While the Covid-19 pandemic drove the rapid adoption of online and mobile financial services, the conversation quickly changed from doing so out of necessity to the benefits of the ease and personalization of digital experiences. As banks' employees and their customers continue to prioritize digital experiences, it's increasingly important to deliver user-first design, innovative features, and seamless personalization. This panel discussion will highlight what the accelerated shift to digital-first looked like at the onset of the pandemic and how each party delivers online and mobile experiences that delight users and excel above competition.
Transcription:
00:00:06:09 - 00:00:31:04
Miriam Cross
Hi. Welcome to American Banker’s Digital Banking Conference. My name is Miriam Cross, and I'm a technology reporter at American Banker. Today, I'm speaking with John Curtis of Samsung Electronics America and Jose Quesada of American Express in a session titled Propelling Growth with Digital First Strategies. We are going to be accepting audience questions, so please send them in as they come up.
00:00:31:04 - 00:00:36:02
Miriam Cross
And I will ask our panelists, John and Jose. Thank you so much for joining us.
00:00:36:22 - 00:00:37:16
John Curtis
Thank you, Miriam.
00:00:37:21 - 00:00:38:04
Jose Quesada
Thank you.
00:00:38:23 - 00:00:46:00
Miriam Cross
I'll start by asking each of you to introduce yourselves and tell us a bit about your role at your respective companies. So, John, I'll start with you.
00:00:46:18 - 00:01:08:22
John Curtis
Okay. Thanks, Miriam. And hello, everyone. Really delighted to be here with you all this afternoon. Coming from our office in New York. And it's nice to be in the office and doing things. And it will be this in virtual [inaudible]. John Curtis. I head up our mobile b2b organization for Samsung in the US.
00:01:08:29 - 00:01:24:28
John Curtis
So that's responsible for all mobility products as it relates to the enterprise and government teams. So we handle everything from small enterprise all the way up to the Fortune 500 and obviously state and local government and federal government as well.
00:01:26:18 - 00:01:27:05
Miriam Cross
Thank you. And Jose
00:01:27:16 - 00:01:49:09
Jose Quesada
Very pleased to be with you all today. I don't have such a cool background but I'm also in New York in the office and I'm excited to look after the mobile products team so we are responsible for the Amex Mobile app. I'm looking forward to the conversation today.
00:01:50:15 - 00:02:09:12
Miriam Cross
Thank you both. So I know So, John, you were able to talk to the employee side of Digital First Strategies. And Jose, you can talk to the customer first side. So I'm going to ask you both a question so I'll start with you, John. What were your bank employees relationships like to digital before the pandemic started?
00:02:10:23 - 00:02:35:14
John Curtis
So that's a that's a great question. Miriam. And I think, you know, I think it's probably it's a real truism to say that it's changed quite dramatically over the course of the last 18 months. I think, you know, as it's going to be really interesting to go through this with Jose because talking about the customer side versus the employee side on digitization, it's fair to say, and I don't think anyone would challenge that.
00:02:35:25 - 00:03:01:11
John Curtis
There's a general sense that before the pandemic, innovation on the customer side vastly outpaced what employees themselves were using in the finance sector from a digital perspective. And that actually goes across many sectors. I would say to specifically talking about finance today. Many financial employees never had a personal laptop or a corporate liable device before the pandemic.
00:03:01:11 - 00:03:31:27
John Curtis
So weren't used to working from home, etc. And then most big financial institutions, as we all know, are conservative and relatively risk averse by nature. And they always tried to stick with a tried and true technology. So the one thing we do know now is that that is not enough. And the pandemic has proven that. And especially as we go forward into the current talent more etc., it's exacerbating itself more and more as we're seeing ourselves close out 2021.
00:03:32:06 - 00:03:51:21
John Curtis
And we've actually done a new report which again hopefully Miriam will get an opportunity to talk about during the course of this interview, but we'll talk about that. And that reveals many of the pressing challenges and opportunities facing the industry and the role tech should play in addressing them as we go forward.
