Diagnosis

The agent defaults to validating customer distrust in the bank, reflecting a one-sided view shaped by working exclusively with complaints.

Session objective

The objective of the session is to help the agent recognise that her personal lack of experience as a customer of the bank is skewing her professional disposition, leading her to inadvertently reinforce customer doubt rather than build confidence in the bank. Help the agent see that only encountering the bank through complaints creates a distorted picture, and get the coachee to commit to actively balancing that view so she can credibly support customer trust on calls.

Session tactics

Play a call where a customer expresses a loss of confidence in the bank and ask the coachee whether trust in the bank was built by the end of the interaction. When the coachee agrees with the customer's distrust rather than exploring how to restore it, challenge that response directly by pointing out that the bank has taken steps to improve customer security that the agent may not be aware of. Ask the coachee why she does not have a positive experience of the bank to draw on. When the coachee explains she banks elsewhere and therefore only sees the bank through complaints, name the imbalance explicitly: working solely with negative cases means she never sees what the bank does well. If the coachee raises a personal objection to becoming a customer of the bank, acknowledge her right to bank wherever she chooses, then redirect to how that gap is affecting her professional judgment on calls.

Behaviour observations

• When a customer expresses a desire to abandon the bank in favour of keeping cash at home, the agent validates the sentiment rather than working to rebuild the customer's confidence.
• The agent frames the bank's security situation negatively, citing scammers winning, rather than drawing on examples of what the bank has done to protect customers.
• The agent has no direct consumer experience of the bank, leaving her without a balanced reference point when handling complaints calls.

Experiments

• The agent will seek out a simulated environment to gain a balanced experience of the bank's products and security features.
• The agent will check in regularly with her team lead, who holds an account with the bank, to build familiarity with the positive customer experience the bank provides.