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#519: Leaders in Customer Loyalty: Brand Stories | How PNC Is Rethinking Loyalty in Banking · Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to our new customer quality theory.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's a brand story edition Thursday.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you very much for taking the time to join us.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: In outer economy, custom loyalty is optional.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's foundational.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Banking customers expect more than competitive rates and still transactions.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: They expect the financial services provider to understand their entire relationship and deliver value that feels personal, relevant, and most importantly, earned.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's a high bar.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: And one that PNC is intentionally working to meet.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: In this conversation, we're joined by Victoria Drabnik, who's the head of loyalty strategy and platforms at PNC.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: She's going to explore how customer loyalty in banking is evolving, why partnerships are playing an increasingly important role, and what her team is most proud of as they continue to shape the future of customer loyalty at PNC.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: Victoria, thank you very much for taking the time to join us today.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: How are you?
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm great, Marks.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: For those who may not be familiar, can you give us a quick overview of PNC Bank, what you guys do, how you were started, and a little bit about your customer base?
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: So PNC Bank is a national bank that's headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: We've been around for a very long time.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: We started back in 1865.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And like many of the banks out there, you know, we've we've grown and grown and acquired our way to uh becoming a national bank.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: We have about 15 million clients uh currently, uh mostly uh domestic, a little bit of an international, and that would be you know our consumer business clients and institutional.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and I think an interesting thing about PNC is while it's a national bank, it really doesn't feel like a national bank.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: It really feels like it feels like mainstream, it feels more like a local bank.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I think part of that is is really how you know how PNC has grown up.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, and the the brilliantly boring brand that was introduced a little over a year ago kind of exemplifies um, you know, how PNC uh interacts with their with their clients, right?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: So their clients are just you know regular folks who are looking to, you know, do their business, grow their families, do everything that they need to do.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And PNC is really uh a great partner uh in how they do that.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And um and they they really do it with a brand of hospitality uh that I haven't really seen anywhere else.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh PNC, they're they're they're very warm and the hospitality is very real.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: You feel it when you walk into one of the branches.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you walk in, they're glad you're there, they really seriously want to help you, they're genuine, they want to be a partner in your relationship.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, when you're done with your business, they walk you out.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: If it's raining, they open one of the umbrellas and they walk you to your car.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you just don't see that in a lot of places.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's awesome.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: And having that small town feel, that local feel, is very important because as banks get bigger, uh, the goal is to have that cheers feel, right?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: So that you walk in, they know you, there's some familiarity there, the level of comfort.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh as banks get bigger, the some disintermediation that happens.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it's great that you've been able to do that.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, how is that kind of a an advantage for you?
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: I would think it'd be pretty significant, just you know, the emotional engagement it creates because you know that customer, right?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's a big challenge for many brands these days.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's it's really huge.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'll I'll I'll kind of go back to when I, you know, I first came to PNC about two and a half years ago.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And my goal was to bring loyalty to PNC.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so the first thing I really need to needed to do was get to know like who is PNC.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: So the first like 30, 45 days, what I did was I sat down with over a hundred leaders throughout the organization and really asked them questions around like who they were, like what they're what they've been doing at PNC, how they thought about the customer relationship.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: And and what I found actually kind of delighted me because um, you know, in my mind, loyalty is all about you know, the client feeling valued and seeing that tangible value.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And from what I was learning, you know, from these, you know, leaders at PNC is most of them had 20, 30, 40 years of tenure, believe it or not.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of them did.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the the making clients feel valued was part of their DNA.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so I talked about how you see it in in the branches, but you also see it like in corporate, talking to leaders as they're leading the people to create the products and services and operations and everything.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's through the whole company.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: And and can you tell us a little bit about your role?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: The bank, you mentioned you were brought on to head up a new rewards offering.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: Can you tell us what that means?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: Your role, what you do on a day-to-day basis?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I am uh the leader of loyalty strategy and platforms.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so my whole job is um, you know, deploying the strategy of loyalty at PNC, making our clients feel valued, allowing them to see that tangible value at scale.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: At scale is the big part, right?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where the platforms come in.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so really it is all about kind of looking horizontally across the board and saying, how can we make our clients feel valued?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: How can we show them that tangible value at scale?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's really been you know my mission to bring that to PNC, um, really, and to build that capability set, you know, within the people process and with the technology at PNC across the board.