Partner Call Guide

Partner Call Guide for Cisco Digital Media for Financial Services

This call guide is designed for Cisco partners who are focused on selling Cisco Digital Media solutions to financial services customers and prospects.

Your goal is to:

· Set appointments with prospects to meet and discuss Cisco Digital Media solutions for the financial services market.

Your objective is to:

· Find out if financial services prospects have upcoming needs for digital media solutions by asking qualifying questions.

Ø If no or unsure, ask if they could benefit from an assessment or would like more information on Cisco Digital Media solutions.

Ø If yes, set an onsite appointment with your prospect to discuss needs and determine the right solution.

Prepare for the Call

Before calling prospects, take the following steps.

1. Understand the financial services market and your prospects.

2. Review selling strategies for financial services.

3. Familiarize yourself with messaging and value propositions for Cisco Digital Media for financial services (see brochures and presentations).

4. Identify the decision makers who are responsible for improving the customer experience and employee productivity within your prospect’s financial services institution. Titles include the following:

· CIO

· COO

· CTO/XP of Enterprise Architecture

· XP of Retail Delivery

· XP of Retail Operations

· Security Officer

· XP Derivatives Trading

· XP Risk and Compliance

· XP Equities Trading

· VP of Human Resources

· XP of P&C

· XP of Claims Operations

Call Steps and Suggested Script: Initiating the Call

Step 1: Initiate Call / What to Say / Call Notes /
Introduce yourself.
If calling on qualified leads from Cisco, mention that you are following up on the prospect’s request for more information.
Confirm that you are speaking with the decision maker and verify contact information. / Hi Mr. / Ms. [prospect name], I’m [your name] calling from [your company] as a follow up to the [program, event, or other source of the prospect’s name]. I’d like to talk about your challenges around delivering a differentiated customer experience, while also reducing costs and improving employee productivity, to determine if we can help meet your needs.
Are you responsible for optimizing the customer experience and also increasing revenues? Do you make decisions about the technologies needed?
· [If the prospect responds yes, proceed with the call.]
Thanks.
· [If the prospect responds no, get another name.]
May I get the name of the person who is responsible for these areas at [retail or commercial bank / insurance company / financial markets firm]?
Thanks, [prospect name]. I appreciate your help. / Prospect Company:
Prospect Name(s):
Call Date:

Call Steps and Suggested Script: Understanding Needs

Step 2:
Understand Needs / What to Say / Call Notes /
Identify current business objectives and challenges:
Communication / media distribution infrastructure consists of outdated point or paper-based solutions
Compete more effectively in today’s highly competitive financial services environment through fresh and relevant communications
Leverage technology to improve the customer and employee experience, including more effective use of customer wait time
Improve employee productivity through convenient, effective training and better communication of policies and procedures
Quickly and effectively disseminate information about new financial services products and promotions
Increase in-branch sales
Reduce capital and operating expenses
More efficiently deliver internal corporate communications to the “front line” and reinforce corporate culture / I’d like to better understand the challenges and opportunities you have at [retail or commercial bank / insurance company / financial markets firm] by asking a few questions:
· How many branches and/or offices does [retail or commercial bank / insurance company / financial markets firm] have? What is the size of in-branch and other staff? Approximately how many customers does an average branch serve per day?
· Are you exploring ways to improve the productivity, knowledge base, and effectiveness of in-branch and other staff?
· What technologies do you use to foster interactive training and communication among branch managers and staff and, as well, with other managers and staff?
· Are you planning to implement a digital media solution or update an existing one? If so, what is your timeframe? Do you have a budget? What business needs are driving this upgrade or implementation?
· [If the prospect already has a digital media system]: Where is [retail or commercial bank / insurance company / financial markets firm] in reviewing your current digital media systems?
· How effective and scalable is your current system?
· Do you have a legacy IPTV solution that could be replaced or enhanced by desktop video and/or digital signage?
· Are you exploring the Cisco Digital Media solution?
· Do you need to reduce the cost of traditional printed material and recycling?
· Do managers and departments at [retail or commercial bank / insurance company / financial markets firm] currently create and consume video content for informational and training use?
· Do you own Cisco Digital Media products? If so, which products have you deployed?
[Cisco Digital Media solutions can address a number of challenges faced by retail or commercial banks, insurance companies, and financial markets firms. Following are sample questions to help you identify your prospect’s needs.]
CHALLENGE: Improving competitive position and increasing wallet share (in-branch financial product sales) by improving the customer experience
· How are you increasing the perceived value of your organization’s brand?
· What are you doing to increase customer loyalty?
· What are you doing to create a more engaging experience for customers when they visit your branches or offices?
· Are you exploring ways to make more effective use of customer wait time?
· What are you doing to influence customers to purchase specific financial products when they visit a branch?
· What issues are you experiencing around increasing in-branch sales?
· Is it difficult for you to maintain a uniform and satisfying customer experience across branches?
· How to you make sure that branches or outlets are not using outdated collateral and other materials?
CHALLENGE: Reducing / containing capital and operating costs while keeping pace with technological change
· Does your current approach to digital media consist of point solutions that are administered separately? For example, does one group manage PC desktops and distribute instructional DVDs while another manages your in-house TV channel?
· If a key employee leaves, can you quickly bring other employees up to speed on a desktop or broadcast video system?
· Have you considered digital signage but wondered how challenging it would be to integrate with your other systems?
· How effectively do your IT and headquarters and branch teams work together?
CHALLENGE: Protecting existing technology investments while upgrading or migrating to digital media
· Do you need to grow your digital media system incrementally?
· Is your current system flexible enough to integrate new and legacy solutions going forward?
· Do you want to permit control of content by headquarters operations while enabling IT to centrally manage your digital media solution?
CHALLENGE: Improving the productivity and skills of both in-branch and headquarters staff
· What methods are you using to improve the knowledge and skill of branch employees?
· How are you holding the line on payroll costs while improving employee productivity?
· How easy is it to train employees on new products, corporate policies, and regulatory compliance?
· Is it currently necessary for employees to attend training sessions at another location rather than in-branch or in-office?
· What are you doing to support consistent employee execution and branding / messaging across all locations?
· How are you dealing with the need to train new employees quickly and effectively?
CHALLENGE: Improving in-branch communications and those between headquarters, branches, and offices
· Do you currently offer infotainment to customers waiting in line to reduce perceived wait time?
· How do you show customers where tellers, customer service, or personal banking services are located?
· How do you communicate with customers when they come into a branch or office?
· Are you able to target or localize branch signage to specific countries, regions or localities, and specific markets?
· How do you inform customers about events (such as financial services seminars), financial products terms and conditions, or even emergencies?
· Are you able to provide customers with in-branch or office access to remote experts, such as traders or financial advisors? / ADD NOTES FROM THESE QUESTIONS