00:03:53:11 - 00:04:08:01
Miriam Cross
So, okay, so customers, we're well ahead on digital on the customer side and I imagine that's especially true for American Express because you don't have branches. So what was your customer relationship like with digital before the pandemic started?
00:04:08:17 - 00:04:36:21
Jose Quesada
Yeah, I mean, you have very much pride when it comes to a strong presence before the pandemic. In fact, we've got 85% of customers deeply engaged with us today. What the pandemic really did for us was accelerating behavior, some trends that we had observed before. So, for example, one of those has been around mobile, been the lion's share of engagement when it comes to our customers in a retail environment.
00:04:37:10 - 00:04:57:24
Jose Quesada
And the only thing that we also observe these different age groups where they are more willing to interact with us. And I guess we thought the company is going to [inaudible] the environment as well. So all in all, it's being great news when it comes to the behaviors that we will see or channel just strengthening, you know, giving them more momentum over the past 18 months.
00:04:59:04 - 00:05:10:16
Miriam Cross
Okay. So what do you. So, I mean, there are some like obvious reasons why their relationship with digital had to accelerate over the past 18 months. But what did you see? You said mobile accelerated quite a bit.
00:05:11:16 - 00:05:42:22
Jose Quesada
So not just mobile. So I guess digital as a whole. So are mobile web accelerated, right? Just for obvious reasons because people spend more time at home. I guess consumers in general get a little more used to using digital services for really anything and everything in their life on balance is helpful or is a bit of a way for companies like Amex to to leverage when it comes to the digital presence, but specifically for mobile?
00:05:42:22 - 00:06:09:06
Jose Quesada
And will we have a staff to make these before the pandemic we would see like more and more people choosing mobile as the main interaction channel with us, and that has really accelerated. So that growth levels that we are seeing now that are at par, if not above pre-pandemic levels, etc. and not just in terms of monthly usage but actually more frequent usage.
00:06:09:06 - 00:06:35:27
Jose Quesada
And that's a metric that with a lot of focus on recently, which is about how frequently our customers return to the channel, in this case the mobile app or the website. We have seen recently that we have seen record levels when it comes to daily usage so for example, back in August that we saw that for both the website and the mobile app, we are seeing close to 20% growth when it comes to daily usage.
00:06:36:03 - 00:06:36:25
Jose Quesada
Of the two channels.
00:06:38:18 - 00:06:43:05
Miriam Cross
And then in light of that record growth, did you make any enhancements to the website and the app?
00:06:44:20 - 00:07:20:20
Jose Quesada
We did plenty actually. What is interesting to say as well is because of how the pandemic started, right, and the fact that everyone's priorities changed. So first of all, take care of yourself. Make sure that, you know, there were plenty of uncertainty around what's going to happen to the economy. So the first six months or so, we focused a lot more on servicing, making sure our customers were doing well, providing I guess we leave unnecessary exit trust.
00:07:21:09 - 00:07:54:18
Jose Quesada
From that angle, we saw a lot of results of one initiative that we put in place was helping customers get time notifications of how they're doing with a spend time when they are due for a payment makes it [inaudible]. And overnight we saw a doubling of the number of notifications that will be sending and customers will be receiving right Or the prime example could be around how we shifted as a company, the focus of our software program.
00:07:54:18 - 00:08:20:22
Jose Quesada
So that's a program that really gives to customers millions of dollars in value. Obviously in a pandemic environment, when there are lockdowns in place to properly travel. Entertainment isn't all that current, right, or that. Interesting. So we really shifted towards fees that will help bring value to assets at that point in time, like streaming services and delivery services.
00:08:21:25 - 00:08:36:07
Jose Quesada
So we really shifted our focus more towards where the needs of our customers were at the beginning of the pandemic. And obviously throughout the pandemic has evolved. We will also evolve our type of features. We've put in place.
