Growing engagement and loyalty among consumers with very diverse preferences, demographics, and behaviors isn’t always easy. And, while consumers may not always take steps to close a financial account that doesn’t meet their needs, there are thousands of accounts that simply exist but remain unused. So how do you actually drive engagement and make sure your account is the one they turn to most often?
Transcript
Okay.
I guess that's the cue. Welcome everybody.
For the record, I don't know about
on the other end near Danny and Mike,
but I know the three of us are talking.
We can't see anybody, so we're gonna assume
that either it's empty or full.
So we're grateful for you
being here with us this afternoon.
We were just talking, we think
that we're probably keeping everyone from a
short nap and then dinner.
So we will be sure to fill all of that time for you.
My name is David Hall.
I am currently
Digital Engagement Manager at Bank of Hawaii.
I've been there for about two years now.
Spent some time with MX prior to that,
and then a long time
with Zions Bank locally here in Utah.
I'm grateful to be here. I'll be the moderator in helping us
work through these questions and excited
to talk about engagement.
But before we do that, let's actually go through the line.
We'll start right next to me with Lea
and have them introduce our panel.
Thank you. Lea Sims, I'm a digital product executive.
Most previously with Charles Schwab.
I led digital payments and money movement.
I've been in the space for about 20 years,
so had the opportunity to see a lot of
experiences and products grow.
It's been awesome
and thank you all in the audience
for the great conversations
that we've had over the past couple of days.
I'm Justin Olson, CEO at Utah Community Credit Union.
Prior to being CEO, I was CIO
for many years at the same organization
and excited for today's panel.
I'm Danni Wright. I lead J.P. Morgan
Chase in Utah and Idaho.
I've been with J.P. Morgan for about 15 years,
and prior to what I do today,
I was the Chief Operating Officer for the private bank.
So I'm excited to have a conversation about,
customer engagement.
And I'm Mike Zell. I'm Senior Vice President
of Digital at BECU.
We're a credit union in Washington state.
And we have about one, well,
we crossed 1.5 million members this year.
And excited to be here.
Wow. Good. Well, I appreciate everyone.
I've a few old friends and new friends.
So grateful for the chance to have this conversation.
And to be fair, I know Mike
and I, at least on the bookends of this, we were,
we were at lunch talking, and we may go a little
rogue of the conversation.
'cause I think that, you know, we're talking, we're gonna
talk about loyalty and engagement,
but I think that there's, there's probably
a pre-question, and I think what I'm gonna try to do is
as we stage out the question, so I'm gonna start with you,
Lea, with this, and
then we'll kind of go down the line.
But things are changing in our world
and what we call loyalty
and primacy certainly is I think, in flux
and being redefined.
So what does that look like as you consider
how we proceed as an industry
and how should we be thinking about primacy maybe
as a base baseline? Right,
Right. So I think
in my opinion, loyalty
and primacy is you are the first place that clients
or customers or members, depending on who you are, go to.
Now it's your job to continue to be, hold
that primacy spot to offer up a solution for that.
And so I think that's where companies who want
to be everything to everybody kind of have a hard time
because you can't address that issue very quickly.
So for me, primacy is, if you came to me first
and I made it too difficult for you to get an answer
or I didn't give it to you,
then you move along someplace else.
That's my opportunity. Lost.
Excellent. Justin? Yeah, I would say, you know,
we've all, we're all seeing just
how fragmented consumers' lives are becoming financially.
And so this idea of primacy, the idea of loyalty
and engagement is really changing.
What are the key metrics that help, you know,
if you are someone's primary financial institution these
days, especially with Gen Z and Gen Alpha, and,
and they probably have several FinTech relationships
and don't even consider 'em financial applications.
It's just really a unique space and time.
And anyway, decided to discuss it further today. Good,
Danni?
I like to think in personas.
So I like to think who, like, who,
are the people in your life that you're loyal to
and why are you loyal to them?
And usually it's because they show up for you consistently.
They understand you, they respect, you know,
what makes you unique and your privacy.
And so I think as an organization, we try to reflect that
through the services that we provide
and the products that we offer
and the way that we interact with our clients.
And I think privacy is becoming more
and more of a concern, especially with just all the progress
that's been made in AI.
Like all of the good stuff that's coming from that,
I think it just opens up a world of
potential possibility
that your privacy will be violated.
And so I think as a banking organization, that has
to be paramount with every relationship.
So Danni, I wanna follow up with you
because I think that you represent private,
you know mass affluent, more affluent.
Do you feel like the, the definition we just talked about
primacy, do you feel like that applies to
your mass retail customer as well as your,
or is there a variant there
that you think is important to note?
Yeah I think it's important to everyone.
I think it becomes particularly important
when you've reached a certain level of wealth just
because you become more of a target for fraud
and privacy violation at that point.
So we do have sort of additional standards
that we follow there.
But I think it's important to everyone.
And just thinking about like some
of the major fraud schemes that we've seen,
they're impacting, I would say the mass retail
population more, either because they aren't ready for it
or aren't aware of what's happening, they might
be more vulnerable to certain types
of financial crimes or fraud.
