Building Client Loyalty

Building Client Loyalty at the Executive Level

by Pamela Lager, Client Loyalty Program Manager
Metavante Corporation

Are your company’s clients really satisfied?
How deep — and how high up the organization — does their satisfaction and loyalty go?

For several years, the Metavante Corporation conducted telephone surveys to determine client satisfaction. As one of the top three U.S. bank technology and payments processors, Metavante has grown to become a $1+ billion company, with 80-85% of our recurring revenue driven by financial account processing and related payment services. As a subsidiary of Marshall & Ilsley Corp., our clients are typically banks and other financial institutions, and our primary client relationships are with C-level officers of the bank.

Over the last 2 years Metavante has invested $1.3 billion through acquired technology, research and development. In the midst of our fast growth, we wanted to be sure that we were still delighting our customers.

Our periodic telephone surveys indicated our satisfaction numbers were generally high, but that wasn’t enough. Our management team viewed satisfaction as only the first step in building the long-term partnerships we try to foster with our clients. We wanted:

• More data
   
• Deeper insights into our customer’s true feelings and needs
   
• More loyalty and commitment between our clients and Metavante

Cultivating that kind of loyalty and commitment, we knew, required a deeper understanding of our clients’ true views and feelings, matched with a genuine desire to help them achieve their business objectives. This was more than we could hope to achieve with the surveying methods we were using at the time.

Telephone Surveys Inadequate

The telephone surveys we had been depending on for feedback had many drawbacks:

• Surveys were conducted far too infrequently—only once per year
   
• Results took a long time to receive
   
• Results delivered only numbers. No underlying meaning or context
   
• No tie-back to clients
   
• No pre-calls or follow-up
   
• A potential for interviewer bias toward positive results

In 2001, Metavante engaged CustomerSat to develop a more comprehensive, ongoing survey feedback system, one that took advantage of online technology to accelerate the process and increase the quality and quantity of data. In addition, a higher level of accountability was introduced. Metavante’s new CEO, Frank Martire, instituted reporting structures to ensure that our people followed up on all this new client feedback. This accountability required us to specify what was done to fix problems our clients identified, as well as respond to new challenges and opportunities revealed in the client survey process.

Introducing the Metavante Client Loyalty Program

From our desire to know what our clients were really thinking and feeling, Metavante’s Client Loyalty Program (CLP) was born. Its mission is to ensure that every customer’s voice is heard and acted upon. CustomerSat, with their expertise and experience, emerged as the ideal survey program provider. They design our surveys, distribute them to customers, collect the data, post reports both online and offline, and discuss the results with me and my colleagues. CustomerSat’s research team are experts at providing the hard data we need, in the form of both individual and aggregate customer feedback. In addition to regular, personalized surveys, CustomerSat’s professional services enable our customer dialogue in a variety of ways:

• Alerts
   
• Analytics, including online reports, which are always at our managers' fingertips
   
• Action Management

CustomerSat brings objectivity and a rigorous loyalty methodology to the process. They provide a structure in which client feedback can be retrieved, organized, integrated into our corporate culture, and acted upon. The customer dialogue this partnership has created has made a huge difference for Metavante, in terms of the quality of the input and the efficiency of the process. Accountability is also built into the program, because our actions are based on what we learn.

CLP’s Five Components

Our Client Loyalty Program utilizes five main tools: surveys, pre-and post survey client contacts, client groups, and client visits.

• Surveys provide seamless integration and on-going communication with clients.
   
• Pre-survey client contacts by the Client Relationship Manager (CRM) lay the groundwork for each month’s survey and ensure each customer is primed and ready.
   
• Post-survey follow-up calls by CRMs focus on understanding client feedback, not challenging their scores.
   
• Client Groups offer every client a voice. Metavante sponsors regular on-site client meetings throughout the country. These are not sales meetings. We bring product people and do actual work with the clients at these meetings.
   
• Client Visits and follow-ups prove we walk the walk, too. As Director of the Metavante Client Loyalty Program, I personally visit particular clients whenever survey responses indicate a need for direct consultation.

The survey process, in brief, works like this:

• Two weeks before each monthly survey, our Client Relationship Managers (CRMs) receive notices advising them which of their clients will be surveyed that month.
   
• CRMs make required pre-survey call to each of those clients.
   
• CustomerSat sends out surveys on the third Wednesday of each month.
   
• CRMs are notified within an hour after clients complete their survey. Account team members and regional managers receive results of individual surveys as soon as they are submitted. There’s no waiting to learn what clients are saying.
   
• Within three days the CRMs contact each client to thank them for their participation and schedule a face-to-face, follow-up meeting.</li>

CustomerSat’s online statistical analysis and reporting allows Metavante managers to view results for their region or product line, generate loyalty index results, review trends, and identify loyalty segments. A clear reporting structure is in place for each survey. Accountability is emphasized because reports show individual responses, and display the names of all responsible managers associated with each record.

• Monthly reports are distributed widely for corporate learning.
   
• Quarterly reports summarize current quarter results. They also compare current results to previous quarters.
   
• Semi-annual reports update key drivers of client loyalty so that changes in client expectations can be identified and incorporated into strategic planning

Open, Honest Dialogue

Client visits emphasize honest dialogue. To encourage frank and candid discussions, the CLP Manager tells the client the interview is an “independent audit.” And that’s true. CLP groups operate as an independent entity, reporting directly to the COO. Open-ended interview questions are used, to indicate that the interviewer has no agenda, except to hear what the client has to say. Typical questions and comments include:

• "Tell me about the life of the relationship."
   
• "Say more about that."
   
• "What behavior presented itself?"
   
• "If you had a magic want, what would be different?"

These open-ended interviews frequently yield client comments like:

• "Are you from an outside company?"
   
• "I'll tell you the truth -- but not my Customer Relationship Manager."

It’s difficult to report honest but unflattering news to an account team after a client visit. But because our CLP reports are based on both survey data and client interviews, the visits enable us to elaborate on the context and feelings behind the numbers. This helps the account teams accept our findings more readily.

Our approach with account teams follows two tracks:

• Here's what the survey data indicates.
   
• Now here's the story behind the data, based on our recent client visit.

Embracing the perceptions of our clients has led to changes not only in Metavante's business processes and procedures, but in our corporate culture as well.

Culture Change: Executive Leadership of CLP

Translating accurate customer feedback into action is the key to driving bottom-line results. To get the most from customer surveys, a corporate culture must not only examine the results, but embrace them—and evolve. Measuring satisfaction, after all, is useful only if the results drive improvements in business operations. Ideally, it becomes a continuous loop of improved communication and action at every level, from the executive suite to the shop floor.

Over time, our managers have come to accept changes designed to ensure:

• Follow-up
   
• Accountability
   
• Consequences

Another broad component is involved. In addition to the change in corporate culture that embraces the CLP, there is a change in technology that affects the account teams' relationships with their clients. We now have rapid feedback and response mechanisms that continuously build on themselves. These enable our account teams to strengthen their relationship with each client.

As a result of these changes, Metavante now enjoys several powerful benefits:

• Increasing response rates
   
• Increasing loyalty scores
   
• Fewer complaints from Customer Relationship Managers
   
• Better understanding of client concerns at all levels of the organization
   
• Improved resoinsiveness to client's needs and demands

We're understandably proud of these important accomplishments. But we're not finished yet.

Future Directions

The goal of the Customer Loyalty Program, as mentioned above, is a continuous loop of improvement at every level of the organization. Looking forward, here is what we see at Metavante:

• Changing view of client feedback. Rather than a threat, it’s viewed as a vital tool to help everyone in the company do a better job.
   
• Changing expectations of Relationship/Account Managers. We’re a team, and we’ll succeed or fail as one. It’s not a solo act. If an individual manager gets a great rating, but the overall company earns a meager score, the CRM or Account Manager is not doing their job. It takes a company-wide effort to improve.
   
• Incorporating customer feedback into due diligence. Client Loyalty Program surveys are now included as part of our due diligence during acquisition of a company.
   
• Implementing loyalty surveys with acquired companies. They’re “our” companies now. Face-to-face contact with acquired companies is vital to reinforce Metavante’s emphasis on relationships, account planning, and action, rather than simply collecting numbers. Similarly, CLP Orientation is done in person – NOT by telephone conference call.

Taking These Lessons Back to Your Company

Not every organization can implement the extensive client contact that is central to Metavante’s loyalty program. But even if your company can’t follow up every survey, or make nationwide client visits, you can make a start.

Regardless of your budget, you can make a commitment to listening to your customers—then applying what you learn to improving your organization. Obviously, it’s crucial to make sure that what you’re hearing is what your customer is actually saying. Frankly, the science of surveys is not within the core competencies of most organizations. So make sure you partner with a company with the expertise you need, in terms of the quality of the input and the efficiency of the process.

Take steps today to begin an active dialogue with your customers, then set priorities for action that emerge from the dialogue. The benefits are numerous and attractive:

• Establish priorities based on customer segments
   
• Implement pilot projects with more proactive groups
   
• Adopt different levels of follow-up for different purposes

The result is joint progress in meeting goals - a highly valuable outcome and major return on investment in the feedback process.

If you take these steps, and questions arise—questions like “Are our clients really satisfied? How deep does their satisfaction and loyalty go?”—you won’t have to wonder about the answers. You’ll know.

Pamela Lager is Client Loyalty Program Manager at Metavante Corporation.

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