A screenshot from the IRA Advisor tool.
Our Human Resources, Information Services, Branch Administration, and IRA departments recently collaborated on a powerful new tool to help our retail bankers open and work with IRA accounts more easily and with fewer mistakes.
The IRA Advisor software can be accessed online and walks bankers through the steps necessary to open a new IRA account or contribute to an existing IRA.
“It’s very user-friendly and includes all of the relevant information branch staff need to handle IRA transactions,” says branch sales manager Craig Witz, who came up with the idea for the tool. “IRAs have very specific rules, limits, and codes that need to be applied — and if you don’t work with them every day, it’s hard to get them all right. The tool minimizes the chance of errors.”
To develop IRA Advisor, training and development manager Milene Below worked with investment processor Martha Muskavitch, from the IRA department and deposit services manager Natalie Canadeo to develop the content. Senior systems analyst Kinnon Schreiber brought it to life.
Retail bankers used to do classroom training to learn how to open IRA accounts. “But when the high season ends, it’s easy to lose that knowledge,” Milene says. “We wanted something that could guide them through the process whenever they needed it.”
“We concentrated on putting the steps into their logical and necessary order, in a concise manner, in a way that could be accessed through clicking on links, and providing examples of what completed forms should look like,” Martha says. “It was a huge undertaking.”
Kinnon notes that the project was somewhat challenging “because it was less technical and more business-unit-oriented.” But, he says, “that is a major portion of my team’s job — to help bridge the gap between the technology and the business sides.” It was also a challenge to think of all the situations a banker and IRA customer could encounter, and then to provide direction for each of those.
Response from the branch employees who’ve used IRA Advisor has been positive.
“It walks you through the entire process and what questions to ask the customer,” one branch banker said. “In the past, I would have called the IRA department. But I was able to open the entire IRA without a phone call.”
“I’m absolutely thrilled with how the tool came out,” says Craig, who is quick to credit Milene, Martha, Natalie, Kinnon, and their co-workers with making IRA Advisor a reality.
Milene adds that although the tool is primarily for personal bankers and other branch staff who typically open IRA accounts, tellers and everyone else in the branches should also be using it when handling IRA transactions, to minimize errors and increase convenience for customers.
Craig and Milene say there are no plans for similar tools for other more complex types of accounts, but that it’s always possible the bank could develop another one, if the need is there.
“We are always looking for ways to avoid errors or re-work, and the IRA Advisor proves that guided assistance can be hugely beneficial for both the front-end user and the people responsible for checking their work,” Craig says.