Latest / Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360 / #411: Loyalty360 Executive Spotlight: John Sellers, Bank of America

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#411: Loyalty360 Executive Spotlight: John Sellers, Bank of America · Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Good afternoon, good morning.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: It's Mark Johnson from Loyalty360.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: I hope everyone's happy, safe and well.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Today we are kicking off a new interview series.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: It's our Loyalty360 Executive Spotlight.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: These conversations will be with some of the leading minds and personalities in customer loyalty.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: They are driving success within some of the most revered and successful customer loyalty programs in the market today, all of whom are members of Loyalty360.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: In this series, you'll learn more about these individuals who are working behind the scenes to develop and maintain their customer loyalty efforts.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Yet we'll take a more personal look at how they got to where they are today, their successes, some life lessons and the challenges they have faced along the way.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Today in our inaugural interview, we have John Sellers.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: John is the head of rewards at Bank of America and John was recently recognized as a champion of customer loyalty at our 2024 Loyalty Expo.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: This special recognition is presented to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the customer loyalty and customer experience industry.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: So thank you, john, for taking the time to speak with us today.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: How are you?
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: I'm great, mark, Glad to be here.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you very much, looking forward to the conversation, as always.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: First off, for those who may not know, can you give us a little bit of background of you and your focus at Bank of America?
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Can you give us a little bit of a background of you and your focus at Bank of America?
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely so.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: My role at Bank of America is I'm head of loyalty and rewards and really you can think of that as sort of three different swim lanes.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: First I'm head of our relationship rewards program, which is called Preferred Rewards.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: We have about 11 million members.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: They carry $1.7 trillion in assets.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: We give them about $4 billion back in client value annually.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: That's about $500 per member per year.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: The second swim lane is really around credit card rewards redemption.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: Here you can think of this as anything that has to do with our points or cash dollars, et cetera, and how clients clients use those, whether it's for cash, putting it into their 529 account, brokerage account, etc.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: Using it for travel, for amazon purchases, etc.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: We do about 50 million uh redemptions in a given year and we give about five billion dollars back in client value.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: And the last swim lane is really around merchant rewards, and here these are offers.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Many of those are card-linked offers.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: We have about 45 million clients that are eligible for those offers and we're giving back about $30 million annually to our clients there.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Okay when you look at today's marketing customer loyalty efforts.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Everyone's focused on understanding, meeting customers' expectations.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: How does Bank of America work to meet the evolving needs of your customers?
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, really, I guess the purpose of Bank of America is really to make our clients' financial lives better, and we really do that through our strategy, our high-tech and high-touch strategy.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: So from a high-tech perspective, it's all about personal convenience.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: You know, 77% of our households are actually digitally active over 58 million digital users.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: We have over a billion logins each month right, and we have award-winning capabilities.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: And to complement that, we have this high touch strategy, which is really about personal guidance, and we have 3,800 financial centers right With tons of specialists.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: So if you need a banking specialist, an investment specialist, a small business specialist, a loan specialist, et cetera, we're there to handle your more complex needs.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: So that's sort of how we handle our strategy overall.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Excellent.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: And how does the customer loyalty program fit into?
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: You know meeting these expectations.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, the customer loyalty program really reinforces the values that Bank of America brings and encourages our clients to do more business.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: That relationship loyalty program I talked about.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Those are really our best clients.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: That cohort of about 11 million hold roughly about 80% of our deposits.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: We want to continue to reward them for their loyalty.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: That's why that client value that I talk about is so important.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: So it encourages them to do more business with us right, and makes them have stickier relationships.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: And this is really important when you're talking about clients with over $100,000 in assets with us on average.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, in your opinion, what is the single biggest factor that influences a great customer experience?
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you know.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Just to hit on again from loyalty lens, I think that client value is really important.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: You know clients want rewards that they can actually use.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: You know they want to save money or they want access to something that they wouldn't otherwise have.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: And if clients feel like they're getting a good value, well they're going to respond with, you know, behaviors that we want.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: They're going to do more business with us, they're going to bring more assets, et cetera.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: And I think really important to that too, that client value is having transparency into that.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: So you know clients aren't sitting there with a calculator sort of adding up all the value they're getting.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: So it's important for us to remind the clients, you know, in certain touch points and we do that, you know, through a variety of ways, whether it's on their statement or whether through it's our digital capabilities with our MyRewards or one-stop shop for everything with rewards in our digital ecosystem, through year-end summary videos or quarterly dashboards just reinforcing that value with our clients.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, I know you played college soccer.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: Obviously it was a great experience.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: From what you told, how did that experience playing college soccer translate into your work and professional life playing?
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: college soccer and translate into your work and professional life.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah well, I definitely enjoyed my college experience in playing soccer.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: It was a big part of my life.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: I think you know just the.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: I think in college, really what a key thing is is time management and being able to juggle my studies as well as a Division I.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: Sport was, you know, was something a life lesson for me.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: I also just think in terms of, you know, preparation, being prepared, commitment, teamwork, getting along with all different types of personalities All those things were important for me and I learned a lot of that through sports.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Excellent.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: What was your first job after college?