00:08:37:19 - 00:08:44:11
Miriam Cross
Okay. And John, on your end, what did you see with bank employees? How did their relationship with digital change when the pandemic started?
00:08:45:13 - 00:09:14:00
John Curtis
So I think it changed in many ways. And so what Jose is saying is really fascinating, but I think so first of all, the employees had to change because the customer interaction was changing exactly what Jose is saying to add to some of his points that he was making. 44% of retail customers are using their mobile banking app more during the pandemic than pre-pandemic.
00:09:14:07 - 00:10:03:29
John Curtis
And still today and that's a source coming from Deloitte saying that Bank of America has gone public saying that mobile deposits by business customers rose 117% during and during the pandemic. And then value for customers is coming less from face to face and more through multichannel interaction is exactly what Jose is saying there about the omni channel experience and mobile app web, etc. So therefore the changes that we're seeing is that the banks are having to equip employees to meet customers where they are and adapt to market changes and that again, I keep saying this, that again goes across multiple sectors, but even when you look at payments, etc. and all about digital payments
00:10:03:29 - 00:10:29:19
John Curtis
with the pandemic has accelerated the idea that people want to pay for products where they are, not necessarily where the payment terminal is in a store, etc.. So with this it's been really challenging for all of the banks and everyone within the the finance industry, but the employees as well have had to navigate work from home. And this wasn't a previously common approach for the industry.
00:10:29:25 - 00:11:01:28
John Curtis
So pre-pandemic there was only about 29% of employers in financial services had 60% of their workforce working from home, and that's increased to 69% now. So 69% of financial institutions have have more than 60% of their employees working from home now. So therefore a resilience secure mobile technology I think is key in order to facilitate this and that's why we're calling this the And era.
00:11:02:04 - 00:11:41:01
John Curtis
So we need to help the financial institutions go from a traditionally personal relationship status to a tech driven And relationship status. So that allows the hybrid working from home, working from the office and gives people the tools in order to do both. But that has to be secure and reliable. So again, just to draw the link there, it's really close to what Jose is saying because it's very similar to the challenges that he is facing and interacting with the customers are very similar to the challenges that the organized organizations are facing to interact with the employees.
00:11:42:13 - 00:11:56:12
Miriam Cross
As it sounds almost like employees. They have their challenge in two ways. Like you said, they have to meet customers where they are. So customers are relying on digital more than the employees have to do that as well. Plus, in their own lives, they have to bring their work from when it was something they weren't used to doing.
00:11:58:06 - 00:11:58:28
John Curtis
Absolutely.
00:11:59:12 - 00:12:10:11
Miriam Cross
Yeah, actually, Jose, so on your end with Amex what was the work from home system like before the pandemic? And how did that change when you had to go work remotely?
00:12:11:27 - 00:12:40:07
Jose Quesada
I feel we were lucky insofar as having the right tools and processes to make that transition very quickly. Right. Well, what's important at the time was two things. The first one was obviously we're putting all that to the test to John's point, you know, for working from home let's use this apparently as part of the weather flexibility that you've got working for the company.
00:12:40:07 - 00:13:03:15
Jose Quesada
Right. But we had to make sure that the same level of collaboration that we had in our shared space in the office could be done in a virtual environment. So working with engineering and product teams extra and also the quality of output. Right. We were just thrown into the VPN. It was a known mixture, but it worked out quite well in the end.
00:13:03:22 - 00:13:40:16
Jose Quesada
And the other point I would like to make is especially the first three to six months, there was a greater need to manage change and emotions, right? Like no one really knew what was going to happen. And extra people had, you know, potentially family issues. Some people getting sick. Right. So a big focus of the first six months was about checking constantly on communicating, if I can say that, and making sure that people were not only setup to work successfully or efficiently from home, but after they were doing well.
00:13:40:28 - 00:13:45:06
Jose Quesada
Right. So I think that personal element played a big role for us as well.
