Over the past three years, Scotiabank has taken on the very difficult task of changing the core strategy behind its interactions with customers. It’s embraced the right-time, right-channel philosophy of the digital age, both in online banking and in its more traditional customer touchpoints, like branches and contact centres. Its new customer experience strategy is all about real-time relevance, both on and offline.
Tim Morris, VP of a relatively new department within Scotiabank called “customer interaction management,” is spearheading the ongoing effort. At a talk last week at the SAS Global Forum in Dallas, he outlined the bank’s goals and strategy.
Scotiabank has historically only targeted marketing campaigns at the top 10% of its customers, and it’s been primarily focused on presenting a large volume of product offers to get those high-value customers interested, Morris explained. Now, however, it’s starting to have data-led conversations with its entire customer base.
“We are moving towards a tailored interaction for every customer,” he said. “This is a critical step, and a huge transformation for us, not just for our models and leads, but for how we are interacting with our customers and how we’re structured.”
The new strategy is all about using data to determine each individual customer’s “next best activity,” and get that information into the hands of frontline staff in time for them to act on it. Morris gave the hypothetical example of a customer, Angie, who logged onto Scotiabank’s online banking services looking for information about travel insurance for an upcoming trip.
While on Scotiabank’s site, she sees an offer to increase her temporary credit limit, which she decides to take since she thinks it will be useful while she’s away. She signs off without committing to any of the travel insurance options available.
Later that afternoon she drops into her local branch to pick up currency for the trip, and is approached by her advisor. Knowing she’s signed up for increased credit, and that she’s there to get currency, the advisor puts two and two together and asks her if she’s looking for travel insurance.
“What we’re achieving here is obviously a better customer experience,” Morris said. “Offers are being recalibrated in real-time based on the customer’s actions, and at the branch the offers and solutions are presented in a timely and relevant manner. It’s not intrusive for the customer, and it aligns with what they’re trying to get done.”
Morris said the project has been challenging. The bank’s alignment around products and high-value customers is deeply entrenched, both at the structural level and the way staff approaches customer engagement. The strategy has involved not just new technology, but wide-reaching retraining and restructuring.
For example, one of the tactical changes Scotiabank is working on is integrating relevant offers into its contact centre interactions. That’s a difficult change for long-time contact centre workers who’ve never recommended anything before.
“Those groups have been primarily service, one-and-done kind of institutions, but in the future we’re going to say ‘look, you know a lot about our customers. These are the interactions we are expecting you to deliver in an informed kind of way, we need you to introduce those into conversations you’re having,'” Morris explained.
“It’s a new element that requires a great deal of personal finesse to introduce into a conversation,” he said. “It’s a pretty significant change management consideration for us. Not everyone is equipped to do that very well.”
The changes at the organizational level reflect a major overhaul of Scotiabank’s customer intelligence infrastructure. Morris said going into the reorg, Scotiabank had 39 different systems that kept customer interaction histories. In order to properly use that data, it all had to be integrated across channels, and then made available to frontline employees before and during their interactions with customers.
“Those employees that had to deal with the customer had no way of accessing that insight, so you can imagine the customer experience, as well as the employee experience, was challenging at times,” he said. “We wanted to ensure that our customers didn’t have to tell their stories to us three, four or five times.”
Other banks are adopting similar data-driven customer service strategies, but Morris said Scotiabank’s is much more focused on the long-term contribution to the bottom line than some of its competitors, who are looking at implementing right-time recommendations in isolated channels, primarily online.
“I would suggest the approach we’re taking is fraught with more risk,” he said. “However it is more of an advantage for us in the long-term having a broad-channel deployment for next best activities, so we can truly optimize across the entire organization.”
