Use Your Creativity For Sales - be prepared to have I.T. issues
Pros
I had good camaraderie with my team. A lot of my clients were upwardly mobile. You can tailor your talks to the customers to suggest the best products. Scheduling paid time off in advance was doable. Before New York State's shelter-in-place kicked in, the company was proactive to do trainings via videoconference. The training department had a can-do attitude. Back when the headquarters was at Cadman Plaza, I found it simple to build relationships at the corporate office. The previous CEO was approachable. You could tell he cared about the customer experience.
Cons
The equipment to do your transactions was mediocre. The computers were outdated. They break down. It's a bad experience when you update your profiles for customers, only for the PC to crash or lock you out of your workstation. Too many redundant steps to update profiles in the Customer Relationship Management software. Before the bank merger, the product selection was barebones. You could only stand yourself apart from other banks with the limited products Dime had to offer. Credit cards weren't a thing. Home Equity was a false dream. In any sales position, it's a skill to handle rejection. However, the upper management and the directors that lead Retail was wish-washy to promise good products. To communicate urgent information with other departments was a joke. Brace yourself to lose good sales opportunities because another manager or another employee in the back office will drop the ball. Be prepared to be lectured by a manager because you are blamed for a problem outside of your responsibilities (even though you could only do the reasonable amount of tasks in your position). There weren't enough team members to handle the workload in different departments. You have to be quick to set the right expectations for your clients. Or else, you upset them and they'll get a relationship with a different bank. In the middle of the bank merger, morale with team members was subpar. Many employees were resistant to changes. As a result, it was hard to feel satisfied helping your customers. At the office I worked in, it was laughable to know your schedule three weeks in advance. It was stressful to accommodate coverage changes because it was last minute.