And so I think getting education out there is actually
really important for the retail space as well.
Excellent. Thank you. Mike, how about you?
BECU, how are you defining
or thinking about primacy and how that changes?
I think with the way we look at it is we want
to be a partner to our members
around their financial health.
And so this whole fragmentation of
you know, accounts that people hold at different
institutions, different products, I think,
you know, we want to — the way we think about it is
how do we connect those
and those, you know,
different accounts in the financial lives of our members,
because we're not,
they're not gonna hold everything with us.
And so how do we connect those things so
that we can understand where our members are in terms
of their finances, and then be a partner in that.
So that's, to me, how it's changing.
And, yeah, it's changing lives.
It, very different than it was,
you know, 10 years ago.
You know, it's interesting for me, at Bank
of Hawaii, one of the, and
and I used
to say this from particularly when I was
on the MX side of things
where we all think we're unique, but we're not really.
And I think that that's true to a certain degree.
I will say that geographically we have a really challenging
market because we have some,
our competition is very much right there on the islands.
And so, you don't see
entrance from the mainland coming in, except for those
who are more digitally inclined.
Of course there's products and services there
that add value, but for us, that becomes a question,
not so much of, like, we look at, I think,
primacy from a perspective of who has the direct deposit,
who's making payments, like who's using it
as an operating account across the board.
But for us, the way that we're looking at this
and starting to redefine is the next frontier is
who knows our, who knows the customer better,
and then who's showing up to give the recommendations,
the products and services that matter most.
We feel like that's where the next real sort
of battlefield will be, if you will.
It's just a matter of understanding,
because you're right, we don't have every product
and service that our consumers and customers might need.
And we're not trying to be that in that scenario,
but we do want to be the institution
that they trust the most
and feel like they're getting that from.
So that's great. Okay.
So into a follow up to that then.
So with that, where customers, consumers have more choices,
what's one thing that we should do to drive consumers
to engage more with us?
And Justin, we'll start with you on this one.
Yeah, I think, David,
you kinda leaned into it a little bit,
but I think it's about deeply understanding the segments
that you want to serve, understanding what they value,
and then tailoring services, your products to
meet what they value.
So an example you and I talked a little bit about earlier,
UCCU launched a savings goal tool,
like many financial institutions probably have.
We have one of the youngest account holder bases in the
country at UCCU
with two large universities in our footprint.
And so these students were really looking for a way
to quickly and easily save money.
After launch we looked
and overnight, without any advertising,
just putting the tool in mobile banking,
we had a thousand new accounts open just overnight,
no employee involvement.
And then like a few weeks later, we started
Driven by the goals. That
Option, driven by just the goal, the option
to create an automated savings goal for saving for books
or tuition or emergency fund or whatever.
They could customize those goals, which was interesting.
This tool's gone gangbusters for us, by the way.
But it started with just understanding
what students fundamentally needed
and trying to deliver what they valued, which was something
that was easy and something that was mobile
and a way to save money.
But we looked through what people were saving money for
'cause they could customize that.
It was actually pretty touching to see,
there was things like Julie's cancer treatments,
new tattoo, trip to Disneyland,
tuition, wedding ring for Lucy, whatever.
Yeah. But it was awesome, right?
To see, and I think it's that type of personalization,
letting them do what they value
and making it easy for them where this can really take off.
So as a follow up to that, like
that's some intimate detail — Yeah, right.
That they've made available to you. Totally.
How do you think, like in terms of that engagement then,
have you used that sort of next layer of information
to either reach out to,
or has it affected kind of a product
or service strategy in any way, or
how has it affected the way
that you serve your members? Yeah,
it totally has. So
for example, someone says, Hey, I'm saving
for a down payment on my first house.
Let's send them a message and say, Hey,
it looks like you're 80% of the way there.
Let's waive your closing costs. Get even closer. Wow. Right?
Or how can we use that data?
Looks like you're saving for a new car.
Hey, our rates right now, we have a deal.
We just have an auto loan special.
But making it personalized
and contextual to what they're saving
for is exactly what we're trying to do.
Excellent. Good. Yeah. Danni, how about you
from an engaging perspective?
Yeah. I think personalization is something we're
thinking a lot about too.
And I think it goes back to when trying
to think about customer engagement.
Like there's, what you're really looking
for is like attention.
There's so many things that distract us for our attention.
There's so many different places that customers can go.
And so being a place where, you can use your data
to create a personalized experience.
So it's really knowing what does your customer need,
but also what are their preferences?
And then being able to find an experience
that meets both of those.
I actually love this idea about goals.
'cause I think finding the why with money.
So what, like, what is the job to be done with money?
It is often a goal that's very personal.
And being able to kind of identify that,
but also help them along the journey, I think
that's been really important for us as well.
Good. Thank you, Mike.
Yeah. One of the things that we were trying
to work on is, is actually how we look at engagement
and do less looking at engagement by feature
or engagement by channel,
and really taking more of a member
or a customer journey perspective.
And I think that's a journey
for us to go through,
but I think it's helping us look at our customers,
you know, differently and those experiences.
And how do we get people into those?
How do we engage people better,
whether they're a new member or customer.