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that makes perfect sense.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: When you look at the opportunities you have, you talked about, you know, uh kind of alignment when you came on, understanding what people know about the bank, what they know about customer loyalty, what their passions are.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's very important.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, when you look at holistically, what are some of the challenges or opportunities you see in your role, you know, for the loyalty program and for a PNC?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, gosh, that's such a broad question.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's such a big story to tell.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if if if I think about, you know, just kind of some of the some of the groundwork, some of the you know, opportunities and challenges, the biggest thing I saw when I walked through the door was the sponsorship to go after this.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, PNC already has the tenets of loyalty in their DNA.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the leader of retail banking, uh Alex Overström, was the greatest advocate for loyalty that I've ever seen.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: He was the sponsor for uh the entire program.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: He helped remove obstacles, he got people on board.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was, I've just never had such great sponsorship for a program.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the challenges that we had were, you know, that organizational alignment, you know, helping people to think more horizontally about strategy.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they were in charge of certain silos and verticals, products, functions, et cetera, right?
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: But but really bringing it up a level so they could think really horizontal about the customer and how we would serve the customer across everything we had.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um big challenge at first, but once they got it, my gosh, they were all on board.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was so great.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think the the capability sets was another um kind of, you know, it it's it's a challenge and opportunity every time you think about a loyalty program.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because just like the people have to be horizontal, the capability sets have to be horizontal too, right?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And across all the channels.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: So we had certain capability sets that were, my gosh, they were like really up here, and then certain capability sets that were kind of down here, and certain capability sets that were missing entirely.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so we had to go through and go, okay, what are the most important things to do first, second, and third to begin to scale loyalty at PNC?
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I think about what we've built so far, I feel like it's the foundation.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: We've built a baseline for loyalty at PNC in the form of PNC total rewards, and we'll continue to build on that for years to come.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: You talked about uh the alignment uh internally, very important.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh many brands struggle with that, seeing the value of loyalty and making sure not only the loyalty program has value to the brand, but that it also has value to the customer.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: And based on you know what we've discussed over the last few months, you've done a great job of doing that.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: Even getting uh the training that you've done right within the organization, all hands-on training to really uh you know edify the customer, or edify the kind of the CSR, should I say, as to the value of the program, what it means to the customer.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: So when you look at this, the core strategy you've developed behind total rewards, uh, you know, how does that evolved in, you know, because you're very focused on that total relationship with the customer.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a couple, a couple things here that I'll kind of talk about.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: One is our guiding principles.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so we set those out from the very beginning in partnership with our with our leadership teams in how we wanted to go after this.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: It helped us, it helped guide our decisions and everything we did.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so there were four guiding principles.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: One, we were going to be client-centric.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: We weren't gonna be product-centric, you know, for years in financial services, a loyalty program at a credit card.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Credit cards are great, but there's a lot to a client relationship, and we wanted to be client-centric, just like every other program out there that's outside of financial services.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Also, we wanted to make sure we put the client first.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we already had a client obsessed culture at PNC, but then every single decision we made as we built the program, we asked the question is this the best thing for the client?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: And whatever the best thing was for the client, that's the thing we did.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: The second was we wanted to deliver one PNC.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: So we had various smaller kind of programs throughout the company.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: We shut all of those down.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: We wanted a single loyalty continuum.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't want to dilute the brand, we didn't want to confuse the customer, and we wanted something that was significantly operationally sound so we could deliver on our promises.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Hugely, hugely important.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: We wanted to empower our employees.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: So you talked about all the training and everything that we did to ensure our employees were ready to have those conversations.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we also wanted our employees who are our best advocates and clients for our brand to be excited.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: So we gave them the gold tier without meeting the balance requirements of the program.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so they can come from a position of knowing and experiencing it themselves as they're talking to our clients.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally, we wanted to engage digitally.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: So clients want to feel valued, they want to see that tangible value, they want to see what's in it for them.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: So we knew we needed a digital experience that every client, whether you have a dollar with us or a million dollars with us, can go to that experience.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: You can see the total value of your relationship down to the transaction level, and you can learn immediately what you can do to get more value out of your relationship with PNC.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: You mentioned operationalizing the customer loyalty program.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that that can be a big challenge.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: Many people come in with big uh dreams, expectations, right?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: They may work the consultant, and the consultant says you need to do X, Y, and Z, and then they like leave it to you to run, right?