00:13:46:14 - 00:13:59:26
Miriam Cross
Interesting. Yeah. And then John, so how did banks ramp up these digital capabilities so quickly, especially in the terms of security? Right. That seems like a kind of major concern for bank employees.
00:14:01:00 - 00:14:30:06
John Curtis
Yes. So and as I as I mentioned earlier, working remote was relatively new for this industry. And everyone needs to get employees to the same level of digital first experience as happening on the customer side super quickly. And I said earlier as well that we did. We conducted a report and really inspired after two years or almost two years into into the pandemic, we really wanted to see what is the financial services industry saying.
00:14:30:12 - 00:14:57:24
John Curtis
So we surveyed 500 employees and 580 managers across financial services and banking to talk about what is the future and what's happening around digital capabilities. And Miriam, you're totally right. Security is a huge concern. And I'm sure I need to say this to the audience here, that IT managers are struggling to stay ahead of the cyber threats and the risks posed by all of this changing behavior.
00:14:58:18 - 00:15:23:06
John Curtis
And again, it's very well known to people, but we know that cyber attacks on finance companies have increased to an enormous magnitude in the thousands of percentages, even in the first half of 2021. So the curve is just going up exponentially for that. But then there's a perception gap between the employer and the employee with regards to security.
00:15:23:14 - 00:16:00:24
John Curtis
So 63% of I.T. managers worry about customer and company data due to remote working, whereas only 6% of the employees are concerned about that. So there's a real difference in that respect. Of those elements. So 71% of I.T. managers are saying that they fear that employees are neglecting security best practice and 70% of I.T. managers worry there's not enough security training versus only 24% of employees who are believing that they're being trained well enough and that there's continuous training going on there, etc., as well.
00:16:01:04 - 00:16:31:07
John Curtis
But then the tech issues are not only focused on security more than half worried about. 54% of employees are reporting still regular connectivity issues when working from home. So they're still highly stressed by that. And, you know, even I know and you know, even and we see it in the working day when we're all working from home, that people say, oh, there it is, 3:00 when the kids come home from school.
00:16:31:12 - 00:16:56:28
John Curtis
There's the Netflix impact on that, on connectivity. And you see the the connectivity can go down from apps and that aspect. And then really surprisingly, I think this is a real warning to everyone out here. Again, because we're in the great resignation time and we're in the huge talent war is that many employees are saying they want better tech to do their jobs better.
00:16:57:08 - 00:17:18:25
John Curtis
And in fact, mobile technology is a decisive factor in the fight for talent in the finance industry. So our report said that 69% , 69% of employees would switch jobs to get better technology. So it's something that needs to be really faced by this industry as we go forward.
00:17:20:06 - 00:17:30:17
Miriam Cross
And so assuming that so 69% would switch jobs to get better technology so was that was a stat that kind of arose during during the pandemic or was that a sentiment that existed before?
00:17:31:03 - 00:17:56:28
John Curtis
So we we didn't test that, but I would say it's definitely exacerbated by the by the pandemic because as we as we said that only about 29% of companies were having their their employees working from home before the pandemic where that's 69% now. So I think it's been made much more obvious by the last 18 months, 20 months that we've all been experiencing this.
00:17:57:29 - 00:18:00:27
Miriam Cross
And why do you think there's such an emphasis on mobile technology?
00:18:02:01 - 00:18:21:20
John Curtis
Because I think people want to be able to easily work from where they are. So it was to be able to work from home during the pandemic. Now it's being able to work from in the office or at home or a different part of the office, and it's being able to have productive meetings. For example, when you have half of the people in the office, half of the people at home.
00:18:21:26 - 00:18:40:12
John Curtis
And then you bring on top of that, as we were just talking before we came live under this section that you have people traveling again. So now you have people who are traveling. You have people at home and you have people in the office that want to keep up the same cadence and rigor that they all had from from a meeting perspective.
00:18:40:18 - 00:18:44:28
John Curtis
I want to make that absolutely as productive as we've experienced it for the last 12.
