Turning Customer Experience Into Strategy

Speaker A: This Month in Banking is presented by Wolf and Company. Building on a long tradition of serving financial institutions, we offer expertise designed to enhance risk management performance and long term planning. Let's get started.

Speaker B: Hello, this is Tara Ween and I'd like to welcome you to the June 2026 episode of this Month in Banking brought to you by Wolf and Company. Our topic on this episode is turning customer experience into strategy. Our, uh, guest is Tara Brady, Chief Experience Officer with Provident Bank. Jeff Marcico, principal of Wolf and Co. And Ben Crowley, managing director with Wolf and Co. Are my co hosts today. Welcome, Tara. Thank you for joining us.

Speaker C: Thank you so much for having me. It's great to see you all again.

Speaker A: Yes, Tara, we're super excited, uh, to have you. I know, Jeff, a lot of time when we, when we're doing strategic planning, talking about this very topic. Right. How do we move, move the conversation towards a strategic customer experience? So, uh, why don't, before we get too far into it, why don't you tell us a bit about yourself, Tara, and uh, tell us about your role at Provident bank and you know what falls under that customer experience, um, role in your, uh, world today.

Speaker C: Absolutely. So again, thank you all for having me. Um, as you'd mentioned, my name is Tara Brady. I'm the Chief Experience Officer at Provident Bank. We are a $25 billion bank headquartered in New Jersey. And when you talk about chief experience Officer, I get a ton of questions about what exactly that role means. So what I focus on on a daily basis is making sure that our customers are the fabric of our organization. And that means engaging our employees. As far as employee empowerment, do they have the tools, do they have the systems, do they have the support that they need to be amazing in front of customers? Um, that means that my team travels, journeys before customers do, so we can figure out if there's going to be, um, intersections that don't feel great or don't work as well. Um, and it also means that marketing reports into my structure so that anything that you see, touch, feel or interact with from Provident bank has a customer experience lens over it. So we are highly, highly focused on ensuring customer experience as a differentiator for our organization. Um, and that is the way that we are kind of encompassing all of that. So again, customer experience, marketing and employee experience, um, activation as portions of the role that I oversee.

Speaker D: You know, Tara, welcome again. Uh, you and I did a presentation together at a banking conference once. It was awesome. And I was asking a lot of similar questions. Uh, but we see sort of a shift in banks talking about customer service. Usually that was the number one strengths when we did strategic planning was customer service. So everybody is above average in Lake Wobegon. Uh, but now we're seeing a shift to customer experience. And we're seeing it now not just as in their SWOT analyses and their current situation, but as key critical strategic objectives, uh, of the bank. Where do you think banks are in that journey from being great at customer service to being a customer experience centric bank?

Speaker C: So, Jeff, I'm going to pull two things apart that you said. I define customer service and customer experience very, very differently. So customer service, in my mind is a reactive, um, ancillary action based on something that went awry versus an experience being something that you intentionally designed, drafted, traveled, and are prepared to support. So, um, banks right now, holistically, the larger banks have, um, more budget and more tools and more ways with which to interact, uh, with customers and travel those journeys and be prepared and such. Um, but I don't know that they've mastered it. They've automated a lot of things which can feel less human, less personal, um, and, um, less kind of face to face. As far as creating experiences, that takes a lot of work. And it has to be foundational. It has to be built into your organization. It has to be wildly intentional, um, and it has to be both scalable, um, and repeatable. So if you build processes that are amazing but your employees can't activate on or support right, then you lose in that space. Um, and if you build things for speed, um, or for outcomes that make sense for your organization but don't make sense for customers, that can be wildly painful. So I think all banks are on different journeys and are deciding based on their customer base. While we all sell the same products, what your customers are looking for in your institution matters and your experience design should be built based on the feedback your customers provide and be very, very intentional that you're meeting the needs of the customer base that chooses to partner with you.

Speaker D: I think some of the banks think of what you do as more of a cost center. But I encourage people to look at Providence numbers. Uh, they're a very good performer. They have a 45% efficiency ratio. So it's not like it's sunk cost within the organization. It is delivering things in terms of showing up on a spreadsheet. Right. What would, in your opinion, a bank that does this? Well, how would you describe a bank that does this? Well, this customer experience?

