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ISCOVER
Jessica Darnbrough
One year after Westpac launched its ‘local squad’ campaign, broker cross-sell has reached an all-time high.
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Last week, Westpac’s general manager, mortgage broker distribution Tony MacRae told The Adviser that more than 80 per cent of all clients introduced to Westpac via the broker channel are now taking out four or more products with the bank.
“While it is hard to get statistics on this from our competitors, we do believe we are market leading in this space,” Mr MacRae said.
“These results reflect the close relationships that we have between our first and third party channels.”
In March last year, Westpac launched a new local strategy campaign, ‘local squad’, which it hoped would quash broker beliefs that they are in competition with their branch.
According to Mr MacRae, the squad was designed to help brokers form sound relationships with their local Westpac bank branch managers.
It seems the initiative has paid off.
“We wanted our brokers to feel as though the branch is an extension of their operation and therefore they feel comfortable introducing their customers to the branch,” he said.
“We wanted our brokers to feel confident that their customers would enjoy the same quality of service from the branch that they do from them.
Mr MacRae said the bank has worked “very hard” over the last 12 months to dispel the idea of channel conflict and he believes it has “almost” achieved that.
“We do not want to have a strong branch network and a weak broker network or vice versa. We both need to be strong and we need to work together so that we can all win in this market, and there is room for all of us to win in this market,” he said.
