A Day in the Life of a Teller

My morning kicks off at 8.45am. When I arrive at the branch, the first thing I do is to grab a cup of coffee.

I then transfer my cash into my till from the central safe and log onto my computer – which can take a little while! At 9am we have our morning meeting with the branch manager. These meetings are an opportunity for us to review our weekly and individual targets which the branch manager has set out for us.

Teller targets…

Targets are an important part of life in a bank branch. As I teller, I obtain points by achieving certain things, such as opening a new current account for a customer, or selling other products such as a savings account, personal loan, credit cards, home and contents insurance, life cover or TESP.

The doors open at 9.15am. From then on, my main responsibilities are to serve customers and help them with what they need with things like crediting and debiting accounts, cancelling direct debits or selling up or amending standing orders.

Supporting the in-house financial advisers…

In-house at the branch we have a banking adviser (a financial adviser). It’s also part of my job to refer customers over to them for the opening of accounts and for setting up credit cards and personal loans.

Any mortgage leads we get have to be referred on to the mortgage adviser so that the customer can receive specialised help and advice from them. As a teller it’s important to have basic knowledge of the products, however the mortgage advisers and banking advisers are the ones who will go into the finer details of everything with the customers.

There’s always plenty to do throughout the day, and I find it goes really quickly. I really thrive off the interaction with the customers – there are always characters to meet and I like the feeling of helping people.

At the end of each day I have to balance my till (count up what I have in my till to make sure it matches with what’s been processed throughout the day, plus what I started with at the beginning of the shift). I also help to tidy around the branch and make sure everything is locked and secure before we leave.