The Importance of Honesty with your Customers

Linda talks about how City National Bank is a little different than the other big name banks, how she deals with difficult situations involving her customers, and how the recent pandemic has affected CNB.
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ABOUT THE GUEST

Linda Duncombe is executive vice president and chief marketing, product and digital officer of City National Bank. Ms. Duncombe leads a team that is responsible for advancing the company’s brand and digital strategy, articulating its value proposition and supporting business development. Ms. Duncombe oversees marketing, client experience, advertising and communications as well as digital channels, product development, credit cards and multicultural outreach. She is also responsible for the bank’s technology innovation team, which identifies and deploys fin-tech solutions for City National and its clients.

City National Bank Executive VP and Chief Marketing Officer Linda Duncombe joins The Customer Experience Show to discuss how City National Bank is a little different than the other big name banks, how she deals with difficult situations involving her customers, and how the recent pandemic has affected CNB.

3 Takeaways:

  • Great CX leaders need to be willing to break bad news to their customers. Doing this in the proper way requires bravery and a gentle touch.
  • Honesty in marketing needs to be more than a buzzword. A commitment to be honest and transparent is a key first step in creating a great customer experience.
  • Creating a great experience for your customers requires thinking through needs from their perspective. CX managers need to be willing to put themselves in their customers’ shoes.

Key Quotes:

  • “The importance of digital to the relationship with our clients has grown and grown and grown over the last 12 months. We have been very innovative in that way that we serve our clients. We basically sent home 80% of our workforce within a few days of when it got really serious with COVID and we’ve worked tirelessly to make sure our clients feel that we’re still there for them.”
  • “We put together a workforce from operations, from product strategy, from HR, from legal processing, and loans so we could get these [PPP Loans] through. It was something that everybody from the CEO got involved in. ANd it’s something that we feel incredibly proud of.”
  • “When Frank Sinatra’s child was kidnapped, we were one of his banks. He came to our CEO at the time and said, ‘I need a bank that can open their safe on a weekend. I’m being told that that can’t be done.’ And our CEO at the time said, ‘Yes, I can open the safe.’”

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This episode is brought to you by IBM. If you are responsible for Customer Experience, they’ve created a White Paper just for you. In the CX North Star Report, you can learn more about how to activate your CX vision. Download it here.

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