10 Ways to Become a Customer Obsessed Bank

Summary

Banking Transformed Podcast Episode Summary
Episode: 10 Ways to Become a Customer Obsessed Bank
Date: March 24, 2026
Host: Jim Marous
Guest: Marbu Brown (Author, former Head of Customer Experience at JPMorgan Chase, Amazon, Microsoft, Cisco)
Description: This episode explores how banks can move from being merely customer-centric to truly customer-obsessed. Through the lens of Marbu Brown’s research and industry experience, the discussion focuses on practical strategies, cultural shifts, and the vital role of technology (especially AI) in delivering exceptional bank customer experiences.

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Episode Overview

In this lively and insight-filled conversation, Jim Marous and guest Marbu Brown dissect what it means for banks to be "customer obsessed," going far deeper than the familiar, often-empty phrase "customer centric." Brown shares real-world examples, actionable frameworks, and data-driven insights from his book, "Blueprint for Customer Obsession." The episode is packed with tangible strategies and compelling stories, making a powerful case for banks to disrupt themselves and embrace a customer-obsessed mindset—especially amid ongoing digital disruption.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Customer Obsession vs. Customer Centricity

• Main Idea: Many banks claim to be customer-centric, but few are truly "customer obsessed."
• Statistical Impact: "Obsessed customers are 88% more likely to repurchase and 42% have already recommended that company five or more times in the past year." (A, 00:14)
• Defining Obsession: The difference lies in policies, investments, and actions that prioritize the customer even when the immediate business benefit is not obvious.

Diagnostic Questions for Self-Assessment

Marbu Brown recommends banks ask themselves:

1. Do you have at least one policy so customer-friendly it makes employees, customers, and competitors do a double-take?
   • Example: Costco’s famously generous return policy; Zappos’ lack of call center handle time targets. (B, 02:37)
2. Do you have policies that customers—and even employees—find objectionable?
   • Example: Rental companies charging $9.99/gallon for unfilled gas on return, presented by an employee who clearly disapproves. (B, 03:43)
3. Do you make investments or policy choices in the customer’s favor even if you can't immediately see a business benefit?
   • “…If it’s good for customers, it’s good for business.” (B, 05:35)

Quote:
"If you have a known problem that's bad for your customers, then you're not customer obsessed. You should never agree to live with those known problems."
— Marbu Brown (B, 07:31)

Real-World Pain Points: Banking Practices

• Examples of Failing Policies: Processing withdrawals before deposits; internal transfers not prioritized—policies that make no sense to customers or to bank employees.
• Employee Disassociation: When staff feels compelled to distance themselves from certain policies, it's an indicator of weak customer orientation. (A & B, 06:12–07:53)

The Three Pillars & Nine Practices of Customer Obsession

Marbu’s framework:

1. Engage Personally
2. Deliver Exceptionally
3. Connect Emotionally

Where Banks Fall Short:

• Banks usually invest in “Deliver Exceptionally”—systems and efficiency.
• Biggest Gap: “Connect Emotionally”—embedding themselves in key moments of the customer's life journey.
  • Financial data tells a story of life events (buying a house, a car, etc.), but banks often miss the opportunity to recognize and nurture those relationships. (B, 08:46)

Quote:
"The thing that really binds you to your customer is connecting emotionally… if you don’t have those stories in the account that your customer has with you, then you don’t have the right relationship."
— Marbu Brown (B, 09:15)

Practical Tactics from Chase’s Success

• Back-to-Basics Execution:
  • Warm greetings, using customer names, making every customer feel welcomed ("like being welcomed into someone's home"). (B, 13:09)
  • No one left waiting or ignored; staff engagement to manage wait times proactively.
• Experience Recovery:
  • Empowering employees to flag less-than-excellent customer experiences so branch managers can intervene and “recover” the moment.
• Employee Recognition:
  • Peer-to-peer and manager-to-employee acknowledgments for customer service excellence—drives culture and consistency.
• Staffing Optimization:
  • Adjusting staffing for peak times and special events.
• Proactive Outreach:
  • Not waiting for the customer to initiate contact—reaching out around life moments. (B, 13:58–17:58)

Proactive, Predictive, and Anticipatory Banking ("GPS of Financial Services")

• Shift from Reactive to Proactive:
  • Use data and AI to anticipate customer needs before they themselves are aware.
  • Examples: Notifying of potential overdrafts before they occur; using credit check signals to offer pre-approved loans; advising on financial health (credit scores, savings needs).
• AI’s Role:
  • Creates consolidated customer views, bridges data silos, increases ability for personalized, proactive service. (B, 20:17–24:41)

Quote:
"If the institution has a cultural commitment to pursue those things, then they're going to get it right…Firms should date their customer, not just let the relationship go on autopilot."
— Marbu Brown (B, 28:42)

The Partial Attrition Threat & The “Dating” Analogy

• Partial vs. Complete Attrition:
  • Most banking relationships die a slow death—customers may keep a checking account open but move their business (loans, investments) to other institutions. (B, 28:42)
• The “Dating” Analogy:
  • Banks must continuously “woo” (re-engage) their customers, not take relationships for granted.

The Power of Branch + Digital Synergy

• Revenue Impact:
  • Branch+digital gives 30–70% more revenue than branch alone, and 20–40% more than digital alone. (A, 32:28)
• Channel Integration:
  • Branch staff should be digitally fluent to coach customers.
  • Digital/AI tools should empower employees in all channels by surfacing actionable insights.
• Humanizing Digital:
  • Inspired by “Intel Inside,” Marbu calls for “Human Inside”—ensuring digital experiences reflect human-centric design. (B, 37:57)

Quote:
"In this AI age, we almost need to have a sticker that says 'human inside.' The person who designed that automation has sweated the details so that… it feels like there is a human inside."
— Marbu Brown (B, 37:59)

Employee Empowerment & Trust

• Broad Authority:
  • Allow front-line employees more leeway to resolve customer issues, especially as it relates to policies like overdraft fees.
• Balancing Risk:
  • Regulatory constraints are real but shouldn’t be an excuse; with proper guardrails and examples, employees can be trusted.
• Tracking & Coaching:
  • Use data to identify overuse of authority and coach rather than immediately revoke trust. (B, 39:47–44:45)

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

• On Breaking the Legacy Mindset:
  “When you live with a known problem that's bad for your customers, then you're not customer obsessed.” (B, 07:31)

• On Emotional Connection:
  “If you don't have those stories in the account that your customer has with you, then you don't have the right relationship with your customer because they're doing those stories with somebody else.” (B, 09:29)

• On Employee Recognition Driving Culture:
  “We stepped up recognition for bankers delivering against those service standards. Employee recognition could be given by managers, but it could also be given peer to peer.” (B, 16:15)

• On Predictive Banking:
  “Banks should really be on a tear to give their customers what they want before they know they even need it.” (B, 21:04)

• On The “Human Inside” Principle:
  “When a customer engages with this [automation], it feels like there is a human inside. When you bring those kinds of things together, the power… explodes.” (B, 37:59)

• On Policy Review as a Monday Morning Action:
  “Go back and review your policies…Do you have any policy so customer-friendly people do a double take? Do you have any policies that employees want to distance themselves from? Do you take actions in the customer’s favor even without seeing the immediate benefit?” (B, 45:14)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:11: Opening context—defining customer obsession, guest intro, key statistics
• 02:36: Three key questions to diagnose if you’re customer obsessed
• 06:12: Examples of bank policies that frustrate customers and employees alike
• 08:11: Introduction to the three pillars of customer obsession
• 13:09: How Chase drove record J.D. Power results—tactical breakdown
• 20:17: The shift required for proactive, predictive service; AI’s role
• 28:42: Loyalty myths, partial attrition, and the "dating your customer" analogy
• 32:28: Branch + digital synergy is most profitable—how to operationalize obsession across channels
• 37:59: The need for "Human Inside" in digital experiences
• 39:47: Empowering employees to resolve problems within compliance boundaries
• 45:14: Monday morning action: reviewing policies through the customer obsession lens

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Final Takeaways

• Banks can no longer afford “customer indifference.” To build enduring customer loyalty and new revenue streams, they must transform culture and operations toward obsession.
• Proactive outreach, emotional connection, and channel integration are key differentiators. While technology (especially AI) is an enabler, mindset shift leads the way.
• Small and large institutions alike can implement these practices. The practical examples apply to organizations of any size.

For more frameworks, tools, and examples, check out Marbu Brown’s book, “Blueprint for Customer Obsession.”

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Useful Links:

• CustomerObsesssion.net
• Marbu Brown’s Book: “Blueprint for Customer Obsession” (Available on Amazon)

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Summary by:
[Your AI Podcast Summarizer]
For audiences seeking actionable insights and a clear roadmap to becoming a customer-obsessed bank.

Transcript

[A]

You know, we're at a time where most banks say they're customer centric, but I'll guarantee you very few are customer obsessed. And that gap shows up directly in the numbers. Our research that we're discussing today finds that obsessed customers are 88% more likely to repurchase and 42% have already recommended that company five or more times in the past year. My guest today, Marbu Brown, led customer experience at JPMorgan Chase's consumer bank, built Amazon into a more customer assessed organization and made it so that he's actually working on ways to bring AI driven customer experience operations to life. He's also done the same at Microsoft Excellence and Cisco. His book Blueprint for Customer Obsession lays out nine practices across three pillars that define what the best companies actually are doing differently. Today we're getting into those practices where banks keep falling short and what the data says about branch digital and where the revenue opportunity really sits. Marbu, welcome to the Banking Transform podcast. It's good to see you again. We just spent a few days together in Arizona. It's great to have you on the show.

[B]

Well, Jim, it's a pleasure to be with you. I'm excited about the conversation we were about to have. You know, customer obsession is my passion and any chance I get to talk about it, I just love to do that.

[A]

Well, it's interesting. We were sitting on a bus from point A to point B last or this week and it was interesting because you referenced the research you've done and continue to do and how some of it hasn't even yet been published, that since you've written the book, you've been working with your team on building new ideas, new thoughts, testing new concepts. Because AI really is changing everything. But most banks I talk to, as I said, talk about that they're customer centric, they want good customer satisfaction. It really goes beyond that because I think what you presented at the event we were at, it shows that you have to do more, that customer centric is a benchmark. It's not where people have to aspire to be. You spent time at Amazon, Chase, Microsoft. What's the fastest way to determine whether a bank is actually customer obsessed or simply using that language as a talking point?