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: But operationalizing, especially the last year or so with some of the economic uh uncertainties, very important.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Can you do what you need to do?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and also the whole idea of putting that customer first is very important as well.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, when you look at the operational operationalizing the program, what were some of the challenges that you saw there and how did you do that so well?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I think the the biggest goal of well start if we had to set up an entirely new line of business to support loyalty overall, right?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that's every tranche of loyalty, you just have to measure every tranche of loyalty and continually improve it.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: But zeroing in on operations, so we have our Total Rewards operations team, or TOPS as we're calling them, and they are responsible for anything that goes bump in the night.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: So through this process, we set up a new uh a new case management system so cases could come from from the front to the you know from the front client facing uh to our back office.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then we also set up the ability to um track and resolve those cases.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then in addition, we've set up additional monitoring.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we don't monitor like samples, we monitor every single transaction to ensure that, you know, if we're putting a client in a specific tier, that it's the right tier, that we have the right average eligible balance, we're checking it all the way through, that that client is receiving every benefit they're eligible for.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: And if we have any discrepancy, it pops an alert to us that our operations team is able to work to make sure that we are delivering on all of our promises.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: And this is in addition to all the additional kind of technological infrastructure and monitoring and everything there.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then in addition to that, we also have um monitoring and similar controls and capabilities with our vendors uh that we partner with.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think that the the vendor partnerships that that we've discussed as well are very unique uh to your offering, too, right?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: So you thought outside the box there, you again were very focused on adding value to the customer and you created some simplicity, but you also enabled some technology that that that's very unique, right?
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that that others may not have.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: You kind of amalgamated different pieces into one offering, correct?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I I think the huge challenge with something like that is you know, banking has largely become commoditized.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, all the products are out there, but the capability sets that we're building around banking are becoming commoditized because there's a small handful of vendors and all the banks are using them.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're all going to end up with the same capability sets, right?
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the same, you know, operating accounts and products.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: But we our our competitive edge has to be something that's beyond that.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Our competitive edge has to be, you know, for us, I believe it is, you know, this combination of the hospitality that PNC has and loyalty.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I feel like it's very difficult to replicate, right?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, when you look at your competitive edge, you look at the things that are more difficult to replicate.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the technology, people are gonna catch up.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, the products, people are gonna catch up, but but that combination of hospitality and loyalty, I think they're gonna have a hard time with that.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: When you talked about uh understanding the customer, uh a big piece of that is driving a deeper engagement set, right?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Understanding what's important then that small town field does a lot of that.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, how are you moving the program beyond just transactional attributes to build deeper long-term relationships with your customers?
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll say to, you know, to build every aspect of this program, it was really important that we thought of the client and what they wanted and what they needed, right?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of research went into this, but then a lot of testing with actual clients and prospects.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we did numerous tests throughout the whole thing.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, our our uh our market research team added it up.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: We talked to over 15,000 clients and prospects during the course of creating the program to make sure that we got all the pieces right.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, you know, in terms of deepening the relationship with our clients, I think the program is set up so that it will naturally deepen the relationship with our clients because it's it's in in the branches and the care center, it's a tool for conversations with the clients and digitally they can see the value exchange right away.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: But when we talk about that greater loyalty, that emotional loyalty, which is I think what you're what you're trying to get at, I think there's a lot of additional things that that we're doing that we'll begin to get at that.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think about things like we are offering priority and concierge servicing uh to our Gold and Platinum clients, which enable them to quickly get through to what they need directly, um, you know, more in understanding their needs.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: We have our new premier client offering that helps them with their banking and investing needs in a in a team way, you know, so as they get more complex financial needs, they can actually have a team of bankers there to help them, right?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: So they don't have to guess or they don't have to go to multiple people.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: They have a team that's there to support them and help them.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then we're also looking at um we're looking at partnerships and experiences.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: We're looking at ways to uh provide our clients with things that might be banking adjacent that they need, um, that you know, to make it easier for them, more convenient for them, less less cost intensive for them.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then also, you know, that opportunity to have some experiences that maybe they can't get anywhere else.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we're still in early stages of that, but but we know that's important to our clients.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're working through that.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: You talked uh, you mentioned that you spoke with 15,000 clients, customers to get feedback on uh you know what they wanted, what they'd like to see in a customer loyalty program.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: So that's very important, but it's also significant undertaking.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, how are you able to use that data, leverage that data to you know personalize the program you know within the PNC total rewards program?