Call Steps and Suggested Script: Offering Solutions

Step 3: Offer Solutions / What to Say / Call Notes /
Confirm that you’ve understood your prospect’s challenges.
Confirm that you have solutions to your prospect’s challenges. / I think we can definitely help you with your current challenges.
· Delivering training that enables staff and managers to acquire product knowledge and sales skills without needing to leave the branch or office
· Improving customer satisfaction by providing infotainment while they are waiting in line for service
· Enabling each branch or office to strengthen brand perception and loyalty by communicating effectively with customers at all touch points
· Improving in-branch or office sales through targeted and localized offers
· Reducing the cost of producing printed collateral and signage
· Ensuring the freshness, relevance, and consistency of marketing materials across all outlets
· Using current staff more efficiently and addressing the effects of turnover more effectively
· Keeping pace with accelerated technological change while reducing capital and operating expenses
· Maximizing your investment in your network and current solutions
· Allowing IT to centrally manage your digital media solution while giving departments the flexibility to create and control the content they deliver
· [Or other challenges mentioned by your prospect]
Cisco Digital Media is a comprehensive suite of webcasting and video sharing, digital signage, and IPTV applications. It is highly scalable and network-centric for optimal, intelligent media content delivery.
With Cisco Digital Media, you can:
· Use digital signage to provide instant information and display engaging video content to customers
· Access live or recorded video from any location within a branch or office or at headquarters
· Significantly improve your competitive position and wallet share by delivering a richer and more differentiated customer experience
· Communicate more effectively with customers, managers, tellers, customer service representatives, personal bankers, and advisors
· Strengthen corporate culture through more efficient and effective dissemination of communications from headquarters
· Provide convenient and cost-effective training for managers, tellers, customer service representatives, personal bankers, and advisors
· Increase administrative efficiency and reduce capital and operating costs through central management of digital communications assets
· [Other solutions in response to your prospect’s challenges]
/ ADD NOTES FROM THESE QUESTIONS
ADD NOTES FROM THESE QUESTIONS

Call Steps and Suggested Script: Addressing Objections, Concerns and Questions

Step 4: Address Objections, Concerns, and Questions / What to Say / Call Notes /
Provide another opportunity for the prospect to ask questions or voice any reservations about how your company can help address their challenges.
Reinforce that your focus is on meeting your prospects needs. / Do you have any questions for me at this time?
We know that effective communications is the key to providing an environment that benefits customers, in-branch or office personnel, and headquarters management and staff. We would like to help you with your challenges while making things as easy as possible for you.
/ ADD NOTES FROM THESE QUESTIONS

Call Steps and Suggested Script: Schedule Meeting and Close

Step 5: Schedule Meeting and Close Call / What to Say / Call Notes /
See the Cisco Digital Media for Financial Services Sales and Marketing Resources web page for brochures and case studies you can send to your prospect.
If your prospect is not interested at this time, set a date to check back with him or her.
Thank your prospect, inform him or her how to contact you with any further questions, and reconfirm all meeting details. / As a next step, I would like to invite you to a meeting, either in person or via WebEx online meeting, to present Cisco Digital Media solutions in more detail and to get a clearer understanding of the ways they might benefit [retail / commercial bank / insurance company / financial markets firm].
What day would work for you to assess your current situation and find out where we might be able to help? Is there anyone else in your organization I should include in this meeting?
May I send you some information on Cisco Digital Media and follow up to see if you might be interested after reviewing the material? Let me confirm your email address. I’ll send this now with my contact information in case you have any questions later.
When should I follow up with you?
Thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me today. I look forward to talking with you further on [scheduled meeting date].
I will send you an email with all the details of our meeting. / ADD NOTES FROM THESE QUESTIONS
Scheduled Meeting Date:
Additional Attendees:
Prospect’s Email Address:
Follow-up Call Date: