Playlist: Prioritizing Your Business Banking Needs
The Project & the Challenge
The Playlist project came from PNC's Corporate & Institutional Banking's need to engage prospective customers with a set of streamlined digital tools to win and keep their business. The challenge of the Playlist project was to help prospective corporate clients of the bank to have an effective and focused first conversation with a PNC banker about their business' financial needs.
Understanding the Corporate Client's Perspective
The project began with developing an understanding of corporate client needs, through the eyes of PNC's bankers, and through in-person research with recent clients. We began by hosting a workshop with PNC corporate bankers to understand what the sales process with prospective customers is like, through a focused journey-mapping session:
We worked with our corporate business leaders to vet this journey, and propose areas where it could be improved through a series of digital tools and services. We developed journey maps showing the sales and onboarding process from both the banker's and client's perspectives, and honed in on places where the process could be improved with digital solutions for both parties:
Research & Ideation
We then vetted these concepts in the field with several corporate clients who had recently become customers of PNC. From the feedback we received, we then honed in on three concepts for improving the customer experience: a digital document sharing tool, a tool to focus the initial sales conversations with PNC bankers, and an improved product research website to help clients understand PNC's corporate banking options.
Concept Testing
We then developed the three concepts more fully into storyboards, which we then tested with more corporate clients in the field. We looked to understand if these concepts were desirable, met our client's needs for onboarding with PNC's products and services, and were considered useful. Two of the concepts tested very well with our clients — the ability to exchange and track financial documents with PNC, and the tool to focus the initial sales conversations with PNC bankers.
Design Iteration & Wireframing
Our business partners in Corporate & Institutional Banking decided to focus on developing a pilot for the sales conversation tool. I then worked with several subject-matter experts to understand the business requirements and needs for the product. We conducted an ideation workshop with bankers and subject matter experts that focused on the types of conversations, needs, and products that corporate clients focus on when they are considering building a relationship with a bank.
This crowdsourcing of ideas and requirements from our SME's and clients lead to the design of a digital "playlist" that would allow clients to schedule an initial appointment with a PNC banker, specify which agenda topics are most important to them as they consider a new banking partnership, and delivers insights to them based on their financial needs and industry.
I lead a team of two other designers to develop initial concepts for the service, which we then vetted with a few more clients and internal subject-matter experts:
After getting feedback from customers, we refined the designs by refining the introductory content for appointment setting, t making the agenda-setting portion of the service more simple, and adding in-context business insights as the client would answer a set of questions about their business.
After finalizing the wireframes, we handed off the designs to the pilot development team, and provided ongoing design advice as the product was built.
Project Outcomes — Streamlined Corporate Client Prospecting
The Playlist service was released as a pilot in December of 2017 to a group of 20 prospective clients, and received overwhelmingly positive feedback from clients and PNC bankers alike.
The news of the Playlist pilot's success was shared across PNC. From the article below:
"Jessica Cuffia-Corlette is a Commercial Banker in Cleveland, and participated in the Playlist pilot late last year to prepare for a client prospecting call. She saw immediate rewards when she received a comprehensive response from a prospect. Based on the information received in the response, Cuffia-Corlette was able to prepare a pinpointed meeting agenda for her first call.
The result was a far more productive initial meeting than the traditional alternative of several in-person meetings just to learn which questions to ask.
"The prospect was very impressed by the technology that PNC was using, and we ultimately uncovered some opportunities that we wouldn't have uncovered until later in the process," said Cuffia-Corlette. "Within 2 weeks of sending the Playlist request, we learned that we were one of three banks still in the running to win the business. We closed the deal eight weeks later, netting the bank $65,000 in sales."
"That story is proving out over and over," adds Andrew Yancey, Commercial Banking Strategy. "Playlist allows our RMs to bring the right people to the first call instead of spending that time learning who those 'right people' are."
Jason Palmgren, a Commercial Banker in Atlanta, provides an excellent example of bringing the right people to that first call.
"Using Playlist, we learned that one of our prospect's main concerns was international business. Playlist revealed the eight countries in which they were doing business, and allowed me to bring my FX partner to add value," Palmgren said. "Playlist also revealed concerns around trade finance, which prompted me to bring my trade partner. It even revealed issues with the incumbent bank. We are going to prescreen tomorrow and presenting a term sheet for a credit proposal on Thursday."
"We are getting comprehensive replies on one of every 2.5 Playlists sent," Novosel says. "And our prospects continually tell us that no one else is doing this. With such high response rates and positive feedback from our prospective clients, RMs are really seeing an impact.'"
The Playlist tool has since been released across PNC’s footprint, and continues to bring in rave reviews from both PNC’s corporate bankers and clients. The tool has supported an increase of customer conversion to PNC by 12% for the bank’s Corporate & Institutional Banking Team.