[B]

Well, look, I think one of the easiest ways for a company to do a quick check of themselves is to ask themselves a few questions about their policies. I like to give people these few questions first. Does your company have a single policy in place that would make employees, customers and competitors alike do a double take? Because it is so customer friendly. And let me give you an example of what I mean. You know, at Costco, they have their return policy, which a lot of people would, would consider, you know, that it's just, it's just not sustainable. But obviously they have sustained that policy for many, many years and it serves them quite well because a lot of times customers make the choice to buy there just because of their, their return policy. Or what about the Zappos? Zappos runs their call centers without any average handle time requirement for their customer service agents. A lot of people would think, how can you possibly do that? That's insane. You can't make it work. But they have continued to make it work year after year. Now, I could go on and on about this, but that's one question that, that I think companies should ask themselves. Do they have a single policy in place that would make employees, customers and competitors alike do a double take because it's so customer friendly? But there's a second question. Yeah, a flip side question. Does your company have any policies that's pretty obvious that customers find objectionable, right, that, you know, like the employees themselves want to distance themselves from that policy? You know, if you have one of those. You know, I think of a time when I went to return a rental car. Gas in the area was under $3 a gallon. And, you know, I thought I'd be able to, you know, gas up the car on the way to the airport, but didn't see any gas station. So I just went in and the employee who checked me in said, Mr. Brown, did you put gas in this car? Do you know that they charge 990? These guys charge 9.99 a gallon if you return without refilling the gas tank. And of course, you could see he was distancing himself from the policy, right? Now the fact is, look, he could have presented that in a better way, but it's a telltale sign when your employees want to distance themselves from a policy, that customers find it objectionable. And the third question I'm going to put on the table is this. Does your company adopt policies, take actions, and make investments in the customer's favor, even when they cannot immediately connect the dots to their own financial benefit because they know that it always pans out in the end when you take the position that if it's good for customers, it's good for the business? Now listen, I'm not talking about, you know, like giving away the store, right? But generally this principle holds that if it's good for customers, it's good for the business. Now you can ask yourself those three questions and based on your answer, you can tell whether you're a customer obsessed or something else.

[A]

Boy, that's interesting, Marv, because when you brought those examples up, I'm thinking to myself, what drives me nuts with financial institutions, and mine to be in particular, is that some of them still process withdrawals before deposits. That by itself is irritating. If you had an, you know, had a mistake, had an overdraft and you put the deposit in the bank or transfer funds to make deposit, and the next day it shows up again because they took money out before they put it in. What was really upsetting to me at my finance institution. And again, one of these things where the employee said, I know it doesn't make any sense is I had a direct transfer from within the financial institution. And they don't process that first. There's no. The only thing you can think about when they do that is they're only looking out for one side of the equation themselves. It doesn't make any sense. If I'm transferring money from one account to another, that, number one, they didn't do it ahead of time for me, but I understand why that doesn't happen. But they don't at least do it before they start making withdrawals. It's crazy. As you said, if it doesn't make sense to the employees, it doesn't make sense. You're not customer obsessed. So.

[B]

Yeah, and let me piggyback on that for a minute, because some of those policies like the scenario that you're talking about, the bank knows that it doesn't work for customers.

[A]

Right?

[B]

Right. But they have legacy systems and legacy practices in place and they think it's going to be expensive to solve this. So I'm just going to live with this problem. Well, when you live with a known problem that's bad for your customers, then you're not customer obsessed. Right?

[A]

Right.

[B]

So. So something like that is a telltale sign that you haven't reached the level of obsession. And to be quite frank, you should never agree to live with those known problems that don't work for your customers.

[A]

You presented this week that your book and your practices, you've organized nine practices I mentioned across three pillars. Engage personally, deliver exceptionally, and connect emotionally. Where do financial institutions usually fall shortest? Along those three. Because in my experience, there's a gap between the aspiration of what they'd like to be doing and the investment where they actually get exposed. So what area is the place where maybe the biggest gap in financial services Are.

[B]

Well, I would say that it's in the connect emotionally pillar there, right? I mean, look, banks are about dispassionate execution. So when it comes to deliver exceptionally, that's the thing that banks would tend to prioritize. Now, we've already given an example where maybe that's not quite the case. But look, deliver exceptionally would be the place where they tend to prioritize dispassionate execution. But the thing that really binds you to your customer is connecting emotionally. It's being there for your customer in their life moments, right? And who knows better about life moments than banks, okay? Because look, every account that a customer has with a bank tells a story, and it tells a life story. If people are saving for a house, the story's in there. You know, if. If people have a birth, the story's in there. You know, if people are getting a car, the stories in there, right? And if you don't have those stories in the account that your customer has with you, then you don't have the right relationship with your customer because they're doing those stories with somebody else. Right? I mean, that's, that's, that's kind of how it is. So the question that in the place where banks fall short is really tapping into those stories and engaging with their customer on an ongoing basis so that they're showing up for their customers in those moments, in those special life moments, right? And so I think that's the place where, you know, banks fall shortest. You know, customers set up an account, it goes to autopilot, and, you know, if there's no problems or anything, it's just status quo.