00:18:45:17 - 00:19:02:28
Miriam Cross
So actually, Jose, your end what you talked earlier about some of the tweaks you've made, some the changes you made. So you know what I don't know what kind of what would you say overall goes into a positive a positive digital experience for customers these days?
00:19:04:08 - 00:19:26:20
Jose Quesada
I certainly believe in two things. The first one is creating a space that is functional. I admit the customer need that all…That feels nice to use, right? With really with an idea together with a virtuous cycle, I'm going to call it. So people get their needs met by the same time they want to return to that experience.
00:19:27:10 - 00:19:49:09
Jose Quesada
Right with Amex, we've got our design practice is very much embedded in how we do for the moment. So we are very big when it comes to tests online. We spend a lot of time talking to customers. We look not only for this, but also when these data makes it try anything that is going to drive customer satisfaction.
00:19:49:09 - 00:20:13:00
Jose Quesada
It plays a big role in terms of what we're going to do next with the product rather, and the one thing I'm very happy to report there is not only we pay attention to the satisfaction of our customers, but actually customers keep telling us that we are doing well on that. And so for example, in 2021 we were recognized by J.D. Power, the best credit card app.
00:20:13:05 - 00:20:33:03
Jose Quesada
It was the same in 2020, we’ve won it four times in the past three years. And I guess the important thing, though, is not about winning the award necessarily, but actually listening to customers in terms of what's important to them, what is speed, reliability, that means that we are not willing to about risk.
00:20:33:20 - 00:20:40:25
Miriam Cross
And we took an audience question and this one sounds like it's aimed at, John, how many people left their jobs to get better technology.
00:20:43:06 - 00:20:56:10
John Curtis
I don't know exactly how many people left, but I know that. 69% of employees are saying that they would switch jobs to get better, better technology. But the amount that left us, that's a different question.
00:20:56:27 - 00:21:28:01
Miriam Cross
Yeah. Very interesting to study later on. So how did you find employees responded to these changes? And you talked about some of the challenges with security, with stress, need for a better connectivity and better, better connections. So how did employees overall respond to changes? Was were these kind of digital first communications and work life?
00:21:28:01 - 00:21:31:02
Miriam Cross
Was it welcomed or was there still a learning curve?
00:21:31:24 - 00:21:56:13
John Curtis
Yes. So I think let's stay with security for a moment. And the pandemic revealed and our report validates that there is some real needs and opportunities to improve employees digital approach and tech strategy. So when it comes to security, as I was just saying, the perception gap is huge. And it's likely from a disparity in experience.
00:21:56:22 - 00:22:35:25
John Curtis
So this is how people were responding and people respond based on their prior experience and to what they know. But there's a disparity in experience between I.T. managers and employees. So the vast majority of people working in the IT department have experienced security breaches before and are fully, fully knowledgeable about that. But I think it's fair to say that hardly any employees have, which is a huge compliment to all of the CSO areas within organizations and all of the I.T. departments, but it still breeds that perception about what the threat is.
00:22:36:01 - 00:23:10:25
John Curtis
If you've if you haven't experienced it, then basically with regards to the response, what people are looking for is to have like government grade or SEC compliant technology that can be the first line of defense against these security threats. So I think that's that's again, very fair to say, is that if you can make the first line be that customers as Jose talks about or be that employees, the first line of defense, you can prevent an awful lot of the threat to your organization.
00:23:11:03 - 00:23:33:08
John Curtis
And then the other response is absolutely that training is important and that that helps you engage with employees and keeps them at the frontline defense, but allows them to feel part of the solution and part of that of fixing the problem. But again, to come back to just quoting some statistics is quite daunting.
00:23:33:08 - 00:24:01:15
John Curtis
I believe is that. 70% of I.T. managers worry that there's not enough security training in their organization. So that's out of the 500 companies that we surveyed. 70% of them were saying that there's not enough security training. So I think people have responded to your question. People have responded based on their experiences. But how people need to respond going forward is all about training and enablement.
