This was a long time ago, but I highly doubt they’ve changed.
Every day, every customer, EVERY transaction, tellers were required to offer a product to the customer. Even if Mr. Customer split his transactions into three separate ones, tellers would have to make a sale each time. Didn’t matter if the customer declined, or they were a regular you saw every day, we still had to do it.
I hated it. I was there to be kind to customers and help them. I didn’t want to push products on them that they didn’t want nor need. Of course management would come down hard and micromanage the teller line by listening to our conversations with customers. If we didn’t make a sale, they’d jump in and say “Excuse me, why weren’t you doing your job?” Or “I see that customer walked away without opening a new account. Explain why you failed to meet your customer’s needs.” Uh, because they already have five savings and a checking account with us? How many more do they need?
My least favorite was when we’d have credit card promotions and it would be so cutthroat the tellers would try to steal sales from each other to avoid getting berated at the end of the day.
I quit and left for a credit union, which was leaps and bounds better… until they decided they wanted to compete with the big banks and be open seven days a week and force us to convince members to use us as the broker for their insurance. Who needs a broker? BROKERS ARE NOT NECESSARY!
I wasn’t about to tell my regulars to make us their insurance broker so we could skim off the top of their crappy auto policies.
Needless to say, I’m still bitter. I hate sales.