Banking is one of the most important industries in the world today. It involves the safekeeping, the borrowing, the lending, and the exchanging of different currencies. The financial institution that carries out banking transactions is called a bank.
The bank employees whose line of work involves a direct communication with the customers are called bank tellers. Bank tellers, which are also referred to as customer service officers, are the friendly front liners who promote the different services and products offered by the bank to the customers. Since their job involves a lot of direct interaction with the clients, bank tellers need to have excellent communication skills.
Bank tellers have to learn how to explain the features of a certain product or the advantages of a particular service. They need to inform the customers about the interest rates of the latest credit card or the payment terms of the featured home loans in the clearest ways possible. They need to have a great deal of persuasive powers to convince the customers to buy their products or avail their services.
The cash drawers of the individual bank tellers contain a certain amount of money that will be used for various financial transactions. When needed, bank tellers open accounts, accept deposits, receive cheques, change currencies, give change, cash cheques, record transactions, balance cash, close accounts, answer inquiries, and provide assistance to the customers. In case of discrepancies, bank tellers are required to advised the supervisors about the particular incident.
Bank tellers record the different financial transactions they carry out during the day because they need to re-check everything after banking hours. They are required to fill out settlement sheets that reflect the financial activities done during the day. The settlement sheets helps the bank tellers in verifying the accuracy of the transactions. The total amount of deposited and withdrawn cash made during the day is compared with the total amount of money contained in the cash drawers. If the totals match, the bank tellers did their job well but if they didn't, they need to start over with the counting. Bank tellers are not allowed to leave the bank premises until they figure out the cause of the mistake.
Since their job highly involves the continuous counting of money, bank tellers are required to have excellent mathematical abilities and superb organisational skills. Most bank customers have very little patience towards banking transactions especially if they waited long hours just to be in front of the endless queue. Bank tellers have to stay alert and quick all the time to keep the customers from getting too upset with waiting.
Exceptional bank tellers have great chances of being promoted to become head tellers. Head tellers serve as the supervisor of the bank tellers. They monitor various banking transactions and they train new bank tellers. Bank tellers can also be promoted to managerial positions in the bank's other branch offices. Most bank tellers who become assistant managers are those who have completed college courses in banking or accountancy.