Speaker C: I would describe a bank that does this well, as a bank that does this intentionally, this is not a goes with, this is not an after the fact. So this isn't. We design processes, we design products and then we say, oh, where do the customers fit into this flex? We intentionally put our customers at the center of our design and we build outward. Uh, when we receive feedback from customers, right, we will go back and we will make changes and we will make improvements. So if a bank or any institution is not being intentional about understanding what their customer base's expectations are, exactly how to meet those expectations, and then design their products, processes and customer journeys around that, um, I don't understand how it could be successful. Um, and in fact it really does just become a cost center of people reporting out some CX data and NPS scores and um, information that they've collected. However, they haven't are organizationalized or you know, operated upon, um, which I think creates those disconnects for folks. So saying you're doing customer experience versus intentionally implementing it into the fabric of your organization and making strategic decisions with the customer as your end goal is very, very different.

Speaker B: So before we jump to the next. Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Ben.

Speaker A: Yeah, sorry. Sorry to interrupt. Uh, could you talk a little bit about this, a little bit off the cuff, but do you build customer experience journeys for, for different Personas as far as, uh, what your customers look like and who they might be? That is retail versus business. Different types of business sectors, different types of users, uh, of the products. Uh, can you talk a little bit about how that works, uh, from inside of Provident?

Speaker C: Absolutely. So we do what I call user experience journey. So we will travel what a customer will experience. Say we're doing, um, a commercial loan. What is the journey of a commercial loan customer? Using that as a Persona. Knowing that a commercial customer will also touch our treasury management department and will also touch our retail branching, could likely touch our insurance and our wealth. So we have to think about the entire user journey. Um, but in doing user journeys, we also need to understand where the employee touch points and handoffs have to come in. If you design one without the other, you have a likelihood that there could be some fumbling internally on transitions, supports, um, et cetera. So we take an end to end journey. And there's a huge focus at Provident bank right now on prescribing journeys that are completely and totally customer centric. All journeys within banks are built at a point in time based on the systems, uh, and the people that were in place. Right. So there's some personal, uh, bias in it. And then there's some system limitations. We're going back and revisiting the journeys to understand what are our systems capable of doing, how are we empowering our employees to be great in front of these customers, and how are we making sure that we are thoughtful in the journeys that are taking place so that we're not asking customers for information twice. We're not expecting them to start over at any point in our journey. Right. So optimizing across channels and creating a united front. Because the one thing that customers never do is talk about their experiences the way we do. They don't ever say, well, my journey through the commercial bank. Right. We speak that language. Um, but we have to be incredibly intent. I know I've said intentional a lot today, but we have to be intentional that we think like a customer. Um, and not so much think like a bank with a system. And how are we going to move this through operations? So, um, not just the Personas, but the overall user experience. Um, you hear folks talk a lot about nps, right. Net promoter scores. I'm heavily focused on customer effort scores and employee effort scores. How hard is it to support a customer and how hard is it to be a customer? And what can we do to remove those obstacles every time we travel a journey?

Speaker D: So just another. Just another follow up there. Uh, sorry, Ben. Uh, that's okay. We're all so stoked about this.

Speaker A: I know. I'm, like, excited.

Speaker D: We're all going to jump all over each other. It doesn't matter.

Speaker C: Right?

Speaker D: Uh, you work for a large bank, um, and now you're working for a $25 billion bank, um, but you worked there before it was 25 billion. I think you were there before the Lakeland acquisition.

Speaker C: I was.

Speaker D: And so, you know, did you find it harder? Like, isn't it like moving an aircraft carrier if you're in a very, very large bank? And maybe it's more like a cruiser move at your size bank, but maybe it could be like a speedboat at a smaller bank. In other words, to focus the organization on the customer experience. Isn't it. Wouldn't it be easier in a smaller bank?