[A]

You know, it's interesting because you talk about that emotional connection, some of these things you don't even have to ask questions about. We have a major wealth transfer that's about to happen. It's already in process, where so much money is going to go from my generation down to either younger generations or to a spouse. You see that already because you know the age of your customers, you know what's going on, it's time to reach out and show those customers, you know what? We want to connect with you and connect with your family to keep this relationship together. And as you mentioned, when you connect emotionally, that is the easiest way to build trust, which is the foundation upon which financial services are based on. But with digital, we've drawn further and further away from really having that emotional connection. We have the ability to connect more directly because we have more information we can access. We just don't do it. Very often. You know, it's interesting because at Chase, you drove record J.D. power results for the consumer bank. What did you actually do differently? Not strategically, but tactically, what changed on the ground? Because I know you talk a lot about that customer contact point, that place, that place of relevance, that customer service rep, that teller, whatever it is, as well as working on back office, but what did you do actually that made a big difference?

[B]

Well, let me, you know, humor me for a minute because let me tell you what record J.D. power results actually look like. Right? Because, you know, J.D. power does what it calls the retail banking study, and we're in a certain peer group for that retail banking study. And every year there's a bank that gets the recognition for the overall win, the top mark. Yeah, but that bank doesn't actually even get a J.D. power trophy or a prize. All of the prizes are given out on regional basis, right?

[A]

Yep.

[B]

And many times any. Even the bank that's the overall winner only gets, you know, to win in one region, right? Well, we, we won in four regions simultaneously.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

That, that was like totally unheard of. I don't believe it's ever been duplicated by any other financial institution. Not only did we went outright in four regions simultaneously, we were only one point off from being the number one in two other regions and two points off from being yet again number one in a couple more regions. So, I mean, it was a super strong, you know, performance. And what's more is the year before that, we were again, the only financial institution that won simultaneously in two regions. So we've been able to, you know, put that type of a performance on the board which, which other, you know, financial institutions haven't been able to do. And I'll say one more thing. The Chase footprint is such that it competes against a much broader cross section of the country than, you know, some of the companies who might have wound up as the overall number one because they're in just like a small space while, you know, Chase was competing across the whole entire country. Now that said, what are some of the things that we did that really made a difference? Well, look, the thing, what we did was we installed very specific plays in the branches to help us move the needle. And let me tell you a little bit about some of those plays that we installed. For example, we recommitted ourselves to some non negotiable basics like giving a warm greeting, calling the customer by name, and just making sure that these things would happen every time. You know, sometimes the basics are things that people start to take for granted. And they don't focus on doing them every time. But, you know, we recommitted ourselves to the basics, right? So that was one part of it. But besides that, we installed other kinds of plays. Like a play that made every customer feel like they were being welcomed into someone's home when they came into the branch. Now, let me give you an illustration of something. Imagine coming into a branch, standing in a line, you know, waiting to figure out, you know, who's going to help you or what. You know, so far, nobody in the branch knows why you actually came in. Now, you look to your left, you see people sitting in offices don't look like they're occupied. You look to your right, you see people sitting in offices don't look like you're. They're occupied. And here you are, you're standing in the line, right? Well, look, some of those people, you know, are licensed bankers. And maybe the thing that you need to do, they can't actually even help you with. But here's what they can do. They can engage you. They can figure out why you're there. They can tell you something about, you know, what, what this wait is going to be like and help you to manage the wait time. And so we put plays in that actually, you know, rallied those people so that no one would feel like they were ignored, if you will. I mean, think about going to a restaurant where you're sitting at a table just waiting and waiting and waiting for somebody to come and even talk to you. Well, sometimes people coming into branches felt like that, but we made sure that didn't happen anymore. We also installed plays to recover and experience when, whenever the banker serving a customer felt like, you know what, this experience was not a 10. And so that that banker had a way to engage the branch manager to get involved, to help recover that experience. Right? So, so we had, you know, some stuff in place for recovering experiences. And then we actually elevated very much the employee recognition because we had some service standards that, you know, our bankers were to execute on an ongoing basis in experiences with customers. And we stepped up recognition for bankers delivering against those service standards. And that employee recognition could be given by managers, but it could also be given peer to peer. Right? And so that in itself rallied people to focus. And even part of our commitment to those basics, it was all in there. And so that stuff really helped. And then I'll just give one more. And that way we installed plays around staffing to ensure that we were optimized for whatever the traffic was in the bank but especially for those times that were the more busy times, the more busy days, the special times in the year and all those kinds of things. So we installed plays around just optimizing staffing. And then there were also plays around some of the outreach that I've been talking about around key life moments and stuff like that, that we would be reaching out to customers without waiting for them to come in and talk to us.

