Bank Of America Sees Personalized Video As Key To Rewards-Program Loyalty

It’s been a busy year in digital banking as the pandemic has driven consumers online to manage as much of their day-to-day lives as possible.

When Bank of America Rewards Executive John Sellers glanced at his in-house numbers over the last year, the evidence was plain to see. In an On The Agenda discussion with PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster and SundaySky CEO Jim Dicso, Sellers noted that Bank of America has had about 10 billion interactions with its 66 million customers, 9 billion of which happened online. As of the third quarter he said, Bank of America was reporting 39 million digital users, 30 million of whom are mobile users, and 43 million mobile check deposits were seen during the quarter alone.

To say that digital has had an explosively accelerated year in the world of financial services is hardly an exaggeration. And yet, Webster noted, when one digs into PYMNTS’ most recent data on the subject, even in this year of massive digital transformation, nearly half of all banking customers reported that when it came to seeking out information about new banking services, they preferred to head to physical bank branches. The online channels, they reported, are often too confusing or irrelevant to use.

And that satisfaction, SundaySky’s Jim Disco noted, is an outgrowth of the fact that when it comes to financial services data, the degree of detail necessary to disclose all the data about a product or service that may be relevant to a person is actually quite substantial. Going to a branch and having someone explain new banking services or products is vastly preferable to having to read lines of black and white text.

It helps them cut to the chase — forgo all of the perfunctory discloses and disclaimers that get in the way of the information that they want and need.

“People want the ability for the information to be communicated in a relevant fashion, as opposed to just a data dump of content long form, which is what a lot of times you find in those online environments,” Dicso said. “The organizations that are doing it better are starting to provide more of a filtering mechanism to expose information in a way that’s most relevant to the individual, and then leveraging better media to make it that much more impactful.”

Video becomes a very effective media in this regard and Bank of America has been working with SundaySky for the last several years to integrate it into its digital customer journey. A bank’s goal, Sellers noted, is pretty clear when it comes to building online journeys. Banks want to increase customer satisfaction, deepen their customer relationship and grow the business. What Bank of America has seen over the few years of integrating video into its digital customer journey is that it’s increasingly able to deliver on all three.

“The folks who are viewing the videos, when their behaviors compared to the others, we’re seeing they are buying more assets, we’re seeing deeper penetration in certain products like credit cards — that is kind of the proof point there that says, ‘OK, well, we’re onto something here,’” Sellers said.

Tapping The Potential Of Video

One of the early lessons in communications most people learn, Dicso noted, is that to imprint information in a consumer’s mind, represent the information a few times. Tell them that you are going to tell them information, then give them the information, then recap the information you’ve just given them. It’s a bit repetitive, but it is undeniably effective, he said.

“It takes discipline and starts with onboarding and telling them what the programs are all about,” Dicso said. “Then as they go through the journey, communicate the benefits you’re getting and how to get more value. And then at the end of the period, tell them what they received in the prior period and what to expect in the go-forward period. It’s about applying that discipline of it, not being an event, but it being part of an experience and being able to have that experience throughout the journey.”

As Sellers said, Bank of America’s experience of putting SundaySky video modules into place on its site works on two levels of the customer journey. On the front-end level, when Bank of America launches new products and services as part of the overall marketing plan and introductory plan, having a video is important. Then there’s the back end — what he called “the authenticated space” where they know who the client is, what their behaviors are, what their accounts are and what actions they have taken. And that, he said, is where Bank of America can really personalize its consumer’s needs — particularly in their rewards and investment space.

“From a rewards perspective, we’re going to be doing some cool new things around offers and getting more relevant offers to our clients,” Sellers said. “We actually now have it in Erica, so when you log into your mobile app, boom, it pops up for you right there and offers a video to take a look at. So, we’re trying to bring more and be more proactive in engaging our folks with videos. We’re going to proactively be engaging our clients in the rewards value that they’re given.”

Building the Right Customer Journey

Reorienting communication channels away from text and toward customized and more personalized video content for consumers is, by nature, a bespoke construction project in most cases because the goals in rebuilding the consumer journey can vary, Dicso noted.

“In any customer conversation, we first start with what is the audience that you’re trying to engage?” he said. “What’s the goal you’re trying to achieve with that audience? And then how do you reach that audience? When you can answer those three questions, you then have an ability to start to ask how we most effectively leverage video experience to affect the goal for that audience at that touchpoint. What are the topics that are most likely to resonate both in an education sense or in an inspiring actions sense?”

For Bank of America, for example, its rewards clients are an easy choice because they are also the bank’s best clients. They are roughly 12 percent of the member base, he said, but they account for nearly two-thirds of the bank’s assets and 47 percent of growth year over year. These are customers Bank of America prioritizes, and who want to understand the benefits they are getting by staying on.

And while SundaySky can’t predefine all of the variations an individual entity might need, the video component of the customer journey drives customers to understand the value they’re getting from the relationship.

“It starts with the audience and the goals, that’s really the way we think about it,” Dicso said.