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: What did you learn your after college?
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: What did you learn your first job?
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: What did you like?
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, my first job was working at MB&A MB&A America which was a credit card bank.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: I started as a credit underwriter, did that for a little bit and got into a management development program which really took me to all aspects, all areas of the company, and that's where I really started to enjoy what I was doing.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Eventually, bank of America actually purchased or acquired MB&A, and I'm still here.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Excellent.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Looking back throughout your career, what's the best piece of work advice you've ever been given?
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's how you think is everything.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: I think thinking really drives everything in your life, both professionally and personally.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: I think having a positive mindset, a positive attitude, a can-do attitude, somebody that's optimistic glass is half full.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: It's certainly contagious, it's inspiring.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: People want to be around other people like that.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: So I think that's the most important advice or piece of advice that I ever got.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Okay, you know what life lessons have shaped your perspective.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, certainly, I think my relationship with my dad my dad was a business professional for a long time was very successful.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: His hard work, his commitment, his loyalty, I think helped shape me.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: As I mentioned sports, just preparation and commitment I think being a husband and being married for 28 years and a father of three has taught me a lot of things Patience, compromise, self-control, you know really knowing what's important at the end of the day.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: And I also think, being a manager, you know being a manager of people and you know learning to listen more, learning how to communicate effectively with all types of individuals and also the importance of just building relationships.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: So I think all those factors have helped shape me.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, when you look at your career successes obviously you've had a number of them.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: You know what are a couple of things that you're most proud of.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: Wow, good question, I think from a career perspective, certainly, our loyalty program has been.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: You know what I've been doing for the last 10 years and how we've built it to be one of the largest financial loyalty programs out there.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: One of the largest financial loyalty programs out there.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: And the fact that you know it's really a core part of our strategy here at Bank of America is to, you know, reward our clients for their loyalty, get them into our loyalty program, encourage them to do more business with us.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: I think also just some of the other things that I've done in my career.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: Sort of at one point I was managing our credit card portfolio from a credit risk standpoint and I managed that through the financial crises of 06, 08.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: That was a very interesting time and I had to take a lot of draconian actions.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: So I'm pretty proud of the at the way that turned out, and I think I'm just really proud of all the relationships and all the, all, the, all the people that I've met along the way.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: I think those are, you know, things that are going to last forever in my life.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Excellent If you could go back in in time and theory and change one thing about your life, one thing that happened potentially.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: What would that be and why?
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Wow, OK, good question.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: You know, I think I think if I was younger I would have taken more risks.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: I would have taken more risks, you know, when I came out of college I got a job.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: As I mentioned, I was actually playing still playing soccer as well.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: But I think, you know, moving to somewhere like New York City or moving to a large metropolitan area and sort of, you know, getting ingrained into the work, the work culture there, would have been an exciting thing to do.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: I see, you know, I see my son who just graduated a couple of years ago.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: He's in Manhattan working.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: I see my daughter who's getting ready to graduate from St Andrews in Scotland and heading to London.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: I see that, you know, I'm really excited for those guys and the opportunities that they're taking on, and so I guess I would have liked to have done that myself.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, If you could bring one great change into the workplace, you know what would that be?
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: Good question.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: Certainly, I think I would love us to be a little more nimble in the workplace, especially as it pertains to technology.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: I think you know, obviously we're a bank, we're highly regulated, you know we have to operate a little bit differently than others, but I would love to be able to move quicker, move more swiftly, move more efficiently and effectively.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: I think we're getting better, but I think we have a ways to go.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Okay, I know you like to read.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: What is a book that you've read that you'd like to recommend to business colleagues, to maybe younger team members at Bank America?
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, well, I just actually finished a book called Smart Brevity and I think that's a really good book, Recommending it to my kids for sure.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: You know, certainly it's all about getting to the point right, Telling people what they need to know right away, telling them why it's important, and then, you know, giving them the option to go deeper.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: But you know it's not mandatory if they don't want to do it, and I think that's just really important.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: You know, certainly the world continues to get more complex.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: As leaders, we get more and more information, so being able to synthesize that message and streamline it is is a really valuable yeah.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: I was just looking at it.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: I downloaded Smart Brevity a month or so ago or I purchased it.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Mike Allen, roy Schwartz, you're in it.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, downloaded that.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: I bought it a couple months ago and I started it and got distracted.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Now I was just putting it back to the top of my list in Audible.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: I have some driving this weekend for soccer with my daughter, so that's going to be the book of choice.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: So hit play and it's the top of the list.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: So thank you for that.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: I know I had it.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: So I was just so now I'll listen to that.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: So thank you for that.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Pushing that.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: So you know, we would like to know, as we do these first time we're doing these interviews, but we'd like to know from you are there some smart words of wisdom that you have for those in customer loyalty, customer experience, who may be new in developing their career that they should consider when they are looking at developing strategies and elevating the customer experience within their brand?
