% of our customer mortgages to the secondary market. If the loan is not processed correctly or if the deadline is missed, then the secondary market buyer will reject the mortgage and the bank is forced to keep it on their books.  In the past, mortgage brokers were paid full commission whether or not the loan was sold to the secondary market.  They had no incentive to make sure the loan was processed correctly and the deadline met.  Once this was changed, many brokers were angry, but they began processing the loans properly.