This article is a perfect follow up to my recent article on the importance of customer experience and perception. It is a summary of an interview conducted by David Martin of Julie Mayrant, the dynamic, ever-vivacious leader of Woodforest’s consumer bank.
Woodforest’s roots are in consumer banking. It has over 740 branches in 17 states, mostly located inside Walmart and catering primarily to America’s working class. While much has been written about the importance of CX to the high end of the customer spectrum, not much has been done or contemplated for the mass market. Julie’s insights are valuable here.
What follows below are excerpts from the interview:
Julie Mayrant is the President and Chief Retail Officer of Wood Forest National Bank. She is celebrating 28 years there and started as the first in-store manager. You can find out more about this unique, privately owned (partly by the company’s large ESOP) bank online. The excerpts shared herein are specifically about her vision and execution of the CX at the bank.
First wisdom from Julie: From day one, we got to hire the Right leader to lead the entrepreneurial branches with a business owner mentality. That is … how we built the business. There are a lot of folks out there who aren’t necessarily Bankers, but you may know big box retailers who are owners or have the thought process of owning a particular business unit. So that’s how we’ve garnered the level of Engagement through how we’re structured.
“Our branch manager is the driving force of that particular business unit. Then, we have the supporting cast of characters, market managers, and regional managers who support our leadership on the front line to build their businesses, which then rolls up to the Big Kahuna”. AB: Sounds reasonable, but too few of us stick to this principle when we’re hiring.
“When we entered the business, we knew that it wasn’t about being a retail bank; it was about being a retailer. With that, we … view our business as somebody in a store with many different visual attention-grabbing marketing strategies around us. As a business owner and, again, the branch manager, how do we leverage that in the store? We’ve given a lot of autonomy back to our branch manager to make those decisions.” AB: This is counterintuitive to many of us who strive for a seamlessly consistent experience throughout the franchise. While that’s a noble goal, it is also key to give the manager an opportunity to use their creativity and local know-how to optimize their resources and make a mark unique to their community. Woodforest realized this, and eventually created the Woodforest experience.
The Woodforest Experience is a playbook given to our branch managers. It’s goal is to shareware has worked in the past in different markets, with data behind it. This playbook still leaves room for each branch manager to shape their own branch, as Management asks each branch manager annually, “Tell me how you will build it and what your goals are, then execute it.
“Our job”, says Julie, “is to provide as many tools as possible for their success.” Balancing the digital aspect with the human element can be challenging, though. “The digital experience is almost like a table steak. I think it’s the customers now who have to appreciate the actual conversation. So that’s how we’re positioning it. We provide all the digital bells and whistles and encourage our bankers to engage in the digital world by enrolling our customers. It’s part of what they do every day.
You encourage it by not fighting it. We have to be the Best in Class layer in the human connection, and that’s a competitive advantage.”
It is challenging to ensure that the human aspect of the relationship is optimized. “We have coaching. We have the best practices that market and branch managers utilize daily. We have the huddle is a daily huddle each morning. That’s where we connect, and it’s fun, too. Often, our market manager and regional managers will dial in and go into the Huddle remotely with our teams in the field to set out the expectations for the day.
Also, there is the expectation of a one-on-one conversation with managers every month. So, every branch manager makes time to sit with their one-up supervisor to talk about their business and have a coaching opportunity. We also have field observation to ensure we give the managers the best fact-based feedback possible.”
AB: Many of you have the same processes in your bank. The key here is the framework and vision behind the activities. At Woodforest, the customer chooses where, when and how they interact with the bank. Digital engagement is fully available, and the human engagement strives to be the highest value-add of the interactions options.
Another challenge the Woodforest team faces daily is the type of customers and prospects they interact with. At a traditional branch, most customers have already banked with the branch, or are looking to start a relationship. At. Walmart, there is traffic of untapped prospects, which is a great opportunity, but the interaction with them is quite different from that of a motivated buyer who enters a traditional branch.
Julie says: “It is more complicated than ever to have those conversations (AB: with non-customers) and get a prospect to sit down and have that conversation, which may lead to opening a new relationship with the bank. We’ve come to realize that success rarely happens the first time you have a conversation; it’s probably the 6th, 7th, 8th time that you see that prospect before they’re going to sit down. Consistency is what’s going on to win the game. And so that’s what we talk about a lot.”
Woodforest has turnover that resembles industry statistics. And yet, Julie believes that the ownership story and the community bank approach resonate with the workforce today.
“Our team is so resilient and keeps going after it”, says Julie. And I say, it all starts at the top. It starts with the founder and CEO of our holding company, who gave the team the space and encouragement to be innovative while answering the question, “How do we do it differently than the other bank down the street?
Julie: “A story I love to tell, and it’s still something that we do today, is that I remember serving customers, and our deposit cut-off time was 2:00 when I joined the bank. Well, that meant customers when they got off work at 5:00, 5:30, or 6:00, and then they came to our branch and made a deposit; for example, it was the next day’s business. So they could only access the money the following day. I brought that back to our management team and said we must consider this. So we now have our cutoff time at 8:00 p.m. 7 days a week, including holidays. The experience for our customers is the same every single day. That’s innovative, but many financial institutions still don’t operate that way. The mindset early on, is how do we look more like a retailer than a retail bank and think about our audience: who are our shoppers, who is coming in for convenience and who for excellence and service? We also focus on removing obstacle while creating differentiation, as described in this example”.
The constant questioning “How do we think differently? How do we try to model what our retailer does in many ways? And how do we use technology to drive those changes?” Is something many of us profess we have, but not enough of us execute on. Woodforest has committed to making this mindset a reality, and continues to strive to get there.
AB: This is particularly important when the bank’s target market is also the target market for many challenger banks who are using technology to reduce customer handling costs and increase yields on customers’ dollars. Woodforest continues to invest in technology as we all do, an their North Star is: converting non-value-add customer interaction time to conversations that add value to the customer and to the banker.
In sum, none of what you read thus far is revolutionary; it may not even be news. Our business isn’t that complicated unless we choose to make it so… The key to success is to marshall all your resources toward a unifying vision, a single direction, and to continue refining your execution across the entire team, the whole technology stack, and the continuous improvement path. That focus will yield a better customer experience and a happier workforce – a winning combination!