Moving to A Customer Focused Culture
A regional financial institution experienced a dramatic shift in its marketplace due to regulatory changes, which made its competitive positioning tenuous. In addition, a long term CEO left, whose customer connections had played a major role in the organization's past success. The new CEO faced the equivalent of a start-up organization, with a pre-existing infrastructure that struggled to support the current organization, and was clearly inadequate to support future growth.
Action:
Working with the existing senior executive team, we began to identify a fit between current talent and current need. All senior executive team members underwent talent assessments and development planning, as well as authentic conversations about long-term fit in their positions and with the organization. Some people moved to different positions for greater success. A few outside players were recruited to complete the team. A series of off-sites were conducted to create and hone a differentiating service strategy in the new market. In addition, the team worked to define the functional alignment required to implement the new strategy. As part of these efforts, specific executive skill building was conducted, at the individual level, in the form of coaching; and, at a group level in the form of team effectiveness building.
Results:
The organization created a powerful customer focus and integrated it into their overall culture that was transformational for the institution. Business results included dramatically increasing their penetration in key areas, especially auto financing. The team decided to institute some technology upgrades that dramatically improved customer service. The opening of additional branches was one demonstration of growth. Overall, this team truly created a new culture that was focused on customer service and profitability for the institution.
