Developing the ATM Market

After infusing our sales, marketing, service, and development teams with people experienced in technology, and systems, we were ready to begin the process of market development.  I believe there were three philosophies that gave us the impetus for success.

1.  Our firm commitment to customer satisfaction.

2.  Our commitment to provide outstanding service and support to our customers and associates.

3.  An unwavering commitment to always doing the right thing in all circumstances.

Here are just a few examples of those philosophies at work.  Ray, our Chairman and CEO felt we had not fulfilled our commitment to customer satisfaction with our first ATM offering, the imports from the UK.  He called me to his office and expressed his concerns and directed me to offer each customer who had purchased one of those machines their money back or one of our new systems at no cost.  To give you some idea of the courageousness of that decision, the impact on the companies bottom line was nearly a negative20% .  The impact on our ATM business was a delay in any profit contribution for at least a year.  As it turned out the decision was received so well that the real impact was a kick start to our business.  This group of customers willingly became our pilot group and subsequently our biggest boosters.

We understood from our discussions with our customers that ATM systems had to be available to their customers 7/24 on a very consistent basis.  In keeping with that requirement and our service philosophy we established the following policies.

1.  Service response to a system down would be less than 2 hours.

2.  If the system were not back in service in 4 hours a notice would be posted in our home office system and in my office.

3.  If the system were not back in service in 8 hours, I would make a personal call to the president of the bank, explain our actions and assure him that the problem would be resolved.  I also gave them my direct office number and my home number in case they need to reach me for any reason.

4.  We also established a strict ratio of geography and number of systems a single service territory could support.

5.  Finally to assure control of these policies and facilitate the reporting, we established a central dispatch system in our headquarters to give every customer an 800 number to report problems on a nationwide basis.  Eventually this system was implemented for all of our products.

Fortunately, there were very few alerts that ended up in my office because our field teams really responded to the situation with great enthusiasm.

One of the most difficult policies for us to implement was to limit the areas we would allow our sales force to sell to because of the service area restrictions.  For example there were just not enough banks with a confined geography for us to keep our commitments to in the Dakotas and other areas like that.  As much as it disappointed our salesmen and some customers in those areas, “It was the right thing to do”. 

Going back to our decision to replace or reimburse our original ATM customers, although it was very costly, “It was the right thing to do”.

The lessons learned were somewhat obvious but worth repeating.

Lessons learned:

1.  A firm commitment to superior customer satisfaction is one of the primary keys to success with any product or system offering.

2.  Providing outstanding customer service not only provides customers who are willing to give positive testimonials, but willing to reorder your products and systems.

3.  “Doing the right thing” forms a solid basis for all decisions and in many cases allows you to make difficult decisions without remorse.

Changing The Sales Culture

Changing the sales culture of a 100 plus year old company is challenging.  Most of our relationships with our customers had been with the security and facilities organizations in Financial Institutions.  We had begun to establish some relationships with the retail bank as we developed the pneumatic tube and remote drive in banking business.  However we determined through many discussions with financial institutions and our consultants study that we needed to now learn to communicate with the marketing, retail, and systems organizations.  In addition as we were developing this market, we needed to elevate our contacts within financial institutions to the mid and upper management levels. 

The new sales specialists we were hiring would help us make these changes in disciplines’, but we knew that penetrating higher up in the organization would require the time and efforts of myself, the most senior managers in the field, and our upper management.

Since I had been working in the field for a couple of years developing the new drive in banking product line, I concentrated on the senior level Area Managers in the field.  I asked them to get me appointments with senior level managers at the large and medium size Financial Institutions.  We went in as a team, which was, myself, the Area Manager, the Diebold representative assigned to the account, and the ATM specialist for that region.  I wanted to make sure that all of our personnel involved with the account were introduced at these levels.  Earl, Ray, and Joe, our National Sales Manager, also participated in this process by arranging introductions where they had previous relationships.  They also joined us on a number of calls in the field. 

There were also a number of traditional events that helped this process.  At all the major conventions we hosted several luncheons for the senior level managers of financial institutions at very prestigious restaurants.  Because Ray was an avid baseball fan, we owned season tickets to all major league teams, and bought tickets to all playoff and World Series games.  Finally, we hosted an annual Christmas luncheon for all New York Financial Institution executives at the 21 Club.  Now all the ATM specialists and myself were included in these events.

As a result of all this effort, our sales organization was introduced to a higher level, which enabled them to get the audiences they needed to persuade prospects to consider Diebold as their supplier of ATMs.  This was a courageous task for many of them because their current contacts were not happy with them going ever their heads.  Fortunately, because they were an experienced sales force, in the majority of cases, they were able to manage the situation.

I do not want to leave you with the impression that we forced this strategy on them.  Prior to initiating the plan, we all spent a great deal of time in meetings, both group and one on one, explaining the reason and expected results of our plans.  We also made sure we listened to their concerns and adjusted were their recommendations made sense.  I felt that by the time we initiated our activities we were in sync and would be successful.  It did accomplish our goals.  I think some of the specific experiences might be interesting and educational.  I will discus them in the next chapter.

Lessons learned:

1.  Changing a culture requires good communications and support from all levels of management.

2.  Using entertainment allows you to establish more informal relationships that are very helpful.

3.  Allowing the people who will be effected the most be part of the planning process helps the process of culture change.

4.  Approaching the customer as a team, demonstrates to the customer that this is a company not individual program, and has the full support of management.

5.  Finally, we realized that this approach assisted our sales efforts in all product lines.