So onboarding experience, that'd be one.
And looking across the different channels.
I think historically we've just been very focused on
channels and features and
taking that mindset, it just allowed us
to engage more of the organization.
And how do we, you know, reach our engagement goals?
'cause we do have very specific, you know, goals we set
as an organization around, you know, levels of engagement,
digital engagement that we're,
trying to drive against.
And then, you know, bringing the organization together
to look at those journeys
and then say, okay,
how is the organization gonna operate
differently around that?
And that's been, that's been really helpful.
It's gonna take us a while
to get there as an organization
because, you know, historically we've just really been very
feature oriented, very channel oriented.
And I think that that's sort of like the,
that's an evolution, right?
Like you have to, you've gotta start
with the big rocks and then you start filling in the gaps
where you get to that level.
So I'm curious, I'm gonna ask the audience, how many
of you have existing customer journeys you've deployed
in your institutions?
Raise them high. Okay.
How many of you would be open to, if there was, like,
if you could say like, here,
like just to give you a start point.
Like here's five life stage journeys
or personas that could give you a start point.
Awesome. That's what, that's what a lot
of — Mike and I were talking about that.
Okay. Lea, tell me your thoughts on, about engagement. I
think engagement's unique,
especially coming from enterprise FIs that were very large
because we would gauge engagement
or our KPIs were different per sometimes channel.
So kind of to what you said, Mike, sometimes per product
and sometimes per life stage, we never really aligned
as an enterprise on what
that engagement model's going to look like.
I'd say we tried but there wasn't that consistency.
So what is engagement?
You could probably go and ask them today,
and they're measuring it people,
everyone's measuring it, but is it the right
thing to be measuring?
I'm not sure that engage,
there's gonna be one engagement model for FIs
that are striving to be multi-year, multi-product
type of FI for those people.
So I think it's gonna be an evolution for FIs
to kind of hone in
what you all were talking about.
You get really, you get more, not completely,
completely narrow scope,
but you get more refined on who you're targeting
and what you want to be if you don't want to have
that product at your bank.
I think that that's something
that big FIs need to look at.
So I think it —
the conversation — I think begs an interesting question,
which is the first a statement like, it's harder
to create a journey
or a series, even if it's a product suite
and a service suite for a customer segment.
I think most institutions have a private banking offering
and a high net worth offering,
small business commercial, like
we do think a decent job of creating these sort of islands,
but there's a whole lot of customers that are in
between those islands, sort of in between those stages.
So how do you,
and, we'll, Daniel, we'll start with you on this, is
how do we then think about,
or how should we be thinking about
progressing those customers
and attempting to maintain some pathing
or some journey that we want
to help guide customers through?
Mm-Hmm. I mean, we just,
I just listed off like four different segments
and there's a lot more in between there,
but what does that look like without it being
overwhelming? Mm-Hmm.
We tried to identify what are the events
that take someone from one stage to the next stage,
and then, sort of putting resources around that.
So one example for us is we work
with a lot of business owners.
We have the business bank,
and then we have the commercial bank.
And there's many business owners that
have their businesses through there.
And some of them are not high net worth yet,
but if they wanted to sell their company,
they certainly would become so
and so within the private bank, we have like a whole,
we call it like a think tank.
We have a whole bunch of advice
around pre-transaction planning.
We have former trust
and state attorneys that work with us and help our clients.
Everything, you know, I won't go down the list,
but many services like those.
And we realize is if we take those services
that live in the private bank and we offer those
to business owners that might not be currently in the
business bank or in the private bank,
that helps facilitate them moving up to the next segment.
And so it helps the customer
because they're actually gonna receive a great service
that's gonna help them achieve a life goal
or whatever, you know, their journey is.
But then it also helps us ensure that we're at the forefront
of that, event with them,
and we're providing them the services that they need
to really come into another segment.
So I'd say, say it another way is sort
of identifying the services that exist within each line
of business and finding ways to cross sell
and also offer those to different segments to sort
of create more of a comprehensive, holistic offering.
And I'm gonna, follow up with that
because obviously, not every private
banking customer has the opportunity,
or let me say it this way, private banking officer
may not have the opportunity to have kinda that deep level
of engagement with everybody in their portfolio.
Mm-Hmm. So how do you address those who have those needs
who may not have the opportunity to speak directly
with an officer?
We have a lot of content. I mean,
and I think we try to think multi-channel too.
So like, maybe your private banker is speaking
to you directly or on the phone or in person or over zoom,
but maybe you're also receiving our newsletters
or our content, or maybe there's webinars we're inviting you
to, so we're trying to kind of like diversify the way
that we're sharing you this information,
sharing this information with you.
But then we're also sort of looking at the insights
that we have as an organization about your own financial
picture and the data that matters to you.
Because I think that's more compelling is if we can say,
okay, we've analyzed your portfolio.
Here are the ways that you could be saving money
or earning a higher rate.
And if we're playing that back to you, I think that kind
of is a little bit more compelling to get that engagement.
So we do try to think about many different ways of outreach,
and then based off of what the customer sort of responds to,
that's what we lean more into.
