Royal Bank - Coffee and Cake FTLComm - Tisdale November 6, 1999 Over the summer Tisdale's Royal Bank has undergone some staff changes and with the area sales manager on hand and retirement planner Laurie Somers on hand, Friday seemed like a good day to lighten up with free coffee and cake.

Manager, Ken Childs (third from right) really needs no introduction to Tisdale as he grew up in Brooksby and he and his wife have lived here for the past twenty years. Ken with his U of S Agricultural background had been working in Agricultural financing throughout his career being assigned to places like Yorkton, Prince Albert and Kindersley so joining the Tisdale branch is a home coming. Jon Barth (right) joined the branch this past summer as a personal banking representative. Jon is from Radisson and is a graduate of the University of Saskatchewan with his B.S.A. in Agriculture Economics. Having spend two years at the Prince Albert branch and has made his way through numerous bank courses in investment and agricultural mortgages he comes to Tisdale with an excellent background and combines that with his practical common sense approach to problems.

When is comes to business transactions the Tisdale branch relies upon Gloria Spedding(extreme right in the picture at the top of the page), the bank's business service officer. The Tisdale branch won its award for customer service last year by having a staff that can handle the difficult task. Mary Anne Vie (second from right) does bank to bank transactions in a flash and no matter how I try to mess things up the staff seem to be able to figure out what I want and how to get it done. Quinton (third from the left) is filling in as the bank administrator and also joined the branch this summer. Laurie Somers (second from left) has been with the Royal Bank for twenty-four years and provides services to a number of branches as she makes her rounds providing help and direction to people with investment concerns and retirement programmes. Randy Mann is the Royal Bank's area sales manager and Randy makes his home in Saskatoon. Both Randy and Laurie are examples of the shift we are seeing in the way service businesses like banks are having to change the way they do things. "Cottage work" is alive and booming in Canada and in the banking industry. Both of these people actually work out of their homes. Fitted with lap top computers, printers, fax machines and cell phones, specialist can work anywhere and for many, that makes their home their base office. As we discussed this phenomena Randy pointed out that his home office now has far more equipment then he ever had when he was working in a bank office. For him the main tool is that cell phone he is holding in his hand in this picture behind his back, as he just clicked off when I took this picture. Laurie on the other hand needs that laptop that connects her to the services and information she needs. Randy relies on e-mail and faxes to document events while Laurie relies upon the horror of "voice mail". In our conversation about the modern ways of work, I explained my lack of enthusiasm for voice mail and neither had heard of the newest and most ugly form of telephone abuse. Oil company credit card accounts people now all use computers to do their phoning. This is a new twist in communications, the computer phones someone and puts them on hold then the person just moves down their lined up list of calls without ever having to wait for someone to answer the phone. If you get a call from a computer, just hang up, its bad enough fighting your way through voice menus and listening to bilious music, without someone calling you and putting you on hold. When you call the Tisdale Branch you get a live person ready to provide you with assistance and service, that's what makes an award winning bank branch and its the back up support people like Laurie and Randy who support their branch with the extras to keep their customers on top of things. During this past decade it has been this remarkable shift in banking that has made the difference both for their profits and the way people use bank services. Bank profits which are absolutely massive compared with other business are now largely derived from service charges. The bank customer pays for the services they get such as $8.00 a month so that you can phone a number to find out your bank balance. The charges add up and though the consumer is concerned about these growing costs they are small and incremental but to the bank as a whole, they are becoming the main source of profitable income.