Coffee, Tea or Money?

Bank customers may lust after low-interest loans, hunger for high-interest savings accounts and crave credit cards, but they are not immune to more human blandishments. Recognizing this, New York's National Bank of North America (assets $1.6 billion) has begun putting its most attractive figures behind the counters. Touting some of the "beautiful reasons" to do business at its 90 branches, the bank has launched an ad campaign declaring "the end of the plain Jane bank teller."

Taking a tip from the airlines, NBNA Chairman Sidney Friedman has brought to banking what he calls "the stewardess philosophy." Each day his 570 female tellers swish behind their counters in one of their bank-provided "career coordinated ensembles"--a couple of dresses (navy-blue and light-blue), a sheath with a Chanel-type jacket and several ascots. Says NBNA's blonde Judy Thornton, who goes by the title of director of personnel development: "A girl can change her look as often as she pleases and still remain part of the overall unified look within the bank." Modish but by no means mod--no miniskirts allowed--the new clothes are only the latest feature of a two-year-old program that trains tellers to do everything but coo "Coffee, tea or money?" The bank's training course offers a session with a hairstylist and instruction in charm and such profundities as "the theory of makeup"--plus a brush-up in arithmetic, just to make sure the girls can count.

Is that any way to run a bank? Apparently. The girls save around $250 a year in clothing. The bank has sharply reduced its teller turnover rate. Customers, too, seem to like finding a hostess at NBNA. Chairman Friedman gives the program major credit for pushing profits from $5,000,000 in 1964 to more than $12.5 million this year.

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