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: You talked about some of the concierge services, but holistically, you know, how how did you tailor the program using all that that rich feedback?
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it it was always all the way from the beginning.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, in determining, you know, we worked with our teams and with our product partners to determine like what kind of benefits could we offer to clients, right?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so then we went and concept tested each one of those benefits to see like what resonated with the customers the most.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, we have one benefit that's very unusual.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: We give cash back um to our Chilec and auto loan clients every quarter based on the principle of their loan.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody else really does this, you know.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: So we came up with this idea in conjunction with, you know, just a rate reduction or other things, right?
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so then we put all of that in front of our clients, and our clients said, wow, love cashback.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: More cashback, please.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: So we're like, okay, great.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then so we got set, you know, in some of our benefits, and then we started putting them into the model of the program, you know.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: So our our program model is not, you know, it's not rocket science, right?
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody's seeing a tier-based loyalty program out there, silver, gold, and platinum.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Fantastic.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, but we were looking at, okay, what makes sense within these tiers?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then what combination of things in these tiers would would make our clients the most happy?
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so we went out there and we did that research.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that was, you know, our model optimization research.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then we went through and we actually did research on servicing and we said, okay, what is the most important thing to you in your servicing?
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: What would you like to have?
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, is this more important than this?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: And this more important than this?
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: And we kind of went through the whole thing, and that's how we, you know, came up with our strategy for servicing.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: We went through research on naming, we went through research on positioning, all of our language.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: We have a full language guide because we wanted to make sure that when even when we're talking to a client about the program, that it sounds exactly the same across all the channels and anywhere they interact with us, but that it actually makes sense to them.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: And and it's it's the language that that they understand that will give them the most value.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: You talked about partnerships.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: You said you mentioned your early stage on that, but partnerships are something that's quite important to you know, the members of Ulti 360, to those who run customer multiprograms in general, but getting them right, uh being able to uh integrate them, operationalize them can be a big challenge.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: So when you look at partnerships, uh you mentioned it's going to be something you're going to expand going forward.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, how do you make sure that the partnerships are aligned, they bring value, there's some reciprocity?
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, so we're we're actually working on a partnerships and experiences center of excellence, is what we're calling it.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: And just like we very methodically went about the creation of this program to make sure that it was the exact right thing for our clients, we want to methodically go about this too.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: So we've looked at, you know, you look at current state.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: What do you what do you have?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and when I look at what we have, um, one of the models that we have, it's a little different from most other companies of financial services, is we have our regional presidents model.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so they are the presidents of that region.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: They are very involved in those communities.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: They have their own um sponsorships uh and relationships across that region, right?
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we also have, you know, there are multiple kind of pockets of partnership, you know, throughout PNC for various services, et cetera.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you think about small business, et cetera.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we're like, okay, we love all of this.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: We love all of the, you know, our institutional partners and all the companies that they have.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we have a very rich institutional uh business.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we're like, okay, how do we maximize the value of all of this to provide something amazing for our clients?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's that's really the odyssey we're on.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: There's some we're doing some proofs of concepts, some tests and learn.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we'll do those through throughout this year.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then in the background, we're like, okay, well, what operationally is required to set something like this up?
• 21:59
  unknown: Like
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a central group?