Speaker C: Yes and no. So, um, I've done all the size banks, right? So I've been at the really, really large clamorance, and I've gone all the way down into, like, the tiny credit, um, union space. So here's what I'll say. The tools and the assets and the data outputs that you can get at a large institution give you more knowledge and fashion with which to activate however, there's typically a ton of red tape. The power of being a bank of our size and or smaller is you can get all the people in a room pretty quickly and activate, but you don't have the teams and the support to go out and do a lot of the work. So you are sometimes mainstreaming your regular work and then working on these other items in a committee or off kind of, I don't want to say the side of your desk because it's more important than that, but so it is easy to understand, implement and drive change in a smaller organization, I would say. But the information, again, the data points, the tools, the systems, the technology you have access to can sometimes get you to the solution faster in a larger organization. Um, you also have less people to move in a smaller organization, which is helpful. Um, but at the same time, there's also a comfort in systems and processes in the smaller institutions where a larger institution will mandate, this is and is, and this is what we're doing. And people have to adopt pretty quickly. Um, so they both have, um, their nuances at the end of the day, as long as they're all focused on getting it right for the customer, I think is the most exciting part. And I think we are very much at a place now where organizations care more than ever. At the end of the day, every single bank is selling the same products. There's, there's no, there's no magic I'm going to pull out of my pocket as far as a product or a solution that's going to impact a customer. The true differentiator is how much we care, how good of a job we do listening, and how we show up for you in the moments that matter, whether it be the small moments or the big moments. If my teams and our employees are not prepared to be amazing when you need us right, then we've failed in the space. That's, that's truly where the kind of, the rubber meets the road of when something goes awry or you need help. Does the person in front of you know how to get you the help? Are they able to articulate what's going to happen next? And can they set clear expectations to make you feel comfortable and supported in that interaction?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think you're hitting on a couple things that we forget in the banking space. And you said it a few different times, but really it's being empathetic. Right. And building empathy into your culture. And I guess to sort of echo on Jeff's question, uh, is have you found that as an intentional Strategy. Have you found that harder or easier to deploy in bigger institutions?

Speaker C: I think it's probably a little bit easier to employ the human connection in a smaller organization. Right. Number one, from the proximity of closeness. So at Provident we have to, we have a headquarters in island and then we have another corporate office like one mile down the road. That means you are seeing leadership, you are seeing frontline folks, you are seeing folks that are doing the work on a regular basis. The culture is constant, it's loud. People are happy to be there, they're engaging. Um, when I worked for a larger institution and I was running cx, I saw my boss two times because he lived in North Carolina. Right. Did I enjoy working for him? Was he amazing? Absolutely. Was there that tight knit culture drive to move forward? Um, I think in the larger organizations it's more embedded because they have massive marketing departments that can build out all of these tools and make it a part of your life and immediately tie it to incentive and coaching. And they can afford training programs that, you know, maybe the smaller scale banks cannot do. At the end of the day, uh, it's really not the training. It is absolutely about the culture and the willingness to have the foundational habits and the muscle memory to repeat these experiences over and over again because customers will give you the opportunity. And you may get it wrong. Right? We don't get it perfect every time. I don't know any bank that gets it, any institution anywhere that gets it perfect every time. It's how do we make it right? How do we resolve and recover? How do we win back your trust? Like that all has to be a part of your culture. Um, you have to care exponentially. It's not just being empathetic, it's uh, it's being forward thinking. Right. So being in finance or being in banking means you're making an investment in someone else's life, right? You're, you're traveling major milestones, you're going to college, you're getting married, you're having babies, you're buying your first car, you're helping people after the death of a loved one. It is a very human, very personal business. And if that isn't a part of your banking culture, right. I don't know how you went at this. We have all these digital banks and people get connected through, they put money there for rates. But I don't know how you're making a human emotional connection with a digital bank. I don't know what you're doing after the loss of a loved one with your Digital bank. Right. You're looking for someone to help you with. How do we get through poa? How do I get the support that I need? Right. There's something very personal about banking and we take that very seriously as a part of our culture. And I don't think you can prescribe to having a CX culture if you're not willing to invest in that piece of it.

Speaker D: And we're familiar with your CEO. He's a person of action and the fact that this is so important to him is where you are today. Right. And you look at a large organization just to, uh, make an observation. There's nobody in the Wells Fargo strategic planning session that said we are going to open up fake accounts. So we hit the eight is great cross sell number. But that's the way it rolled through the organization. Right? That's the way. And the organization was so big, the unintended consequence couldn't even be picked up until later in the later as it, as it got embedded in the culture. So I do think that there's an advantage, uh, in the smaller organization. But I also think your point is right, that uh, a lot of organizations just don't have the data at their fingertips to be able to identify their most valuable Personas and make sure the customer experience is great for them.