One other thing I'll highlight just
'cause I feel like no panel is complete
unless you talk about AI.
We're using AI
and we use it as a copilot to help identify things
that a private banker should be talking
to their customers about.
And I actually think it's a real benefit not only
to the bankers, but also to the customers too.
Because you've got a personal banker who's obviously human,
who's gonna try to their best to understand your portfolio
and, you know, use lots of tools and resources.
But in the background you've got some AI that's also
trying to understand your portfolio
and recognize opportunities for you.
So I think the, the marriage of AI
and bankers, I think that's something
that we'll really see more of in the future.
Excellent. Good. Mike, how about you?
How are you trying to navigate?
Or are you navigating all of these different potential
customer personas and journeys? Yeah,
I was gonna add on Danielle's point, just
bring out the point of, and how to talk about data.
You know, I think so much of it for us is unlocking the data
that's trapped within the platforms
or within the functional areas, whether
that's in the business side or the consumer side.
So we can get that view of our
member or our customer.
And so we have a lot of work to do there.
We have a lot of work, you know, around legacy systems,
and I know that's been talked about,
at this conference.
So we have work under the underlying data
and platforms that we have to get done.
But the, at the same time then deliver on, you know,
the experiences and build those experiences
for our members or our customers.
And you know, I think it does get back to us
around looking at those primary journeys that, you know,
our customers are going on with us.
And really then to try to align the organization
around those different pieces
while also acknowledging, you know, the needs
of different product groups around, you know,
whether that's the mortgage team
or consumer lending, you know,
they have needs and goals that they're trying to achieve
for the bus business and, you know, and our members.
But, you know, it's tricky.
Like, that's, you know, it's challenging trying to,
you know, get that alignment around the customer,
across the organization,
because not everyone's, you know, perfectly aligned.
You know, we're not perfectly aligned around the goals,
but, yeah.
But that's how we're, you know, some of the things
that we're working on to do that.
Good. Thank you. Lea. I'm gonna foot stump on data.
So data is important.
And if you map out
or string out all of those journeys, a couple of tests
that we branded, actually both FIs
that were successful, is if you look at the cohort
of the individuals and identify if they purchased a new
house, and of those individuals that purchased a new house
post six months, 18 months, which of that peer group
had an increase in operational dollars in savings,
dollars in investment accounts?
And if you look at what they did,
and you're able to present that information back
to the other individuals who just purchased a house,
you can help them on their journey as well.
And I find too that, well, we found that
that also increased the loyalty
because you were able to provide them
with information on people like them that kind of excelled
after event.
Was it switch a job, buy a house, things like that.
And sometimes it was a product play,
sometimes it was a savings play,
sometimes it was all ulterior kind of, you know,
insurance items and things like that.
But I think you're spot on with the data as you use
that you absolutely can string it across your
journeys and bring people along.
Looking at that cohort mix.
I think it's interesting because, you know, we, again —
earlier conversation, we look at all
of the advancements in technology have been really gauged
around helping consumers understand their finances better,
presenting the information to them in a more concise
and clear way, more channels to give it to them.
But over in all of the decades
of technological advancement in this space,
consumers are not actually getting smarter
as a whole in their finances.
I mean, there are pockets certainly of people excelling
and leveraging the technology,
but on the whole, like,
consumers just aren't getting better at their finances.
And so I really love what you talked about,
because what that does is, is exactly the,
that they expect from us, which is, here's something
that could be beneficial for you the most of some of those,
at least those people who you've seen.
Here's a pattern that we want to then make aware
and create awareness for our other customers
who've started on the same path.
They may not have known that
that's even something they should be pursuing.
So you're not only giving them the service,
but you're helping bring awareness and
education, right. And enablement
around. So you get engagement and you get
loyalty.
That's right. You crack that nut. I love it. That's great.
Good. Okay. Justin, wrap us up on it. Yeah,
I was gonna say, I think what I'm feeling,
and I think what's being said around data is
that we have lots of it.
We just have to stop being tone deaf, right?
Like, when we reach out to a consumer
and we're not speaking to them in a way that's personalized,
they're gonna disengage.
'cause it just becomes white noise.
It's not a meaningful message to them.
But if the reverse is true
and we add real value to where they're at in their journey,
that that creates value for them
and they're gonna engage that way.
And then you can use that engagement to get more data
and then tailor it even further.
So I think it's just a journey to create those journeys.
But yeah, I think a lot of times we're tone deaf
and historically as an industry have been in the way we
interact with consumers as just like,
everyone's gonna get this same message from us.
And I think it's gonna get even more.
It's gonna rise to the top
because as consumers, everything we purchase is starting
to hone in on what we need.
So if you get an ad, if you get an email
and you, it doesn't fit your life right now at all.
Yeah. The first thing you always think
is, why am I getting this?
Yeah. So our clients are gonna start
doing that a lot more.
'cause it happens all the time in other places as well.
So they're gonna start to recognize it.
And I think that there's, because there's an element
of this where going back to, you know,
our keynotes earlier that there is gonna be some failure in
that, but that's where we get to learn.
So the obvious ones, obviously I'm not going
to recommend, maybe a mortgage if,
I don't know.