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: How do we handle contracting?
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: How do we make sure that what we're providing both to the client and to the partner is standardized?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it's something that the client can clearly understand, that the partner is on board with, that it benefits everyone.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: So we're working on all of those components in the background to make sure that we can set something up that's very uh really profitable for everyone.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: And how does the program uh work with those who may not be eligible for PNC total rewards to start?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, when you look at engaging those audiences, getting them through that life cycle, getting them engaged sometime, you know, how are you using experience to bridge engagement with these customers?
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as I as I was saying before, whether you have a dollar with us or a million dollars with us, PNC has a lot to offer.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so one of the things we did is we went through and we looked at everything PNC has to offer today and we gathered all of that up.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: And part of the PNC Total Rewards experience, when you log into online and you log into mobile, you can click right in, you can see your rewards have experience, and you see all the value of your relationship.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, your value might not be huge at the moment, you might be earlier on in your financial relationship, but right after you see that big value, you're gonna see all the ways that you can earn more value.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: How do you save more?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: How do you earn more?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: How do you do more to get more value?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna show you personally to you the specific things that you can do to get additional value out of your relationship with PNC.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: And as your relationship grows, those things are gonna evolve, those things are gonna be different, and we're going more and more in that direction.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: You mentioned personalization.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: As we evolve, we're evolving more and more in that direction.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: So we have more and more to serve up to these audiences that is very specific to them.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now you mentioned the qualification.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: So everyone receives PC total rewards, but those who have 25,000 or more with us in balances in their deposited investment accounts become eligible for our select tier.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: So silver, gold, and platinum.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about a tier-based program.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason for that isn't rocket science, it's the value exchange.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: We have a greater opportunity for value exchange with our clients who do more business with us.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so our goal for our clients who do more business with us is to make it more exciting to do more business with us, right?
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: So whether you qualify, you know, out of the gate for silver, gold, or platinum, or you need to bring over an old 401k or something to qualify for one of our tiers, we want to make it worth your while.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: That makes sense.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's perfect.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh understanding the customers and understanding what they're interested in and you know being able to kind of engage them and grow them, it sounds like you've thought all that through, which is great to hear.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: When you look at success, success is very important in customer loyalty programs.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, uh, what does the future roadmap look like for PNC and how are you how are you will you measure the efficacy of the program to start?
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, so success in any loyalty program is an increase in satisfaction, retention, and deepening, if you're doing it right, right?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: So we are really closely measuring, you know, our NPS.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I will say I think I saw that our our NPS is from JD Power is like number two in the whole country right now.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's wild.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's very high, but but we're gonna keep tracking it and and we'll we'll get it even higher because you know, um, and then there's retention, right?
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: So so our client base, we have pretty good retention, we have opportunity to grow there.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so our you know, even one point of retention uh for a large financial institution like ours is is is hugely valuable.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: So we know this will help us with retention.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: Other programs in the industry um have had much higher retention, and so we're looking forward to that.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's it's deepening, right?
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: So you know, when when someone enrolls in one of our selecteers, we're gonna make it even more exciting to do more with us.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: So we offer benefits on each of our products and services, we offer very robust benefits on our investments uh products and and other products, very uh great benefits on those.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so we know that that's gonna lead to that additional deepening that we're looking for.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, that audience who doesn't qualify on day one, like a large number, a large percentage of them do have uh part of their relationship somewhere else where they could qualify.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: If I think about our roadmap uh moving forward, you know, we're working on, so we're doing consumer now, we'll move into small business.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: As I mentioned, we're doing um, you know, our center of excellence for partnerships and experiences.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: We have a whole five-year roadmap of activity where we're going to keep growing.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: We want to extend loyalty to every aspect of PNC.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: And when you look at it, uh the passion you have, you sound like a proud uh parent or a proud pet owner, you're just you're ebulent, right?
