A day in the life of Perrie

"Barclays is the best company I’ve ever worked for. I think of the Brixton Branch team as my second family."

Name
Perrie

Role
Personal Banker

Works in
UK Retail Banking

Location
Brixton Branch, London, UK

My working day

I’m based in Barclays Brixton Branch, in a busy area of south London. Throughout the day my work includes client meetings, catching up with my manager to assess progress on sales, and dealing with customers at the front desk or in private one-to-one appointments.

In the morning, 09:00 to 11:00
My day usually begins with a meeting with my manager and the three other Personal Bankers in the branch. We talk through customer appointments we’ve scheduled for the day ahead and what we plan to achieve. I’ll then catch up on any paperwork and administration from the previous day before beginning my customer meetings.

Around lunch, 11:00 to 14:00
I spend 20 minutes with each customer that I’ve arranged a meeting with, where we’ll go through research I’ve prepared based on their financial requirements so I can meet their needs. I’m set a monthly sales target and I like to take the initiative to find new business and arrange appointments in advance.

Early afternoon, 14:00 to 17:00
I’m still in and out of customer meetings, but if things are quiet I’ll go to the bank’s front desk to help answer customers’ queries. I’ll also carry out research for tomorrow’s meetings and call customers to remind them of our appointment.

End of the day, 17:00 to 18:00
The bank closes at 17:00 and I continue with research to ensure I’ve identified suitable products to recommend to tomorrow’s clients. After work I coach a youth football team, which I run with a client I met at the branch. I spend a lot of my personal time training the team, and they’ve had some great success.

My career at Barclays

I joined Barclays as a Cashier and aimed to refer as many potential sales leads as possible to the Personal Bankers at the branch. I soon became the top sales-lead provider in my local area. I was accepted onto the Personal Banker Academy at the end of 2007 and went through specialist training for four months before graduating as a Personal Banker.

How I started out

After doing well in my GCSEs I spent a year on a business studies course at college and worked in a variety of jobs, from roofing to retailing, before taking on temporary work-placements at two banks. My cousin was working for Barclays at the time and said it was a great employer so I applied for a Cashier role and started in April 2005.