Rick Denton: 0:05

You're listening to CX Passport, the show about creating great customer experiences with a dash of travel talk. Each episode well talk with our guests about great CX, travel...and just like the best journeys, explore new directions we never anticipated. I'm your host Rick Denton. I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport. Let's get going. Ooh, you are in for a treat today. When you have the chance to talk to someone who recently won the CX evangelist award, it's guaranteed to be fascinating. Well prepared to be fascinated because today I get the chance to talk with Aarthi Murali, the Chief Customer Experience Officer at m&t Bank. The evangelist award most certainly applies to Aarthi. As I've come to know her over the last several months, I found someone who is both incredibly wise about the right way to create great customer experience, but also incredibly savvy about the way to ensure buy in engagement excitement about CX initiatives across an organization. Through these leadership, m&t Bank realized incredible advancements in customer experience and uses that to their advantage in a highly competitive field. I'm eager to learn more about Aarthi his beliefs and approach around CX Aarthi Welcome to CX passport.

Aarthi Murali: 1:24

Thank you Rick. Thanks for having me on today.

Rick Denton: 1:27

It is going to be fun. I'm just jazzed about this. But let's jump right into that discussion around the great progress around customer experience at m&t. So much has been done. And I'd love to hear a little bit about that. But beyond that, of course, you're not stopping. Tell me more about what's next for CX at m&t Bank.

Aarthi Murali: 1:43

Oh, again, Rick, thank you so much for having me on. You know, last year was a really important foundational step for customer experience at m&t. And we really focused on building some of those core capabilities, we came together as a bank to really put the customer in the middle like we always do. But to apply it more in a holistic and strategic way. The words that I typically use our end to end, front to back and imagine this world where financial in financial services, we think about how we meet customers the way they want to be met. Yeah, and offer and organize the the actual organization in a way that the customers want to experience US versus the departments and teams that we might have. And making that a purpose created a wide variety of options for us to bring customer experience to the forefront, which included partnerships with the likes of Qualtrics. It included, you know, launching our own very first mobile app to make sure we have real time employee feedback directly going into the hands of businesses and subject matter experts, and creating a really closed sense and sense and respond feedback loop, which is incredibly important, as you know, to customer centricity.

Rick Denton: 3:02

I'm curious about that, if I can, that employee feedback aspect, some of the things that I talk about a lot, there's a talk that I give 2020 do that not everything changed. And one of the things that's a fundamental of customer experience, is your frontline knows your customers experience better than you do. So can you tell me a little bit about that employee feedback that you're getting? Is it focused on the employee engagement experience, which obviously, is a fundamental piece of delivery, customer experience? But are you also able to get some customer experience nuggets out of that talk to me about that employee, because that's, I like what I'm hearing there, that's an intriguing way of going about it with that app.

Aarthi Murali: 3:35

You know, the the concept of employee experience being crucial to customer experience has long been hypothesized is the word I'm going to use. But I think the pandemic really brought it to the forefront and proved it in a resounding way we did it and and the the notion that we went with as if we don't offer our employees a way to in the moment, be able to raise their hands and really talk about what's in their way, what's stopping them from providing an amazing experience. How can we remove that friction, then I believe that we're just not doing our jobs as leaders in connecting those dots that need to be connected. And there's just nothing more important than the employees feeling like they are fully empowered and fully capable of helping customers. And I would also add that yes, the frontlines are amazing. And they deal with customers. They have insights into what we need to change in order to provide those amazing experiences. But our middle and back offices are equally an integral part and that's where the front to back connectivity comes in. Okay? And and getting this tool in their hands as well was important for us to get their feedback that allowed us to see all the way from the front office to the middle and the back. Here's how these processes are stitched together or Got stitched together, and how we need to radically transform them. So everyone is happy in that value chain.

Rick Denton: 5:06

Yeah, let's talk about that a little bit. Because one of the things in customer experience, right, we talked about, yeah, especially with you and the buy in stories that you've shared with me and how you've really gotten the whole organization that front to back that you're describing, involved with customer experience, but you have to start somewhere. And there are organizations that don't traditionally self identify as being customer facing, right, you hear about Audit and Finance are kind of cliche ones. But there's other organizations as well, that would say, look, customer experience isn't for me, I do heck facilities, right. You know, I don't even think about the customer. I'm doing headquarters facilities, what does that look like? So go and kind of putting back that evangelist hat that you have? How did you drive that buy in for customer experience in that front to back in those areas that aren't necessarily customer facing?