[A]

You know, it's interesting. What you really are getting down to is at Chase, they measured everything for performance, that basically you set standards. Said, by the way, this is what you must do to at least hit the bench, the baseline. What's also interesting when you think about it is Chase is a huge company. It is, you know, to manage all those elements and where people sometimes come in and we talked about this, that a lot of times people come in, the reason they come into the branch is they have a problem. So you're starting from a negative position and you're trying to get to at least even or better than even. But especially in a bigger financial institution, you have the mental situation with a consumer that may say, oh God, I'm not going to get listening to this is a big bang. It's not going to be a good experience. It's not my community credit union, whatever it may be. So you're really working against the grain. You're almost, you know, that salmon swimming upstream going, you know, the stream's working against me, but I'm going to over perform that. Which says a lot about Chase, that an organization so big where people may have preconceived notions that you're breaking against that. You also talk about those life moments. And one of the things that we talked about when we were together was that, you know, we're talking more and more about trying to give proactive service or anticipatory play or, you know, going beyond simply doing the transaction and especially with AI and all the tools we have at our disposal. Now a lot of financial institutions are saying, I want to offer customers opportunities before they would even know they need it. So how many organizations that you know in the banking world are actually doing that? And what has to change organizationally to actually get there, where you're moving from follow up in the rearview mirror to the gps of financial services?

[B]

Well, let me start by saying that what needs to change I don't think is organizational. I think it has more to do with mindset. I think it has more to do culturally to pursue those things rather than just organizationally. Because if the institution has a cultural commitment to pursue those things, then they're going to get it right and they're going to get it done. Now, when it gets right down to it, I think that among the businesses and institutions that serve the public, probably none has more opportunity to give customers what they want before they know they need it than banks do. Because a lot of times customers just don't know what they need from a financial perspective, because financial literacy is just one of those things that as a nation, we're pretty bad at. Right? And so people don't understand basic things like, you know, like how credit scores actually affect them and how a poor credit. Credit score can be much costlier than they ever realize. Right. But we know what their credit scores are. You know, the banks do. Right. You know, we, we know that, you know, things about, you know, saving for college and what it takes to get a mortgage and all the. There's so much information that banks that their customers don't even know that they need. And so banks should really be on a tear to give their customers what they want before they know they even need it, because there's a lot of things that banks know that their customers need that their customers don't know that they need. Right. But. And look, they have the foundational elements within their systems that enabled them to tap into those things. Now, you know, let me tell you, before AI, one of the biggest problems was trying to figure out how to get, like, a consolidated view of the customer and all of those kinds of things. Right? But. And you know, one of the big problems that a bank could have is that the same customer could be, you know, represented different ways in different and all of those kinds of things. But with some of the extraordinary capabilities of AI, AI can deconflict some of those disparities between how customers are represented and identify that Marble Brown and BA Marble Brown are the same person. Now, we can have queries where AI can go out, pull all these different systems and create some. A consolidated view of the customer without necessarily having to create this massive data warehouse that has everything in it. I'm not saying that those things are not worthwhile to do, but there are some shorter cuts that we can take these days and begin to develop a picture of the customer that gives the bank the opportunity to tap into some of these things that we're talking about that are incredibly important in terms of engaging with them on, you know, life moments and just things that they need before they know, you know, things that they want before they even know that they need it. Right? And even look, we could go back to our customers these days and say the pattern in your account says you're going to overdraft, right? And so give that person a heads up maybe a couple of days before or a day before. So if they need to make transfers, they can do those transfers, right? And so there's things like that that, that banks can do now. And I think it has a lot to do with the mindset, right, of giving customers what they want before they know they need it. And I gotta tell you, when you think about some of the tenants of customer obsession, that's one of the really important ones.

[A]

Well, you know, Marbu, it's interesting. Even those signals that we give out that a customer may not realize a bank can access. For instance, my son is starting to toy around with buying his first house. He put something online that answered a couple questions digitally. And immediately he said, oh my gosh, it's almost like it happened instantaneously. He started having texts from institution after institution after institution saying they're going to offer them rates. Most of them were mortgage companies and not traditional financial institutions, but our traditional financial institutions taking that opportunity to find out about what that customer's mindset is and more importantly, are they sharing it across the organization so that a teller may be able to mention, a customer service rep on the phone may be able to mention it. Another one is when you go and test drive a car, your first car, you test drive on a search that hits the credit bureau because organizations want to make sure that they can trust you to take that car off the lot. Well, that is something that's retrievable, that doesn't hurt your credit rating. But how much more powerful would it be if a financial institution reached out to you and said, by the way, if you happen to be looking for a car, we have new car rates and we'd like to offer you a special one. Since you've been a customer of ours for a while, we can pre approve you for a car loan. And the customer's going to go. The customer knows now that we have all these feelers everywhere that we can access. They want you to take advantage of it, but most don't. So what happens is it's not even those things that the customer doesn't know they're doing, it's those that know they're doing, but they expect you to possibly figure that out on your behalf. There's so many opportunities that there are to show illustrate that your customer is obsessed. I mean, it's not that hard Sometimes, yeah.

