Correspondent Blog

For inspiration in banking innovation, we often look to other industries. Honkook Kim and his Gentle Monster Brand is a perfect example. With financial hardship, competition from dominant players, and a startup budget, Gentle Monster faced many of the same challenges as a community bank. Instead of thinking traditionally, Gentle Monster pursued a strategy of…

We covered various frameworks to “wow” your customer HERE. We covered why “Time-on-Task” (or the companion Customer Effort Score) is the ultimate metric in banking HERE. In this article, the last in the series, we give you seven rules to improve your bank. While these rules were derived from improving time-on-task, they can enhance bank…

While we believe in “Wowing” your customers as a concept, we don’t believe in it as a strategic focus as a bank. The idea is too challenging to execute. However, we do believe that every banker should understand what “customer delight” (we will use interchangeably with “wowing”) quantitatively looks like so delight can be operationalized….

The reality is that banks don’t think from the customer’s perspective enough. The customer experience is horrible for many bank processes. Bankers often think from the bank’s perspective or from the regulator’s perspective. Not understanding your customer can lead to a brand and products misaligned with the customer’s needs resulting in an erosion of a…

Competition is intense, and every bank is looking for a competitive advantage. Better products, faster service, or insightful advice can translate into additional loans, better credit spreads, or extra fee income. Sometimes just a graphics tool can help a banker win more loan business. At SouthState, our commercial lending teams use an online proposal generator,…

If your bank truly wants to be known for service, the very first step is to get your problem resolution process right. When it comes to problem resolution, the two metrics that matter the most are the number of interactions required to solve the problem and the time it takes to solve the problem. The…

The most common question we hear from borrowers is, “Should I refinance my debt?”  This can be a difficult question for lenders to answer, but as a trusted advisor, every lender should understand the strategy, and the process to answer that question for every client.  We will address the knowledge that commercial lenders must have…