00:24:03:09 - 00:24:05:02
Miriam Cross
How how can banks close that gap.
00:24:06:28 - 00:24:32:12
John Curtis
I think start well, I I'm with Samsung, so obviously we can talk about different security solutions and mobility solutions for us. So that with that with any of the banks or anyone on on here today. But again, it's about really thinking about and cohesive and engaging and training and enablement solutions is really what I would say there in all seriousness.
00:24:34:03 - 00:24:43:29
Miriam Cross
And Jose, on your end, how did customers respond to an increased emphasis on digital interactions, given a metrics you could share.
00:24:45:23 - 00:25:31:08
Jose Quesada
I think they responded well rather than again, going back to what I said at the beginning of the session, the pandemic has just, I guess, a strength. Then right. Or accelerated the adoption of digital services. So from that angle, the response was very positive when it comes to metrics, I don't know, sort of half a statistic from the top of my my mind about what I can show is more and more customers choose to interact with us via the two channels, only increasingly a large proportion of them doing via mobile, which is just like a national result of how our lives are really moving to the toll in our lives into mobile devices.
00:25:31:21 - 00:25:32:05
Jose Quesada
Nonetheless.
00:25:34:01 - 00:25:49:01
Miriam Cross
Yeah, and you know, now we're more than 18 months in. Where do you think there is still room for improvement on Amex's end for fare? Like, you know, where do you hope where do you hope to go?
00:25:49:25 - 00:26:27:21
Jose Quesada
For sure, that's where like my favorite question of the day. So there's always room for improvement and right there are loads that we still need to to do. I think a bit [inaudible] about the future and let's say where we'd like to be in eight months time, two years time and it's really more about, okay, we've got what I feel is a very good baseline as a product from an angle, marketing angle, engagement angle, even a payments angle, etc. But a challenge is as you grow a product in this case a mobile app, right?
00:26:27:28 - 00:26:55:10
Jose Quesada
Certain things like discoverability myself, but it becomes more difficult for you to fully leverage everything that is available to you. So I'm personally very bullish with my team when it comes to keep evolving and the experience, how we present things to customize. So for example, today, everything that we do is very much designed, with the customer first in mind, but also from a personalization angle.
00:26:55:10 - 00:27:14:21
Jose Quesada
Right. In terms of what may be more relevant to you maybe as a customer compared to John, you may have a different product, you may have a different set of needs that when you've done recently, it's different what John has done differently. So I think we've got some way to go to, you know, keep evolving the experience, making sure that we can [inaudible] a bit of a pathway.
00:27:14:21 - 00:27:38:16
Jose Quesada
I'm going to call it full customer so they can truly leverage the product and services that that we've got. And also, I just think about all of these changes, if I can call it that way. I here to stay, right? Like as you know, detailed natives become like the largest share of consumers is going to be the more prevalent.
00:27:39:01 - 00:27:45:10
Jose Quesada
Right. People on mobile in particular. So yeah, I'm personally very excited about the future. I'm very bullish about that.
00:27:46:12 - 00:27:56:15
Miriam Cross
And you mentioned personalization just now is one of I think, the most interesting topics when it comes to banking. What kind of strides has American Express made to ramp up personalization?
00:27:58:07 - 00:28:35:22
Jose Quesada
So I mean, we've been doing personalization in these channels both web and mobile for some time now. So it's not like, you know, during the pandemic we have strengthened our focus more that because the focus was pretty strong already. I guess the one example I will call out when it comes to personalization and the two examples, one is about your expenditure and when you spend with much makes a try and based on the actions that you can say with transactions, right.
00:28:35:29 - 00:28:57:27
Jose Quesada
You know, you could use your coins to pay for a transaction. We can show you a little research to see if it is available for a possible transaction, etc. or with the advent of this and the split feature and the Amex Mobile App, where we have people send money to the family and friends all also split charges that they've done with them, what will we really do?