[B]

And if I even think about your son's case, one of the questions that comes to mind is with all the people who are reaching out to you, was his primary bank one of the folks that reached out to him? Especially if that primary bank does have a mortgage lending arm. Right, right. In, in, you know, so, but there, there may have already been in his account or accounts some telltale signs that, you know, he's leading up to buying a house. Right. You know, and there could be a number of different things, you know, stage of life. I mean, all of these different things.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Embedded. Embedded in our accounts. Right. And so, you know, there, there are opportunities for financial institutions to tap into these things. Right. And give customers what they want before they know they need it. Right.

[A]

Well, and actually going a different direction than everybody else is going, saying, you know, if you're saving for a house, we have some savings, short term savings plan that can help you earn extra interest during this. There's, there's all kinds of messages, or by the way, we can help you pay down your credit cards so that you'll even get a higher, maybe a better down payment, but more importantly a better rate because your credit rating will be better. We, we have, there's so many tools that go against the grain of what every, you know, he has 40 different mortgage companies, then he has one that says, we can help you save for a mortgage. And all of a sudden that, that's, that's a different, a different tone there. And there's only one organization that did that. You know, banking has the loyalty problem. You know, at Chase, wherever it is, we've seen that Chime is getting more and more customers and there's high switching costs. You know, people don't necessarily close an account in order to open another one. And so the high switching costs can give you a false sense of loyalty. When this customer may have eight institutions that they're working with and you're not, you're no longer the primary, even though you may have the checking account. So how do you tell the difference between customers to stay because they want to and customers just stay because they have to?

[B]

Well, look, I think one of the things that we need to understand right now is that attrition is often partial instead of complete. Right. And so, you know, that's one of the things that, you know, banks should always be aware of, that attrition is often partial instead of complete. So for illustration's sake, maybe you have a checking account, right? Maybe you have all the bill pay, you know, relationships in place and everything like that. So maybe for that customer to change from you to another bank, you know, they have to redo all of that sort of stuff, and they don't really care to do it. But if you monitor outflows for transfers to other financial institutions, that might very well signal that, you know, your customer is choosing other financial institutions, right. To do some of the things that you would rather have them be doing with you. And that's kind of like, it gives you an idea that, look, these outflows are telling you that your, your, your customer is working with other financial institutions on, on some of these things. So that's one kind of a thing you can focus on. You can also monitor the decline in frequency of transactions. You know, that, that your customers are doing with you. That's going to be another telltale sign that you've got something going on in, in terms of attrition, right? Because that means that they're probably doing those transactions somewhere else, you know. But that said, I think probably more importantly than waiting to find out whether your customer feels stuck, banks should embrace this whole idea of dating their customer. And, and I kind of alluded to this a little bit earlier. Why, why do I call it dating your customer? Customers come, they set up an account, you know, nothing, you know, if something doesn't go wrong, you know, it's just there. You, you know, the customer's doing their thing and, you know, it's kind of like the old not so funny joke where, you know, the husband tells the wife, and I told you I love you 10 years ago. If anything changes, I'll let you know. Right. Well, you know, that's kind of like the relationship that a lot of banks have, have with their customers. Right. You know, it's just an account on autopilot. Well, if you're not dating your customer, okay, you're going to have some problems because somebody else is trying to date your customer. I mean, like, you know, that, that, that's exactly. Somebody always is trying to date your customer, and they're always looking for ways to woo them and to bring them somewhere else. Well, you, the bank, need to be wooing your customer, you know, and not just have everything on autopilot. And so that's why it's so essential to tap into some of these things that we've talked about earlier in this conversation that you can't just, you know, allow your customer to be on autopilot. You got to be doing some of this proactive outreach. And look, there's different accounts with different Priorities and all that sort of stuff. Right? And so, you know, maybe there's some people that you be, you need to be reaching out to quarterly, maybe there's some people that you need to be reaching out to semiannually and some annually and maybe some of them less. But the bottom line is you got to understand what that frequency is. You got to tap into it. You got to be intentional about it. That's what you've got to do. You've got to date your customer. Because if you don't, somebody else is going to date your customer and you're going to find them cheating on you.

[A]

I like that analogy. Let's take a short break here and recognize the sponsor of this podcast. We'd like to thank our sponsor, Microsoft. See how Microsoft can help unlock new opportunities to at speed and scale through innovative business processes, delivering differentiated customer experiences across channels, innovating new products and services, and redefining new ways of thinking. Find out [e-mail] financial services. You know, we talked about this week because we were at a branch development ideation program and you mentioned that branch plus digital actually gives you 30 to 70% more revenue than branch alone and 20 to 40% more than digital loan. When you put in the framework of obsession, how do you make it so that digital can show you're obsessed with the consumer as well as the brands can and vice versa. How do you do that at Chase? Because every idea you shared up to this point, it really doesn't matter. If you're a small organization or a big organization, you have the ability to punch above your weight. If you're small, you have to invest it in if you're large. But none of the ideas you've shared are massively unattainable by any organization of any size. But when you're looking at different channels, how do you make them so that they actually show the obsession across channels?