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: You're just uh very joyous.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: So when so when you step back and look at it, you know, what are you most proud of uh with regard to the program progression that you've made?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of things.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I was thinking about this morning, over 10,000 employees at PNC have had something to do with the development and bringing this program to market.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like a fifth of the company.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's probably more than that.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: I was just I was thinking about it, it was just amazing.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, that this I can't do anything alone.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's the global we.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the global we has really stepped up.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I'm very proud of that.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm also you know, very proud and excited about you know just what we're seeing in in the market.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like the stories we have from the market are so validating and satisfying.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, one example, a recent example out in in Milwaukee, um was uh a lady came into uh the branch with her mom.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, she had kind of a service question.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so she sat down with one of our bankers and they had a conversation with her, and they started to tell her about this great new program.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, she ended up opening a credit card, actually opening two credit cards with us.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then she scheduled an appointment to meet with uh an advisor so she could bring$25,000 over in investments so she could qualify for the gold tier program.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Her mom, not to be outdone, just come and you know, with for moral support with her, also opened a credit card and she made an appointment so she could bring over$500,000 so she could qualify for the platinum tier.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: And there's story after story after story after story of this happening.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: And and when you see the language of the bankers and the advisors, it's they're so happy that that it's not only that they're bringing all this business to PNC, but they're just so happy that they're able to help the clients and how excited they are and how excited the client is.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I'm really proud of that.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then I don't want to forget this one.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: One of the other things that we were able to do, and and we had to get over some obstacles to do it, just from a technical perspective, we're offering our military members and their families the silver tier of the program without meeting the balance requirements.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because we thought it was really, really important to do that.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: And when you look at what the silver tier has versus everything else that's available in the industry for military members, it is one of the most comprehensive, if not the most comprehensive consumer programming financial services for military members.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: When you look back uh and look forward, uh, you know, what's the next big thing for customer loyalty, customer experience for uh U and PNC?
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, some of the stuff we've we've already been talking about where you know banking's been commoditized, everybody's becoming a bank, you know, payments, uh, you know, the innovation there and AI, there's like there's so much to say there, and and the the tools are all evolving.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like the the job is the same, you know, but but the tools to do the job are evolving.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, I I think it just gets even further and further into this place where we know our customer and are able to personally provide to meet their needs.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: And while a couple of years ago, personalization was like, you know, the buzzword, I feel like we're going to a place where we're required to anticipate their needs, not just personally respond.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're really required to become more anticipatory of our clients' needs.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we know all of our apps and everything are listening to us, um, you know, and they're already doing uh that kind of stuff.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying we should do that, but but I am saying that, you know, we have all this information about our clients' lives, and I think it's important that we're good stewards of it.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that we're also like really, you know, there to meet their needs exactly when they need them.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and last question, a little bit self-serving.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what can Loyalty 360 do to help you and your team in your customer loyalty journey?
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I think it's it's been really great over the years to um, you know, see a lot of uh Loyalty 360's great content, you know, to go to the conferences, to really have that camaraderie.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think one of the things that's important to us, and I would imagine others out there is you know, we've had to build an entirely new line of business to support loyalty, right?
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: And and only a few of those people have ever done loyalty before.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's been really uh valuable for us uh with loyalty 360 to expose them to loyalty 360 to realize what an important vertical loyalty is, you know, across every industry, right?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: As a business itself.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I I think that's been hugely valuable.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, as as we look at the next big things to really see those stories and understand how other people are doing things gives us great ideas.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Victoria, thank you very much for taking the time to join us today.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I know you personally, and this is the first time we think we've done the interview, and it was uh it was amazing.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: You did a great job.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: 20 years ago, we did.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: We did, okay, we did.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, second one.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: But this one yeah, this this one was uh was uh great.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, just how happy you are, the joy that you uh have for the program, just it's it's rewarding to see, and it makes me feel great as well, just to see how happy you are and just how holistic you've designed the program and just the great success you've seen.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: So, and thank you for sharing for everyone else because that that uh I think you can be uh a roadmap or a guidepost for those who uh maybe struggling internally.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: You've done a great job.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, and thank you so much for inviting me on today.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you everyone else for taking the time to join us today.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: Make sure you join us back every Thursday for a new edition of our Lucian Customer Loyalty Series.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: Until then, have a wonderful day and make sure you subscribe and follow us on YouTube and across our social media channels.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.