Speaker C: Yeah, Jeff, I mean, I, I've worked in banking for a long time. I've worked at a lot of banks. Working with Tony Lavazzetta is a different type of energy. This man literally like eats, breathes and sleeps customers. And coming from a very large organization, you have to understand in the space that one or two customers might not be happy with you, especially coming from a bank as large as I did. And that's not okay. If any customer is not happy, he is not happy. He is not settled. Um, and I love that energy about him because it inspired like he is constantly pushing customer experience. Customer experience. If he talks to one customer and they could say 10 good things, if they give one piece of feedback that he's immediately, you have to hear what this person said. And I said, well, they said nine good things. He goes, but then they said, said like, he wants people's connection to Provident bank to be personal, to be connected. I mean our, our, our vision is creating advocates for life. That is our goal. That we have built such a human, emotionally connected relationship. And this is something we talk about when people say human emotional connect, like, what does that mean? It's my bank. It doesn't mean like we're going to hold hands And I'm going to hug you when I see you. It means me having the emotional understanding of what's important to you about your finances. Right? So if I haven't done a good job of asking you questions, of listening, of garnering what your goals are, then I haven't gotten connected to you, uh, which is incredibly important. So I am very, very lucky to be here and to be working with Tony in this organization because of the heavy focus they have on customer experience and how passionately I feel about it. But I don't know that everyone is getting that in the customer experience space and that it is really crucial that your CEO lives, eats, and breathes this every day. Um, because if that's all he's talking about, then that's all the other leaders are talking about, and that's where the focus becomes. And then that is embedded in your culture. And you know that in order to work here, you have to be customer centric and you have to care a lot about the customers that you're going to be taking care of.

Speaker B: So let's jump over to making experience actionable. A lot of institutions are measuring customer experience, but fewer really executing it. So what have you seen when it comes to actually turning feedback into action? Is it more people, processes, systems, uh, and where do the initiatives stall?

Speaker C: So it's a little bit of everything, right? So when you think about if you collect feedback, whether it be employee experience, feedback, customer, any feedback you collect, if your goal is not to activate on the feedback, it doesn't make sense to do the exercise because there's nothing more tone deaf than saying, hey, Tara, how do you feel about this? And you telling me? And then me just going back to doing things the way I did it yesterday. Right. So I think that's a big piece. Is so much of the customer experience world became about collecting feedback and was less about activating on feedback. So as organizations do collect all of this feedback, it's crucial that they decide what has to be addressed first, what's a priority? And what we try to look at is how many customers are impacted by what's taking place here. Um, and then we decide and move out. Now, there's going to be some things that customers say, I just don't like this. Um, one that comes to mind is I don't like your authentication protocols. It's very hard. I have to answer so many questions. As much feedback as we receive on that, we are not going to stop making sure that our customers are wildly authenticated and secured because we have a responsibility to prevent risk. So that's a place where we might collect feedback but not activate. On the other side of that, when we collect feedback about processes, it is so simple to get with those teams and say, let's go back and look at this process. Because as I had mentioned earlier, processes are often designed at, uh, a point in time with a system and the person who's leading that charge. So we can very often go back to processes and say, hey, this is how we can make improvements, and this is how we can help to support with that feedback, make changes. Simple. I'll give you an example. Um, we received feedback one time about getting documentation for Medicaid and Medicare. It was on our form with all other documentation requests at the very bottom and throughout that form that you needed to request documentation for divorce or separation, things like that. Bank account statements at the very bottom in very tiny print and said, if this is a Medicare or Medicaid request, there is no charge for this. The amount of customers that never read that far down the sheet and were impacted and thought we were going to charge them for their bank statements was actually very, very large. It was as simple as talking to the document team and saying, hey, we need a separate form for Medicaid and Medicare documents. We need to make this easy for people to understand. So we then go back to our customers. This is the part that most organizations miss. If you've done something amazing based on customer feedback, tell the customers you did it right. Tell them, I heard your feedback, Tara. I heard your feedback, Ben. And because of you, we've made the following improvements. Because of you, we have made this easier. You very seldom hear that from organizations after they've taken.

Speaker D: I don't remember hearing it. I don't remember hearing it.

Speaker C: So, yeah, so that is. And we do the same thing when we take employee feedback. We've heard you. Right. These are the improvements we made. Because now when you feel that you've been heard, you're more likely to give feedback, be engaged and say, wow, my bank is really listening to me. Um, which is a crucial step in that.

Speaker D: And makes the bank more approachable. Right.

Speaker C: Correct.

Speaker D: Admitting errors. Right. Or admitting, uh, shortcomings in some way, shape or form.

