Content area
Full Text
In a bid to make clients feel special and win over new ones, National City works monthly blitzes for small business prospects. Not even Dave Daberko's safe. By Matthew de Paula
National City Bank is in its second year of conducting corporate-wide calling efforts that enlist senior company execs to pound the pavement and meet with potential small business customers and the bank's 300,000 small business clients. These so-called "small business blitzes" are bringing bottom-line results but also prove useful for sparking new product initiatives and other messages to the sales team. As the bank ramps up for buyouts, having just snatched up Provident Bank, blitzes will be an effective way of flooding new markets and learning them, says small business evp Greg Jelinek.
USB: Why start doing small business blitzes?
Jelinek: It really came about as a way to let our customers and prospects know how important they are to us. The fact that we have executives at the very top levels making these calls on small business clients and prospects really sends the message of how important those clients are, how much we respect their business. As you can imagine, a small business owner having the...