00:28:57:27 - 00:29:20:05
Jose Quesada
That is we take into account where you've been using your card you'll spend extra on what actions could be or should be more relevant to you as a customer based on, you know, where you've spent some of you've spent and the other example on this one has been, you know, an offering of ours for a number of years now.
00:29:20:15 - 00:29:57:10
Jose Quesada
It is Amex Offers right. Which is I guess one of the most love products also is that we've got items from a customer on the few on one area that is not only we provide customers with a large array of places where they can get value back to them from Amex on a merchant's right. But those sofas are really personalized on your interest, your needs, where you spend your money etc.
00:29:57:10 - 00:29:59:20
John Curtis
I think we may have lost Miriam.
00:30:00:07 - 00:30:00:26
Jose Quesada
I think so.
00:30:01:07 - 00:30:06:26
John Curtis
Okay. So I will. If it's okay with you, I'll just talk something more.
00:30:08:04 - 00:30:30:13
John Curtis
The Samsung experience for everyone to keep the conference moving. But I want to add actually what I was hoping to talk about in the next few minutes anyway, was going into a positive digital experience for employees and for that for customers. So basically we believe mobile technology. I think, Jose, that that echoes so much of what you're saying.
00:30:30:13 - 00:31:10:25
John Curtis
Mobile, mobile, you know, you're talking about the app, etc. And you know, mobile really dominates what goes on in this industry now. But 72% of employees are saying to us that mobile tech is critical to being more productive and collaborative and in their business. And again, from a Samsung perspective, we are really working with many customers in this industry, around reliable, secure mobile technology, smartphones, Chromebooks, PCs, tablets, new form factors like our foldable devices for interacting with clients, etc. and then our defense grade security from Knox.
00:31:11:07 - 00:31:44:03
John Curtis
But this is all about moving financial services into the And era. And just I would challenge everyone in the audience to really think about another incredible stat is that the US is more than 100% penetrated with smartphones, so more than 100% of the population in total have their smartphones in the in the US. But less than 30% of enterprises give their employees smartphones in order to help them from a digital perspective to get their jobs done.
00:31:44:03 - 00:32:19:23
John Curtis
Better. So the opportunity from a mobile improvement for all of your employees is absolutely enormous. And I really challenge everyone again in the audience to really reflect on that, that it's only 30% penetrated from an employee perspective, from a sum of mobile technology in order to do the do their jobs better. And then finally, just to give one example, and it's not in the financial services industry, but we partnered with with Wal-Mart this year in order to digitize their store associates.
00:32:20:01 - 00:32:55:09
John Curtis
And we've delivered more than 740,000 of our devices in order to digitally equip their associates and in from an in-store experience to allow them to do things like scanning to do things like inventory management, etc. But it also gave all of their employees a personal device they were able to use at work and at home. So we believe this is one of the first of its kind deployments of corporate liable devices to the majority of a of an employee base within a retailer.
00:32:55:18 - 00:33:19:17
John Curtis
And it's the beginning of the shift towards scaling this in other industries as well. So this absolutely I would challenge the that the financial services industry to really think about what is the power and how can you impact your employee engagement, but also your engagement with your customers through digitizing more and more of your own, your own employees.
00:33:19:27 - 00:33:27:02
John Curtis
So I see on the on the line that that Miriam's back but Miriam, we dived in and out, went on our own for a little bit there.
00:33:28:13 - 00:33:50:16
Miriam Cross
Thank you so much. And thank you for filling in so, you know, you were talking earlier about how like 69% of employees would consider would change jobs for technology. So question for both of you. And John, I'll start with you. How does a digital first strategy enable growth for for banks and other financial institutions?
00:33:52:10 - 00:34:18:17
John Curtis
I think it's Miriam. It might be along the lines of what I was saying there, but for sure, it allows better engagement with the employees and better engaged employees will look after the customers better and will do that, do their jobs better. And in order and help the things to to move forward faster that and then better engaged customers.