Speaker C: Absolutely. I mean, I actually was before this call was getting ready to email a customer who is a part of one of. So we have an advisory council. And this customer gave me feedback on how we were rolling out some tools. We went out to their office, we met with them, we sat down, and I was drafting an email saying, based on your feedback, we are implementing your suggestions around how we roll this out to the rest of our commercial customers. Right? That is a connector. That's that human, emotional. I met with you, I heard how you felt. We're making improvements based on your feedback, and now other people are going to be positively impacted because of you as a customer. You're now connected to us and feel invested and feel heard and feel supported, which means you're more likely to become an advocate for life. You're more likely to tell the story to your friend or your golf partner. Hey, my bank called and they're like, initiating something based on my feedback. Right. I would personally love that.

Speaker A: That's probably great advice for any company that deals with customers and has to deal with issues that arise or, uh, uh, it's. It, it certainly transcends, you know, banking. So it's good, good input. I appreciate that.

Speaker C: Absolutely.

Speaker A: Um, so talking about aligning the organization, right, There's a lot of M and A activity now. There's a lot of transactions happening. There's a lot of, you know, in the, the, the fallout from that is the post, uh, merger, post integration work that has to happen. So we're talking about customer experience, you know, knowing that it touches everything, right? It touches the front of the house, touches the back of the house, how employees react, the handoffs that you talked about from department to department. How do you do this? Right? Where is, where is alignment the hardest? Where, where is it easiest? And, and what have you been, your experience, you know, um, deploying this, um, especially sort of post merger, post integration and combining cultures.

Speaker C: I think the most important thing is that alignment starts with a shared understanding. We have to be on, all be on the same page about what our goals and what our desired outcomes are. And so by clearly stating to everyone, we have our guiding principles, we have our vision statement that we work together, we are accountable, um, we're building for the future. And our goal is to make our customers advocates for life. So just everyone having a clear understanding of what we are driving towards, um, is the first step. Because if everyone is not understanding that, there's no way you could possibly be in alignment with what comes next. Right. No matter what tools, no matter what processes we implement, if we don't all understand the goal is retaining our customers, um, making sure that they are successful financially and thriving. Right, then we're not all on the same page. The other portion, I think, would probably about making the experiences visible. So it's not just me working in a silo and saying we have customer experience. And it's great. Every experience that is built at Provident bank is built with the partners that deliver it. So we're getting ready to refresh our website. I'm in the weeds with our digital partners saying, how does this look? How does this feel? How does this sound? Is this on brand? Does this make sense? Is it easy to do? We're redesigning some of our commercial journeys. That's having every executive on our commercial team in a room to do that whiteboarding to understand this is what makes sense, this is what feels good. Um, and alignment isn't optional. Right? If you don't believe in the fact that our customers should be at the center of all we do and that you're doing this role or the role that you're in to support our customers, then that's okay. But that is a requirement to work at Provident bank and participate in these pieces. And that's made very, very clear, um, from Tony through the entire executive team. We aren't a bank. We don't have shareholders. We don't have support if we do not have happy, engaged customers. And I think institutions that forget that without customers, um, we don't exist is where the customer experiences go kind of awry. They add an experience after the fact versus building the experience out, um, to ensure that the customers feel engaged and a part of that.

Speaker D: I wonder if there's technology there out there. I mean, there are. You have tens of thousands of customers. There are a, uh, cadre of those customers who don't care about anything except price and putting a lot of energy into the customer experience for them when all they care about paramount to them is price is wasted energy. It's, how do you, uh, identify those ones that would be responsive to a, uh, superior customer experience? And those who say you are, you were an eighth higher than, than your competitor. And therefore I'm going with your competitor.

Speaker C: I mean we're always. So you'll, in every industry, you'll have rate choppers and you'll have people that are going to go where things feel the easiest and CX is not their main focus. But I, I don't think we spend a ton of time thinking through that. I think our energy is spent creating experiences that people want to repeat and being very, very thoughtful in that space. Um, because everyone says it's just about rate or it's just about this until something goes wrong and you very quickly find out if the cheaper place or the better rate was really, um, worth it. When you need something, when there's fraud on Your account or when your debit card doesn't work and you suddenly need that experience. I would rather design for the customer that wants the experience experience and have that rate chopper or that one off customer be so wowed that they decide to grow their relationship with us. Um, then you know, try to think about whether or not we need to give them energy. Now do we create experiences differently for different um, journeys? Absolutely right. We're going to put more calories into um, in depth experiences, commercial journeys, things like that versus ordering a debit card can be automated and can be quick and simple. Uh, but I, I would rather align our experiences to be pretty amazing so that we do kind of wow customers and catch them off guard. Um, and hopefully turn those, those rate shoppers or those one product folks into you know, long term customers that, that want to maintain their relationship with us.

