A clean bill of health?

Standard Bank Financial Consultancy's (SBFC) Chris Busschau, speaks to Angelo Coppola about prescriptive selling.

As a starting point Busschau says that they not permit prescriptive conditional selling.

“This is explained clearly to all newly appointed sales people during their initial training and accreditation process.

“Clearly,a salesinterview typically takes place between the sales person and the customer, without any other people being present and without a structure to control exactly what happens during the interaction.

“However, the unacceptability of conditional selling is regularly re-emphasised to all sales people andtheabsence of customer complaints indicates that thishas not shown up asa problem within SBFC.”

If this does occur who can clients complain to if they are sold to in this manner?

“We have a customer care centre within the bank, SBFC also has its own customer services manager.

“If a customer believed that conditional selling had taken place and that they were not receiving a sympathetic hearing from either of the above departments, the matter could be referred to the Banking Ombudsman, the FSB or SAFSIA.”

Busschau also says that there are no tailor-made products in place to gently 'force' clients to purchase their product. “Clients have a choice when it comes to selecting cover.

As proof of this he goes on to say that no cases have been referred to the ombudsman in the past two years.