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Yes, certainly.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: I mean there's lots of things there Could probably talk a long time about that.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: You know, certainly, things like client value research is very key.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: One thing, though, that I would make sure you know especially somebody newer to the space is to make sure they create a measurement system right and, whatever they're doing because it's really important that they're as a you know, loyalty professional and managing a loyalty program that you can measure the success right we want to look at these things as investments, and having that measurement, that measurement system, is really important so you can measure things like incrementality, so you can use that to get buy-in from your organization.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: I know when I started out on my journey here in loyalty, that was one of the things that I had to tackle.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: You know, certainly we had put together we were putting together a rich loyalty program.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: It offered client a lot of value, but a lot of folks were dubious in terms of, you know, are we giving away too much?
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: And having that measurement system that you know is backed by, you know, quantitative expertise and you know is valid and validated by professionals professionals having that sort of measurement system and being able to show and walk people through the value that the loyalty program was bringing Bank of America was really key in terms of getting folks on the bus and continuing our evolution and growth.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: It's definitely a huge area of opportunity, a big focus of you know some things you're trying to do at Loyalty360, but having that right measurement system but, most importantly, being able to use that to talk and to elevate the discussion internally that's a big area of conversation we've heard a lot recently within the community is being able to socialize the program up and down and making sure everyone has that same commitment and obviously you won a number of awards on the employee engagement side that same commitment and obviously you won a number of awards on the employee engagement side.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: So you do a great job of you know getting the team involved and that's great to see because some brands really struggle with you know, even if they have the metrics.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: Being able to socialize internally and, you know, advocate within the team is a big challenge and you guys do with aplomb.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: So, mark, you bring up a really good point there about employee engagement, right, it's not about client engagement, and I think one of the things that we've done is we've, you know, we give our clients platinum access.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: So platinum tier access, which means we waive the $50,000 asset requirement as long as they'll open up a Bank of America checking account.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: So what we see there is, you know, 97% of our eligible associates have enrolled in the program, and that's so key because they can experience the program for themselves, they see the rich value that that they're receiving.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: You know, they can articulate that to the clients and it really just, you know, makes that conversation with our clients just that more effective, right?
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: So it's important.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Excellent.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: You and Bank of America are quite active in Loyalty360, especially over the last couple of years.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: You know what do you like about and what have you found value in the community of Loyalty360?
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: .
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you know, I think we take away things from the Loyalty360 committee or community every time we get together right or every time we're going to an event.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: We certainly love to hearize with other loyalty professionals is really key.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Building that network, having folks that you can go to and sort of run things by, is really important.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: So we we found it very valuable Right and I've gotten a lot out of it.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Excellent.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: One quick question, john If you could ask a question and I know you ask a lot, lot of questions on the calls, you know what question would you ask of someone else who's very senior, running a customer loyalty program, or so Is there something that comes to your top of mind that you would like to ask?
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: You would like to know about another's program or process.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: Well, for me, I think, the most, you know, I really enjoy the innovation aspect of loyalty, right, always thinking about what's next, and so I'm always interested in where people are taking their loyalty programs, right?
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: What are they thinking three years ahead, et cetera.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: So those are sort of the questions that I like to ask other leaders in loyalty, where they're taking their program.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: So that's of most interest to me.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Excellent.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Now we have the fun quickfire question segment where we ask those we're interviewing for a one-word or short-phrase response.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: So the first question is what is your favorite word Win?
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: What is your your favorite word Win?
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: What is your least favorite word, Lose?
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say eagles and redskins, but that's good.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: What excites you Innovation Excellent.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: And what do you find tiresome Complainers and what motivates you when tackling challenges at Bank of America.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: The art of the possible.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: There we go.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: What profession, other than the one you're currently doing, would you like to try?
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Musician, okay.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: What do you enjoy doing that you often don't get a chance to do?
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Golf trips with friends, okay.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: And who inspired you to become the person that you are today?
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: My dad, excellent.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: What do you typically think about at the end?
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: of the day, I generally think about my game plan for the next day.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: You know what I need to get done?
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: That kind of stuff.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Excellent, and how do you want to be remembered by friends and family?
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: I want to be remembered as a good person who got a lot of stuff done.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: That's awesome.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Well, john, thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us today.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: It's always a pleasure hearing from you and the team of Bank of America.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: It was great for you to join us on this first edition in this series, so looking forward to obviously hearing more about Bank of America coming up and thank you for everything that you do regarding customer loyalty.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Mark.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: Pleasure to be here.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: Appreciate all you guys do at Loyalty360.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Thank you Absolutely, and thank you everyone for taking the time to listen today.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Make sure you join us back for a new Executive Spotlight interview soon and other sessions as well.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Until then, have a wonderful day and thanks again.