Speaker D: What do you think is the next, next 12 to 24 months in terms of advancing this engine of the customer experience? What do you think is the most important two or three things that banks have to get on board with?

Speaker C: Uh, I mean I, so this is, it's interesting because I, I've been thinking about this quite a bit. I think expectations of customers are evolving constantly. I think what the world is putting out that customers want is very different than what I hear as someone who deals with customers every single day. So if you go out to the world, everything is AI, everything is speed, everything is done digitally, everything is self serve. The most common thing I hear from customers when they are happy is you answered the phone when I called and I got to talk to a person when I needed help. Right. So um, over the next 12 to 24 months I think it's going to be a game of being strong in the noise of staying consistent with what our customers expectations are. Right. People choose a regional community bank for that feeling. Um, and while the rest of the world is kind of running out to try to become these digital AI forward first self service banks, we need to stay true to what we're doing. We need to um, work with in AI. We need to add streamlined value where possible for us to be able to work with our customers better, faster, stronger. Uh, but I definitely think we need to focus on what has gotten us here which is the personalized relationship, the commitment, the transparency, um, but also understanding that expectations are constantly changing and customers used to compare bank to bank and that's not real anymore. So um, I used to have a citizens across the street from me early on when I started in my career and I was I would always hear at citizens, they do XYZ now. It's well, Amazon got this to me in you know, 12 hours or when I went to this company, they were able to immediately do this for me. So we're no longer being compared to our peers. We are now being compared to their most recent amazing experience. And that is a transition for banks. Um, that the sticks are constantly moving on us. Right. So we have to be adaptable and be ready to change while still delivering the consistency of the amazing experiences that people know and love. Um, which can be a little bit tricky.

Speaker B: So you touched on it for a second. And of course we can't have a podcast recording without talking about AI. So I'm glad you brought it up because I really want to know since Customer Experiences is proactive and Jeff made the comment about the rate shoppers, are you using AI to learn your customers patterns and which ones are rate shoppers and which ones are advocates for the bank?

Speaker C: We are not using AI for that. Um, we would just kind of use our own data resources to understand what products folks have, um, and you know, where they are using our services. We're using AI more for streamlining of work that can be done and how we take remedial tasks away from people so that when our people are customer facing, they're able to be better, faster, stronger. Um, an example of we've, we've changed our account opening process. It used to take us about an hour, now it takes us five minutes. What that means is now as a banker I have far more time to spend getting to know you, asking you questions, connecting, um, and understanding the full kind of value of your relationship and your goals versus spending all this time working through outdated systems and trying to connect the dots. So we're being incredibly again intentional in how we implement. Number one, for safety reasons. You've probably seen a lot of banks in the news lately that have just kind of slapped AI on top of your banking and there's PII getting out. That is something that we are being wildly meticulous and thoughtful about. Um, because we understand that our customers trust us to be safe with their information.

Speaker D: I think that's the third. So banks in implementing AI, we in our experience has been first for efficiency, their workflows being more efficient. Second is for compliance. They're doing it for some regulatory purposes. And the last one I think they're focused on is the customer experience one for just what you just said, uh, making sure that all tools remain within the confines of the bank walls.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And I Mean, I, I'll, I know I'm not the company podcast question person or ask her here, but I mean, how many of y' all have worked with the chatbot that you've walked away and been like, wow, that was so helpful, or that was so amazing. Everyone had so much speed to get out to like AI conversations. And essentially what I found in all interactions, especially with large companies, is it asked me a lot of questions. It typically can't get to the root cause of my issue. It transfers me to a person and then I start all over. Um, so while airline apps.

Speaker D: Airliner, Right. It says, what would you like help with? Read my prior text.

Speaker C: Correct. Can you type it again? Oh, I'm going to get you an agent. And then the agent says, what would you like help with? Like, so I am a consumer and I am a consumer that takes every survey. I'm a consumer that checks every process. I have some friends in cx. I recently got a survey and I sent every screenshot to my friend and said, hey, who wrote this survey? Um, because I don't think that we've gotten to the place that we think we've gotten to with AI and technology and how fast it is. What we've done is we put a layer between our customers and our employees to give our employees time. But what we're getting now from an employee standpoint with most industries is a more frustrated customer because they have tried to self service in another channel and by the time they get to the person they are agitated. I'm not sure who decided that that was a good model, but I personally find that to be incredibly frustrating.