Now I'm not, I can't come up with a good example,
but if it doesn't fit, I actually offer a more direct
deposit. Right, get a new house.
Exactly. Yeah.
If it's an obvious thing,
I probably shouldn't do it.
But then there are, there's this element to
where we've gotta start somewhere that, you know,
progress over perfection is much more critical for us
if we wait until we feel like we've got the perfect model,
which, and there's a balance there operationally,
just from an execution perspective, from a regulatory and,
and a privacy perspective, we wanna make sure
that we're, we still have to check those boxes
appropriately, but we should begin
and then learn from those things.
The other thing I'm hearing is we've been through this,
is that, this is how I think we try
to think about this at Bank of Hawaii is
that while we have, we talk about journeys,
but what we actually have
isn't it really just one journey?
Especially if you position it from like a life stage
perspective, you're born and you're gonna die
and there's a whole lot of stuff in between.
So where can we help you along the way, right?
And as we see those milestones occur, I think that's
where we, like at Bank of Hawaii,
we've created personas, not necessarily,
and we want to create a journey that is
probably covers 70% of our customers, like
as they work through this path.
And then there will be all of these nuances.
And so we're not necessarily gonna have a set path
for every single of the thousand different variations,
but we're starting first with basically
a cradle to grave journey
and financial service products
that could be valuable and then start there.
For us, that's how we're trying to think about it.
And that it's not that you are like,
your journey is still the same,
but as you move into different stages of that life,
your needs become different.
And then that's where sort of the,
a different persona potentially takes over.
Hey and, David, you know, we were talking at lunch,
it's, I feel like there's plenty
of insights out there, right?
In terms of like the data, right?
And it's really, you know,
to me it's less about all the insights
and the additional insights,
but how do we get action out of it
for our customers?
Like how do they, how do we give them the insight,
but then, okay, what's the follow through
to get a change, right?
To make change for them happen?
And that's to me the really hard part, right?
To figure that out. And so I, you know,
we're talking at lunch, like, you know,
I think there's just work to be done there, at least
for our institution of like, okay, now how do we help our,
you know, our members, you know, make different choices,
you know, help them, you know, in their,
you know, financial journey.
I think of it almost like a, and I love
the panel's thoughts on this.
Like, to me it's maybe not to be contrarian
to Wes earlier, but I'm gonna be a little bit maybe,
but it's not so much the,
because if we’re relying on the consumers
to take action, if you think about it just from a business
perspective, I don't know that we're ever gonna get our ROI
out of the technology investments that we make.
If we're dependent on the consumers being the ones
to take action, that add value to me, I think that
the greater opportunity is if we
as the financial institution as their provider,
their trusted advisor, we then can create guidance.
And then what it becomes is, yes, there is an action
that the consumer takes, but it really is
more of a confirmation.
It becomes an element where we say, there's information
that says, this is where you are, here's
where others like you are, yes or no.
Do you wanna proceed? Do you wanna pursue this? Yes or no?
Would you like us to help you with it? Yes or no?
Even if it's just more information, right?
We wanna make sure that there's something that is,
we're not always expecting the consumer to just know
what the right answer is.
But what we're giving them some guidance around this is
what could be right for you.
So what do you, you know, what do you think of that?
And then give them an opportunity to confirm
that thing versus needing to take the action
to go make the change happen.
I think it's important for banks to remember.
Not many people wanna bank.
They wanna be with their family, they want
to have things, they wanna take care
of their family and their children.
They don't want to bank.
So a lot of times I've been in conversations where we've had
to step out of, well, here's what this person needs.
And it, you know, it's the
transaction experience, blah, blah,
the experience and all those things.
And we get caught up in our bank legalese,
the person didn't come wanting to get a loan,
they want a car.
So start with that and talk to them like that.
That's a great point. Yeah. David,
one other thing I was gonna say is I think historically
journey mapping, the
customer journey has been very linear, right?
But consumers' lives are not linear.
And so I think that's where AI
and machine learning can help you be more dynamic
and tailored to their situation.
And, you know, I just think that you have to inspect
where people are falling out
of the anticipated journey you have, if it's very linear
and figure out where you’re tone deaf and fix it. Just a
Comment. No, that's good.
Any other comments on that?
Well said. Okay.
So, some of you may have seen this, this was a couple
of months ago, but MX data shows that customers
who engage in certain activities within the first 30 days,
so this is in a digital engagement, digital experience,
are more engaged a year later.
And, they talk about certain activities,
it's direct deposit, it's setting up a bill pay,
it's aggregating accounts.
There's just, there's a handful of things
that I think they listed five things.
As you think about this relative to
your institutions, do you find that to be true?
And maybe what are those activities that you find, tend
to be, greater indicators of long-term engagement?
And I think, Mike, I'm on you at this point.
Well, I might answer this a little differently.
Like, we've been very focused on, you know, shifting
or not shifting, but, you know,
as people become more digital, we know that
they're less engaged, surprisingly,
or not surprisingly, industry stats on, consumers
that originate in a, you know, in the retail
channel versus digital.
