Enhancing competitiveness of the customer loan center at Promistar Financial Corporation

When a prospective automobile buyer seeks dealer financing, the dealer typically faxes the loan application to a number of banks. The consumer loan center of Promistar Financial Corporation, a medium-sized bank in southwestern Pennsylvania, competes with other banks to finance such loans. Competition is fierce with a bank's response time being an important factor in its ‘winning’ the loan. In order to make more effective staffing decisions, the bank asked us to assess the relationship between response time and staffing levels at the loan center. What started out as a staffing analysis quickly became much more. The process of data collection and model building to address the staffing issue led to a number of important insights and a variety of recommendations that the bank implemented. This has led to significant improvements in the loan center's operations.