A Closer Look at a Career as a Teller
At first glance, today’s technological advances with automated teller machines may have decreased the need for bank tellers. However, for most people, when their banking transactions are more than run-of-the-mill ones, they still prefer to work with a live person and interact with them, making tellers an important job that is still a necessity. In essence, a bank maintains its brand and customer loyalty not merely for keeping their services in line with the modern times such as check deposits via a mobile app but also for providing their client base with top-of-the-line customer service staff, including the tellers.
Quality customer interaction is something that tellers can offer, plus a lot more, putting them in an advantage over ATMs or phone calls. Let us take a comprehensive look at this still popular career.
Tellers – What You Need to Know
Tellers are primarily responsible for completing account transactions such as deposits and withdrawals for customers on location. This also involves overseeing precise monetary balances down to the last cent for both the customers and the bank. In most cases, they also attend to customer inquiries and make recommendations as necessary, ensuring that the customers are provided with accurate and comprehensive information on the products and services. Most branches, if not all, do more than traditional banking services these days apart from accounting and finance and credit card but also offer wealth management and insurance services, so tellers should also be knowledgeable in these too.
Tellers are under the authority of branch managers who may ask them to perform responsibilities such as answering phones and attending periodic meetings to discuss new policies or changes.
To fulfill such responsibilities, bank tellers will need to be well-versed in the use of banking software or applications and be highly adept in critical thinking and analysis to be able to quickly deduce whether something is amiss with a transaction or not such as fraud or identity theft. They have to be skilled in organization and time management. A high school degree or equivalent is required, and to have a solid background experience in customer service or any frontline position is an asset. Advancement is extremely likely in a bank environment, and it helps to have a degree in a related field like business administration.
Salary
According to PayScale.com, a teller can earn as much as $23,682 up to $37,731 a year, and the salary is dependent on the size of the bank or financial institution.
Skills
If you are looking at a career as a teller, you would have to complete a high school degree or equivalent. I you want to move forward to high-level positions, it is extremely helpful to earn a diploma or degree in related fields such as business administration. Accounting skills are helpful, but not necessary as you perform transactions via software or applications, but adroitness in computer technology is a must.
Pros and Cons
As with any frontline staff, bank tellers have the benefit of customer interaction and thus they get to speak to people of all backgrounds and cultures. Most bank organizations have well-rounded benefit packages for employees, so this is another pro. In some cases, apart from comprehensive in-house training, bank companies also support education prospects for employees.
A disadvantage is that it can involve working long hours and being available for weekends as some branches now offer weekend banking hours. It can also be a demanding profession during certain times of the week or month when there is a surge of clients coming in such as on pay days.
SOURCES:
https://www.job-applications.ca/td-bank-application/
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