So we're very focused as we see that shift to digital of
how do we get our members more digitally engaged.
One stat or some of the work that we were doing was
interesting was that we found if we
had campaigns within our branches to engage,
you know, members or, you know, customers at that point
that were obviously not
taking advantage of our analog,
we'll call it analog channel, that was one
of the most effective things that we did, you know,
we've done to convert them into,
you know, digital members.
So, you know, that's one of the tactics that
we've done, but we've become very focused on that,
you know, onboarding experience.
Like how do we, and that first 30 days
of someone becoming a member
or a customer, you know,
what are those things that we can do?
So, you know, we don't have all the capabilities there.
It's not, you know, what I would describe as
the best experience.
We have features, we have direct deposit switching,
but is that experience like a seamless one that,
no, it's not.
And so, you know, now we're looking at those,
you know, kind of back to that journey,
like what is that journey?
What's the best way to get those, you know,
those new members engaged on things like, you know,
direct deposit switching, which are high indicators of,
you know, engagement, loyalty and so forth.
So, yeah, I love that.
I dunno if that answered your question. That's how we're
That's great. No, it's good. And I think that,
to be fair,
we're probably all at varying degrees of this, right?
Like, I don't know that many people have it perfectly yet.
If you do, you should come up here. Anybody? Yeah. Yeah.
Tell us. Onboarding. Perfect.
I would say is anybody from Capital One? Opened an account
recently there, and I felt it was pretty perfect actually.
But I will say to that end, like I opened
an account personally on Capital One.
I got an email, I have a Capital One credit card.
But they offered me a checking account
and they said, if you open it — it was really simple.
Open a checking account,
set up two direct deposits in the first 75 days
that are at least $500,
and activate your debit card, you'll get $250.
And I was like, done, right?
$250, that's easy money.
Like why wouldn't I? I also told
all my kids to do it, right?
So it's like this, there's no reason why this
shouldn't be if they're giving away this kind of money.
And that was great. Like, that was a great experience.
I got it set up, seamless.
They had some information on me already, which,
it made it so, so easy.
I will say though, what has actually gotten me is
my debit card got sent.
So I live in two places.
It got sent to the other place where I wasn't.
So I called and I changed my address on in the app
and then I called and said, I need
to get a new debit card sent.
They verified me within minutes.
It was on its way, like Federal Express, no extra cost.
Now they've got me. 'cause I think that this goes back to
what Lea was talking about,
which is there are other processes
that sometimes get in our way.
So it's not, it doesn't end there.
This is certainly one of the most critical,
like the first opportunity we have
to create a great experience and a great first impression.
But it continues after that.
And I was just expecting them to say,
like, I literally was expecting them to say, well,
you just changed your address, so we have
to wait 30 days before we can mail it to you,
or we have to send you through this
higher level of verification.
Because that's the kind of thing
that right now Bank of Hawaii has to do.
Like, we're actually working through this where it's like,
how do we verify them so that we can get them at a better
place, but like, who wants to wait 45 days to be able
to close an account or order a debit card because of that?
So anyway, so that's how I think about that.
But, okay.
Lea, so from your perspective, what are kind of key
behaviors we want to engage consumers at the beginning?
Yeah, onboarding's very important.
If I can sit down and I can do it quickly. Fabulous.
To your point, I think an incentive with steps,
just guide them through.
I mean, sometimes clients don't know what they want
or how your product beats your competitors.
You know, Starbucks took people
and taught them how to order a coffee very quickly.
So if you think about packaging up where your client is
and what you would like for them
to have if they got a credit card
and you wanna get the checking, make it simple.
Do it that way. Because, you know, in this experience,
Dave said it, he said, you got me, guess what?
They got loyalty from you right then and there, right?
And it wasn't the $250. It was,
the the debit card.
It was the debit card. And so sometimes we have to invest in
what I call, not the, not money makers,
but low money makers,
because FedEx, to do that was expensive.
You got a new card you probably
provided to do that, you had FedEx to do it.
That's not an inexpensive thing to do. Mm-Hmm.
But they got you. Yeah. All of that.
And so the, not the, the low money makers, you're
investing for the long-term benefit.
Excellent. Justin. Yeah,
I think you clued in on something I've thought a lot about
when it comes to onboarding, which is, it's gotta be easy.
It's gotta be so easy.
And it, and I think sometimes in our industry,
the complexity of the regulations, the things we have
to put in the bird seed to explain the product
and all this stuff,
and it just gets in the consumer's way.
And I remember someone, it might have been at an MX event,
but they showed an Apple box with an iPhone in it,
and they showed a Windows phone box with the two boxes.
Every side of the Windows box was covered in fine print
of all this different stuff about their phone.
And the Apple box was just so clean, right?
And I don't know, I didn't see many unboxings on YouTube
of Windows phones, right?
Right. But people were always filming themselves,
opening the Apple phone.
I think simplicity's really key,
but doing it in a way that again, is kind of tailored
to their situation.
Like you were probably in Hawaii, right?
So they had to overnight you something to Hawaii,
which meant a ton to you.
And in the long run, if they get loyalty from you for
that really didn't cost them much at all.