Speaker D: The airlines.

Speaker C: The airlines? Yes, the airlines. Verizon, like your cable companies, like, it's, uh, I get it, they're trying to source that. And maybe there are some folks that love to self serve and don't mind arguing with a chatbot. I just don't happen to be one of them. Um, so you will not see that we are racing to put AI technology in front of our customers. We are very focused on putting that technology in the hands of our employees to empower them to be able to have better interactions when they are with customers. Which is where I'd like to see more organizations spend that time and money.

Speaker B: It's funny that you mentioned Verizon because I was just on the phone with them last week. I had no Internet, no tv and I called and instead of them sending out a text to say Verizon is down, we know it's a company wide issue. They did nothing So I get on, and I'm on with a chatbot. Uh, what's the problem? My Internet doesn't work. I don't understand what's the problem? I said, my Internet doesn't work. And finally they couldn't figure it out, and I swore at them. And immediately they transferred me to a live person. And I'm like, okay, now I know you're true.

Speaker C: Yeah, you found the workaround. Good to know, Tara.

Speaker D: Swearing is not exactly a high bar, though, so.

Speaker C: Oh, gosh.

Speaker A: That's what I do when she swears at me, too.

Speaker B: You transfer me to somebody else? Is that what you do, Ben? Thanks.

Speaker A: I transfer you.

Speaker B: You transfer me to that.

Speaker A: Let me get my supervisor.

Speaker C: Well, and I think that's also part of it, is, like, we understand we're comfortable being the bank that we are. Right? The banks that do everything or that do the most aren't necessarily the ones that are winning, right? Because you can't be, like, the master of everything. So I think it's important for banks to understand their customer base, understand what they're really good at, and be good at that consistently. Over, like, the Steady Eddie, right? Like, I want the bank that takes my phone call. I want the bank. If I have fraud, I get on the phone, I don't have to push 7,000 buttons. I don't have to talk to your chatbot first. I. I want to be supported, and I want you to have some semblance of who I am, and I want to not have to start over every time I call. And I will tell you, mate, my daughter just graduated from high school, and we. She had gotten money and we deposited something mobile, and there was an issue with the mobile deposit. And I tried to call the bank where her minor, um, savings account is, and it kept asking me if I wanted to do biometric voice recording. And I'm like, no. It's like, I cannot understand you. No. 8 no's later. I gave up. I don't care if she ever gets the deposit. Like, I'm over it. Like, I. I'll give her the 50 bucks. I just don't. Like, I'm like, this is not helpful. I'm not sure why I'm arguing with a robot at 8 o' clock in the morning. I don't want you to biometrically save my voice. I just want to talk to a person. Um, and I find that that's where a lot of us are, but we're saying, for the sake of AI and how cool it is that we're doing And I'm very happy that we are being thoughtful and intentional about the way we're going to use technology and the way we are going to stay connected to our customers. I'm very proud of the work we're doing.

Speaker B: So I'm going to wrap it up with this. And you may have actually answered it. So I might actually answer the question for you, but you can confirm. So is there one assumption that banks still have about customer experience that you think is just plain wrong? And I, I almost want to answer it and say you can't be everything to everybody, but back me up.

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I, I think you certainly, you can't be everything to everybody from a banking standpoint. But I also think that meeting your customers expectations is important. Not what you think is cool, not what the next shiny m object is. Understanding your customer base and delivering for them consistently, um, in a fashion with which they're expecting. Right. Really show me you understand me by delivering what I came to you for. Right. Don't change the game in the ninth inning. Don't go be something different. Be who you are and be really, really good at that.

Speaker B: Very good. Well, unfortunately, that's all the time we have for today. It's been a pleasure having you on the show, Tara. You can come on whenever you want. It was fantastic.

Speaker D: An open invitation. It was great.

Speaker C: Tara, thank you so much. No, this is lovely. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me on.

Speaker B: I mean, I do have to thank Jeff and Ben for being my co hosts today, even though they didn't really let me get a word in. Um, we will upload the next episode of this month in banking on the last Wednesday in July, July 29th. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review wherever you listen to your podcasts. If you'd like to provide feedback on this podcast or any others, please email me@tara weenolfandco.com you can also reach us via our website@wolfinco.com and follow us on LinkedIn, YouTube and be sure to follow Jeff on xefmarcico. Thanks for listening and have a profitable month.