[B]

Okay, so let me start by saying that this is not just a Chase view. This is a bigger view than that. When it gets right down to it, these two things have to work together in tandem. Branch and digital have to work together in tandem. And I'll give you an example of something. When people come into the branch, there are some transactions that are probably better done digitally. Now, some customers may be afraid to make that leap or haven't made the leap, but if the folks in the branch can kind of like, you know, almost wind them up and let them go, they will be able to make that leap. Right? But those folks in the branch have to be knowledgeable about the app. They have to have the app loaded themselves, they have to use the app, they have to know all of the nuances of the app so that they can be able to coach the customer in using the app. That's part of that linkage between branch and digital. But then there's also things from a digital perspective that can assist the folks in the branch to work with the customers or for that matter, on the phone. Look, one of the areas that AI has made a big difference is let's take the contact center. In the contact center, a lot of times agents had to navigate 5, 6, 7 screens just to be able to answer a single question for a customer. Now, AI can pull all of those different places that they would have had to go and bring that to the forefront populated for them, so they can use that information to assist the customer in real time. Well, think about a customer coming into to the branch, customer dealing with somebody in the teller line or transaction line. A company like Chase doesn't do tellers anymore, associate bankers. But if they're in that transaction line or even if they're dealing with a banker, a lot of information about that customer can be pulled from different sources and brought to bear so that that person can be knowledgeable about the customer's relationship with the bank. That person can be knowledgeable about the person's, you know, life situation and things like that so that they can be able to talk to that customer very intelligently at the time. That's digital combining with the physical, right? Yeah, so, so there are a number of these different kinds of things. I'll give you another example. You know, when you want to navigate an app. Right. A lot of times discoverability is a big deal about what you can or can't do within a digital context. But now with AI, a lot of times we can just use a voice interface. We can talk to the app, we can talk to the website, whatever it is. Right. We can talk to it and it can find out for us what we need to do. Right. If it's even possible in that particular scenario. And let me tell you this one thing. You know, one of the most important things from a digital perspective. You remember intel inside?

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

You know, the branding.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

The, the stickers on, you know, Windows computers that would say intel inside. And was telling you there's there's an intel chip inside this computer. Right. Well, let me tell you, in this AI age, we, we almost need to have a sticker that says human inside. Right. And what I mean by that is that that the person who has designed that automation, they have sweated the details to make sure that when a customer engages with this thing, it feels like there is a human inside. When you bring those kinds of things together, then the power of the physical and the digital, that combo, it explodes.

[A]

It's interesting you referenced the fact that you need to empower your employees with data, with insights, make it so that we share what's needed to be shared across channels. But even more importantly in that human aspect going, let's not leave these branches people without any of the information we have internally when they're trying to serve people in the same aspect. Ritz Carlton's always been brought up as the example that employees are able to do things out of what would normally be the, the policies. They not only walk you to where they want you to go as opposed to pointing someplace, but they also have a pretty good bank account that if something has to be made right, if a customer said this didn't work out, this didn't work out, they make it right. What is the thing you could do in a financial institution to show the employees you trust them and that you want to have the ability to be obsessed for the customer?

[B]

So, so let me start by saying, you know, like ritz has the $2,000 per lady or gentleman per, you know, customer incident to recover.

[A]

Well, it's funny, that used to be 500. So I go back a long way,

[B]

you know, but. And they have that. And look, I don't know that that banks could do a one for one kind of a thing like that, because banks have this fiduciary responsibility for their customers. And even though, look at rich people never, hardly ever use.

[A]

Right. They're afraid to, you're right, they're free to.

[B]

And in the end, it delivers more value for the company than what it costs them to put that in place. But let me say this. Look, banks need to give employees broad authority to make something right when it goes wrong. As long as those companies, as long as those employees do not run afoul of regulatory requirements, as long as they stay in compliance. Right? And I think that's the biggest challenge that banks have. That why they don't give their employees, you know, more authority is because of regulatory issues. And so, you know, probably the simplest way to deal with that is to just not give them the authority. The flip side of the story, though, is if you have those folks practice in the knowledge of what those things are, and you have great examples for them that demonstrate to them how far they can go without running a follow of those. Then you give them the type of authority that they need. But let's think about where do things go wrong? And I'll give you one or two examples of big places where things go wrong. Overdraft, one of the things you just talked about, right. You know, banks get more complaints about overdraft than anything else. And so giving their employees authority to make something right when something goes wrong in that space, that's a great scenario where they could do that. And that may have to do with maybe your policy says, you know, I charge you so much and I charge you so many times per day for that much. But what if you have a bigger relationship with the bank? What if besides your account, the one that's overdrawn, you have other accounts? Maybe you have accounts that have millions of dollars in them and you have this one account where, you know, something went wrong and your account got overdrawn and, you know, we charged you all these fees, right? Well, you know, now giving, you know, employees authority to waive those fees, even though that's not the normal policy, that might be a big deal in that type of a situation because it recognizes your greater relationship with the bank. Right? I mean, if we, if you have cards with us and you have like an impeccable payment history with your cards and you know, your, your, your account gets overdrawn once or something like that, maybe on this day, there's three checks that hit. Well, it's all about risk. Well, I know you in this bigger context. In fact, what would be even better yet? It would be even better yet in this day of AI, where you've got stuff monitoring what's going on and the digital looks at your greater relationship with and just waves those fees because we know you and our greater relationship with you says you're going to pony up, and we're not worried about that. Right? So. So there's things like these, you know, that, that banks can put in place, you know, to give their employees more authority.