So, and to be fair, i I,
I don't have a lot of money with them.
Like, it wasn't like I was,
I wasn't a high value customer, right?
Yeah. This is something that they
just do for their customers.
Yeah. And I think that's where onboarding is, is starting
with longevity in mind.
What do we have to do up front
to make sure they want us to around forever?
What are some things we could do?
Danny, how about you? I actually really like
that you're raising the stat,
like the first 30 days are the most important
because to me it's almost like the same thing when you meet
someone, like you're forming a first impression.
And those are often hard to change later on.
Um, so I agree with everything that's been said,
and that's certainly things that I think about and,
and we're focused on.
Um, what I would add to that is, I,
I feel like in the first 30 days, maybe the first 60 days,
you have an opportunity to delight and surprise.
And I think certainly with J.P. Morgan, when people
show up, they assume like big bank, there's gonna be a lot
of regulatory red tape and a lot of like inflexibility.
And certainly that's the case with many things
that we can't change because of,
you know, regulatory compliance.
But things that we can change, I really do, um, try
to make a point to like get creative in the first 30 days
or the first 60 days
where we're really trying to get to know someone.
I'll just share a really quick example
of like a regulatory thing we could not change,
but we tried to figure out a way to make it different.
In the rare case that someone needs to sign something.
And I heard, by the way, Lizzie in the panel
before this, talking about signing a joint account,
I'm like cringing because, um, there are some cases
where you have to do things like that.
I mean, why can't we show up
to someone's house at their doorstep with the notary?
Like, why can't we make it easy that way?
Or if they have to actually sign documents,
can we send it in a package that has like a care package
with it or some, you know, some chocolates
or something to make it more fun.
Um, so I think, I just think that showing the client,
the customer who you are in the first 30
or 60 days, really does build that trust.
And I think it's an investment that we should make at the
beginning, especially because for all of us,
we wanna keep these clients for as long as we can.
And so I do think, um, showing them who you are
and really showing up in the first 30 days
really does make a difference. Great.
Thank you. Um, I'm gonna, there's gonna be one question
that we'll, that we'll take, which I want give everyone a
chance to think about, which is, what is like your number
one metric for engagement, knowing
that you're succeeding at engaging customers.
So think about that, but we won't open to any questions
that the audience has
unless that was your question.
Okay. Well then with that, let's, um,
uh, Lee, we'll start with you.
Sure. We're circled all the way back around, so
I kind of think it's a, a two for, for me.
So engagement is about touches
with the fi but also at the same time an increase in
funds or savings accounts, credit card usage.
So there's, there's not only how many times have you come,
but did you just check your balance
and your balance continued to go lower?
So you weren't really engaging, you were just looking at
how much money you had, or did you come and do other things
and get another product, have a direct deposit
to your savings account for your emergency savings
goal, things like that.
So for me, it, it's two.
Excellent. Justin. Yeah, I think it's about growth.
It's about growth and utilization.
So if you had to pick one, I'd probably say growth
portfolio growth is probably the biggest indicator you're
well engaged with, with your people,
with your account holders.
If the portfolios are growing, they're engaged.
And I think that's key.
I would secondary to that, say utilization.
So you want to see swipes
and you want to see spend, account,
relationship activity going up
and then customer satisfaction or people satisfied.
And I think if they're really satisfied,
they're using you more and more
and your portfolios are growing, people are talking
with their money and they're
engaged. I think those are the keys.
Excellent. Danny, We look a lot of things.
Some of what was mentioned, um, for me, the two primary
that we focus on is wallet share.
Um, but that's another metric for growth.
And then I really love the net promoter score, like
how likely is someone to recommend you
to their friends or their family?
Generally they'll only do
that if they're having a very positive experience
to the point where they're willing
to put their name out there
and recommend you as a service provider.
Um, so I'd like taking a look at that as well
to identify just how, how good we're the, you know,
the level of service we're providing to a customer
and how, um, how, how we're showing up for them.
So I have a quick follow on.
So when you talk about wallet shares, does that, do you,
does your, do your teams have
predefined like these, these are the products
and services that we want
to engage our customers in in the first X months or,
or over the relationship?
Is there something like they start to kind of,
this is a bad analogy,
but they start to color in the slices of the pie
that they know they're, they're broadening that?
Or is it just simply
how do we see them just growing relationship with us?
I think it's more of growth.
I mean, there's certainly many different customer types
and some will never get
to a hundred percent wallet share, and that's okay, that's fine.
We kind of meet people with where they're at.
What we care more about is have we shared
with them the services that they're eligible for
and the services that could make their lives easier.
And if we've shared that and they still decide not to,
I mean, that's their own decision.
But, um, so we focus more on just growth net promoter score,
customer satisfaction, and also like we really
evaluate ourselves on performance
and so how, how well we're performing for the customer.
Um, but I think if you do all that really well,
the tendency is to gain more wallet share
because someone knows you're doing a good job,
and so they'll, they'll bring more assets to you.
Excellent. Mike, bring us home.
I, I'd have similar answers to, to, to
what the, the panelists said.
I, I would just add one thing that I really like to have.
