Ah, yes, the age-old dilemma of getting tellers to pay attention to comments. Over the years many people have tried to come up with the magic bullet to keeping people from blowing past all of the pop-up messages and warning windows that CU*BASE presents. Brighter colors! Extra keystrokes! Flashing lights and a roaring tiger! (Okay, maybe not that last one.) But no matter what we have done, people simply adapt to the change, especially when they feel pressure to move faster.
This is the only technique we’ve seen be effective:
- First, avoid putting any non-critical stuff into the comments, so that the only things people see are things they truly need to act on. No FYI stuff here; use Trackers for that (you can create special Tracker Types, even). Some of the system-generated comments are configurable, so you could consider turning those off to streamline things further, plus get more diligent about setting expiration dates and deleting comments that no longer are relevant.
- Second, come up with standard wording for comments and avoid putting too many details (or any) in, then instruct staff what actions they must take when they see those words. Something like “SEE FRAUD TRACKER!!” or “NO TRANS WITHOUT TALKING TO COLLECTIONS” etc.
- Finally, and most important, make a culture change that puts the onus back on the shoulders of the end user to pay attention. If there are no consequences to blowing past, people will always blow past. It’s just human nature. CUs that set the expectation – and give permission for their people to slow down so they can pay attention – are the most effective at this, we’ve found.