[A]

Well, it's, it's trusting your employees and also putting things in perspective. Everything you're bringing up, one commercial loan that goes south is going to have a much bigger financial impact than an entire branch system. A number of things you'd have waived. In addition, we have ways to track everything nowadays. So if you find some employee overusing that authority, what you do is you don't stop them. You say, hey, you know, we got to be more conscious of what we're doing. You're being very generous we appreciate, we know your mentality is good, but we just is going a little bit out of the way. And if they correct it, then everything's good. And what's amazing is how much we tend to give signals that we don't trust the employee. We don't trust the employee of how many days they're gonna work if they have a flex schedule. We don't trust the employee for amount of money they can possibly spend. And then you look at a rich and you go number one, it starts with hiring and then it gets into using data to trust your employee, you know?

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

Finally, Marbu, my final question is the question I gave you at the conference you were at and I thought it was a good question. I'm gonna do it again because not everybody that's listening to the podcast was there. If I wanna have an employee or a management team, a leadership team, do something on Monday that's gonna change their organization's perception and their employees perception that we're moving from customer centric to customer obsessed, what's the one thing they could do?

[B]

Well, look, let's go back to that policy question that we started with at the beginning. And if we go back to that policy, we had those three questions at the beginning. And I think that companies need to go back and review their policies and really look at those three pieces. One, do you have any policy that's so customer friendly, you know, that your employees, your competitors and your customers alike will do a double take because the policy is so customer friendly.

[A]

So good.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, so good. Right. Do you have any policy like that? You need to go check yourself for that. Number two, do you have any policies that you know, on face value, I mean, customers find it objectionable and you can tell that because your employees want to distance themselves from those policies. Right? That's the second one. The third one is, do you as a company adopt policies, take actions and make investments in the customer's favor, even when you cannot immediately connect the dots to your own financial benefit? And you do that because, you know, it always pans out in the end when you take the position that if it's good for the customer, it's good for business. Right. And again, I'm not saying we give away the store. Okay. But that generally holds that folks who have bet on the customer, they've never lost that bet.

[A]

Marbu, thank you so much. I don't think we've had a guest on that. I remember that gave so many tangible examples of ways that a financial institution can change from being customer Centric to customer obsessed. You gave a lesson in customer obsession here. Can you do a little promo for your book again? How can people get your book?

[B]

Well, people can get my book on Amazon.

[C]

Again.

[B]

The name of the book is Blueprint for Customer Obsession. And you know, the things that I've talked about, you'll find it in the book. The book is filled with examples, just like the kind of examples I've been given. But there's a whole lot more in the book. I mean, like, for example, we have the customer obsession continuum covered in the book that lays out like the five levels all the way from customer indifferent to customer obsessed. We've got a lot of other things in the book and even, you know, these types of questions that companies can use to, to jumpstart, you know, their own customer obsession journey. So you can find it on Amazon, but pretty much anywhere books are sold and you can get it in, you know, both paperback or you can get it in, you know, like digital format. So there, there's, there's a lot of ways to get it. And you know, people want to get ahold of me. They can catch up with me on LinkedIn or they can come to my website, which is customerobsession.net great job.net customerobsession.net

[A]

Marbu thank you so much. We are going to have you on the show again to get some updates because as we know, the things are changing so much in the industry. The ways to get and stay customer obsessed is not a given. You know, we didn't get into it on this show, but we talked about, there are some companies that people would have one time said they were customer obsessed, that it's not quite as high of a rating anymore. So you have to keep on, you have to keep on managing it. It's not a, it's not a foregone conclusion that once you hit that goal, you've, you've got it forever now. You, you got to, you got to keep on focusing and making that a mission. And we, we talked about, a lot of companies have done a good job. We talked about companies that have done a terrible job of letting some of that obsession go and realizing that the customer's perception of being obsessed continues to increase. It takes, you know, as more and more organizations do better customer expect more. And you know, that you mentioned customer indifference. That's not a good, that's not a good place to be. Just because you're not, just because you're not pissing off the customer doesn't mean you're doing okay. It just means you're, you're. You know, just because you don't have rats in the restaurant doesn't make it a good restaurant. So now thank you very much for your time. Marvu.

[B]

Thank you so much and I look forward to future discussions.

[A]

Thanks for listening to Banking Transform, the winner of three international awards for podcast excellence. If you enjoy what we're doing, we would really enjoy a positive review. Also, check out my recent articles in the financial brand, the research we're doing for the digital brand Banking Report this been a production of Evergreen Podcast. A special thank you to our senior producer Leah Haslidge, audio engineer Chris Sofalas, and video producer Will Pritz.

[C]

Have you ever wondered why songs on the radio are popular? Why do certain movies get made even though the premise seems completely random? Why are concert tickets costing you $3,000 but nobody makes any money touring? Well, on my podcast, Breaking down the Biz, we answer all those questions and more. I'm Seth Schachner. I have over two decades of experience in the entertainment and the music industry, and every week I talk to insiders that lend insight and expertise on the media you know and love past, present and future. Subscribe now on your favorite podcasting platform or watch us on YouTube so you never miss a beat. Let's make sense of this industry together.