So whatever the measurement is, I want to benchmark for it.
Um, because I want to know like what good is.
Um, so whenever, you know, we're looking at,
and we have different measures of engagement,
I want something that I can benchmark outside
of our institution
because, you know,
my leadership is always gonna ask me if I give them a number
around engagement or wallet share.
Um, they're gonna say, well, is that good? And what is good?
And so I really, um,
whenever I can find benchmarks, I, I, I, you know, try
to get those so I know how we're doing against that.
That's good. Well, hopefully, um, thank you all.
I appreciate you taking the time
and it was a pleasure for me to sit up here with all of you.
Um, and thank you for sharing
what your organizations
are doing, your own thoughts around this.
Um, I think one, one thing I'll,
I'll say maybe in wrapping up is what I take from this is
that we're all, we're all in the same boat, right?
For good or bad. All
of us are working towards the same thing.
And it feels like we're all in about the same place.
And I know even through all the other sessions we've had,
there's a lot of like head nodding because we understand
and we, we, we get where we're at
and we're all moving towards that.
So I, I can always speak from, I, I,
I think I can speak for our panel.
If you have questions, you wanna reach out to us,
um, please do so.
We, we certainly would love to engage in, in conversation
to understand what's working well for you,
if you wanna know more about what's working well for us.
But, um, yeah, I just appreciate the time
and appreciate all of you being here with us today.
Thank you.
Speakers
David Hall
Senior Vice President and Director, Customer Engagement & Innovation, Bank of Hawaii
As a father of four, David most enjoys being with his family, whether it’s cooking, watching movies, traveling, or coaching their lacrosse teams. When he isn’t building family memories, David spends the remainder of his time as a financial services industry disruptor.
David considers himself fortunate that over his career, he has had the unique opportunity to work across nearly all areas of the financial services industry, including traditional banking and fintech. Having worked in relationship management, operations, risk, strategy, and technology, David strongly believes there is a better way for the industry to operate that requires a substantially different approach from what we are doing today. Consumers expect and deserve more from their financial services providers, and we cannot continue doing things the way we always have.
Having spoken at many financial conferences, David helps challenge our industry to move intentionally towards a more innovative, thoughtful, and customer-focused future of financial services. Beyond merely pointing out the challenges, David has leveraged his perspective and unique on-the-job experience to develop and deliver practical and actionable strategies to his audiences — all with the mission of returning banking to its once noble state of partnering with customers to improve their relationship with their money.
Justin Olson serves as the President and CEO of Utah Community Credit Union (UCCU). With a career spanning over 23 years in the financial services industry, Justin has consistently championed the financial strength of the consumer and the integration of technology to drive better outcomes. Before his current role, he was the Chief Information Officer at UCCU. Justin finds immense satisfaction in enhancing the financial strength of the members and communities UCCU serves. He loves spending time with his family, watching college football, and all things Utah.
Lea Sims
Digital Product Leader, Previously at Charles Schwab and USAA
Lea is a digital leader with over 25 years of experience creating first-in-market solutions in the financial services industry. She is an accomplished executive with an extensive background in digital, banking and insurance, payments, product management, and communications for companies including Charles Schwab and USAA. Lea specializes in leading teams to deliver digital products focusing on exceptional customer experience.
She is deeply passionate about creating experiences that are truly client centric. Listening to users and building with their needs in mind are central to any experience. It can be done to delight the client, even in the most heavily regulated environments.
Mike Zell has more than 20 years of experience leading teams that have delivered innovative digital experiences for a wide range of well-known brands, including Nike, Microsoft, GSK, Disney, and Toyota. Mike now serves members at BECU, one of the nation’s largest credit unions. In his role as Senior Vice President of Digital, he is responsible for BECU’s member-facing web, online banking, origination, and mobile banking programs.
Additionally, Mike manages the overall digital experience strategy and roadmap for BECU, including long-term planning, implementation of new functionality and technology, user experience, and digital analytics. In his three years at BECU, he has overseen the scaling of BECU’s User Experience (UX) Center of Excellence and BECU’s innovation partnerships, including creating a fintech hub powered by CoMotion at the University of Washington.
Danielle Wright
Managing Director, Head of Utah & Idaho, J.P. Morgan Private Bank
Danielle (Danni) is a recognized leader in relationship management, business strategy, and investment advice, having held pivotal roles at JPMorgan Chase, most recently as the Head of Business Management for J.P. Morgan Private Bank, and currently as the Chairwoman of Utah.
Throughout her career, Danni has redefined the traditional model of wealth management by leading with client-centric advice and service. She and her team aim to meet clients where they are, emphasizing engagement and experience, and providing personalized advice and innovative solutions. For the third consecutive year, Euromoney has named J.P. Morgan the “World’s Best Private Bank,” a testament to these principles and an unwavering commitment to exceptional client service.
Passionate about driving change and solving problems, Danni collaborates with both internal and external networks to innovate and enhance her local community. She currently serves as Treasurer and Board Director for World Trade Center Utah and is actively involved with Women Who Succeed and the Women’s Leadership Institute. Danni holds a B.S. in Finance and Strategy from Brigham Young University and an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School.