One of Colonial’s goals is to meet the financial needs of retail and commercial banking customers and today’s savvy investor with a complete package of banking and investment products and services.

To achieve that goal, we first hire team-oriented people who also want to achieve that goal while coaching and encouraging others. Then we provide them with appropriate skills. Finally, we provide meaningful incentive programs that continuously encourage them to attain that goal.

Sales, Service, and Relationships

Therefore, we recognize the need to continue to promote a culture that is focused on sales, customer relationships, and customer profitability.

We have taken several steps since 1998 to become more sales oriented, which in turn results in deposit and noninterest income growth. Following are some highlights from a few of those initiatives:

• Converted branches into sales offices – In early 1999 we began centralizing operations to relieve sales office personnel of many operational responsibilities, allowing them to focus on “selling” services to customers.
  
• Initiated Selling Customers On Relationships Effectively (SCORE), an ongoing series of training programs in relationship-based selling; this helps develop employees’ sales skills. SCORE, which began in 1998 on a region-by-region basis, achieved company-wide status in 2000.
  
• Introduced a Branch Incentive Plan, which provides quarterly financial rewards to employees based on their sales office’s achievement of specific objectives. The Branch Incentive Plan began in January 2000. In addition, loan officers participate in production-oriented incentive compensation programs that reward building broad customer relationships.
  
• Incorporated a “Mystery Shopper” program into the Branch Incentive Plan to measure the effectiveness of sales and service to our customers. An independent company “shops” the sales office on a quarterly basis and provides feedback to Colonial about the overall experience.
  
• Began assigning customer accounts in late 2000 to a bank officer or other appropriate employee so that one banker is responsible for specific customers. By enhancing relationships with our customers, we can better anticipate and define their financial needs.