00:34:18:22 - 00:34:57:28
John Curtis
So all of the whole concept of digital and mobility helps with with that. Again the report and I keep talking about the report we just published at the majority of employees. 75% think that the right mobile tech is critical to to moving forward with their job in the new normal So as we exist today 75% are believing that mobility is critical to to what they do and and then a vast majority again a 78% would say that inferior mobile technology has hurt a customer relationship.
00:34:58:07 - 00:35:24:01
John Curtis
And again as we talked about at the beginning of this meeting that this industry has been built on personal relationships and on that customer interaction it's all you know, as Jose says, it's moving online. It's moving to the mobile app, all of that interaction, but it's built on interaction is is the power of of this industry. So inferior mobile tech and can hurt that.
00:35:24:13 - 00:35:56:26
John Curtis
And then basically employees are recognizing now how important digital interactions are and will continue to be in growing their careers. So again, what we said earlier that 69% of our employees are saying that mobile tech is a decisive factor in choosing their careers. So people want to learn more and more about this, whether they want to learn about the actual technology that underlie about the ecosystem or they want to learn about the technology and where where that's going.
00:35:57:02 - 00:36:22:10
John Curtis
They realize that that that is super important. So I think in the final point to that question would be to say that the pandemic has upset and reset that the customer and the employee expectations and mobile technology is the answer to to helping to to fulfill those expectations as we go forward. And that's certainly our belief and underpinned by the study we did.
00:36:23:20 - 00:36:35:09
Miriam Cross
And on your end, where what do you see? How does the digital first story like kind of the lessons you've taken in how that enable growth at American Express going forward?
00:36:36:05 - 00:37:05:29
Jose Quesada
For sure. I will pick up actually two words that John used I very much agree with. One is engagement, right on. The second one is interactions rather than I chose interactions because frequent interactions are very important to keep your brands of mind with your customers, right? And you have this very virtuous cycle of engagement. And that's why a at the very beginning of the session, I mentioned how we have seen record levels of growth when it comes to daily interactions.
00:37:06:08 - 00:37:54:16
Jose Quesada
Right. Which is like a critical way for us to measure the growth that we are driving with data about what currently will we try to do with the app and really with our digital services sales to meet customer needs. At the same time, how customers realize the value of the Amex product offering right to the Amex membership. One example, when it comes to growth in retail environment, we saw in the pandemic that e-commerce was going up from all customer segments, right, because of the lockdowns, the social distancing measures, etc. We saw a need to help customers send money to family and friends, but potentially to split pages that they've done in conjunction with them.
00:37:54:16 - 00:38:22:17
Jose Quesada
So will we be there? We launched some [inaudible] and they really allows in the Amex customer all of that with a PayPal Venmo account to easily feel free from the Amex mobile app to send money to any of the family member or a friend. That is great news for customers because there's a need again. But time is great news for us because that's driving more daily interaction with those customers is within our product.
00:38:22:17 - 00:38:34:09
Jose Quesada
Tell a [inaudible], you know, hopefully that will keep using a more and more product as well. And that's how I think you can really create that cycle if you [inaudible], which is a bit of a win win for both sides.
00:38:35:24 - 00:38:41:06
Miriam Cross
In terms of. So we have a minute left there. Any last words either of you want to share.
00:38:44:09 - 00:38:58:24
John Curtis
I think, Miriam, for me just to say thank you so much and thank you to you and all of your colleagues for for hosting this. Really appreciate it. And the only thing I'd like to leave everyone with is the concept of mobile first.
00:38:58:24 - 00:39:07:01
Jose Quesada
I just echo just Jon’s words it was a blast? Yeah. Digital is here to say.
00:39:09:16 - 00:39:10:18
Miriam Cross
Thank you both very much.
Propelling Growth with Digital-first Strategies
March 31, 2022 11:10 AM
40:02