Aarthi Murali: 5:49

That? That's a great question, right. And it's a little bit of an art and a little bit of a science. And it depends on the day that you decide to be the artist or the scientist, but but the magic happens when the two meet together, right. And it's just like employees and customer shareholders in the communities. And if we were to do that Venn diagram, and they all intersect, that's where that magic happens. And there's two, two parallel approaches that I typically advocate for. And one is, hey, get the real time pain points out there. Let's talk about it. Let's be really objective about it. And let's go tackle it and let's go fix them. And that that's the faster flywheel. And what it allows is, for incredible belief building and proof points, where you're just not talking about the concept of customer centricity, you're actually physically implementing it, and you're changing, and you're simplifying. And you see the corresponding changes in your scores, the scores are an outcome, they're not the goal by themselves. And by scores, I mean, Net Promoter Score, we're seeing that and then there's the little bit of a, you know, slightly slower flywheel, which is around the broader journey led transformation that I'm a huge proponent of, that really is all about looking at, you know, hey, look at the customer's journey in their shoes, put yourself in their shoes, they don't wake up every morning saying, Let me figure out how I work with my bank. They do what they do in their lives, and and really changing that orientation to fit into their lives. And look at all those moments that matter to them and stitch them together. That requires more data, you know, AI, ml, some technology work in their digital, all that comes into play, and how do you stitch those together, and the two together make an impact. But the last piece that I would say is storytelling, which is very in line with, with the recognition that we got for the evangelist award, how do you tell those stories? How do you connect to the hearts and minds and win hearts and minds along the way, all the way from the C suite down to every part of the organization, bringing it to life through the voices of employees and customers is the best?

Rick Denton: 7:51

Yeah, I I'm a huge proponent of storytelling, I'd love to actually explore a little bit more of that storytelling with you. Kind of how y'all have gone about that I've been a part of this was before my consulting days, but been a part of a company that really focused on the storytelling and so in in, in an area like home equity, you wouldn't think of that being emotional. And yet there were tears falling down faces mine included at town halls as videos were shown of these stories of how home equity truly impacted people's lives and reminded you if you weren't in a customer facing role, how the business of what you're doing really was for that end customer. How was m&t Bank? How have you brought storytelling to light in the organization,

Aarthi Murali: 8:31

the cool part about MMT which I continue to be blown away every single day, you know, I'm completing two years with the organization. And, and the incredible empathy and belief in doing right by customers and communities just shines through every single day. And I believe it's, it's it's a secret sauce. It's inherent in the DNA of the organization and the people. And that's fantastic. But when we think about it, at the end of the day, we are all humans serving humans, we happen to be doing it through a set of products and services that, you know, we offer, and so do several other institutions. And frankly, so do a lot of startups. You can go apply for a loan, you know, on your mobile phone, and you could move that forward. But But bringing in that human connection, there is so incredibly important. So with that said with that being in the DNA, there are some very cool things. I believe they're cool. Of course, I'm going to say that but I think there's some things that we've done to really bring that to life and bring it more to the forefront with everything else going on. We know there's a lot going on in the world around us right now. A couple of examples where we hosted a bank wide event called CX ignite in summer of last year, and it was a true celebration of innovation, customer centricity team, multidisciplinary teams that came together for the same for a single common cause like PPP, and bringing that today. Yeah, so you know, those are examples we have difference makers videos, which are amazing marketing and communications team puts together that showcases employees and customers working together and how we bring that to life. And maybe a last example is we ended the year on this incredibly positive note. And we hosted this Red Carpet Awards, virtually, of course, in a virtual slash hybrid way to bring and recognize exemplary behaviors with customer centricity. And these were awarded by leaders of the bank, to leaders and all employees, many employees at the bank, regardless of department, it was all about the behaviors, the beliefs, and the outcomes.

Rick Denton: 10:44

Beautiful, beautiful, I love that I love that. And there's so much in there one, you'd have the power of video is stunning. And which is ironic for me to say in an audio only podcast, but the power of video is so important that that storytelling, and then that idea that you're talking about that red carpet, that celebration of that so vital, and it reinforces in the employee, hey, this is what the company cares about. Therefore, if I want to care about the same things company's doing sit be celebrated. I'm going to start doing that. And then I mean, gosh, Arthur, you gave me so much and just that little bit like that human serving humans and that spirit of community and that just that embedded DNA inside of MMT is really beautiful. It does make me think so m&t community roots community banking roots, right, but it's growing. And I know it can be really challenging to balance customer experience, right? If you're one little credit union, it can be really easy to do customer experience and delight the customer. But you want to continue to show up in the community as m&t grows, how do you do that in the community, but then deliver at scale?

Aarthi Murali: 11:46

That's, that's the question of the I think, right now. And the good news is that is the question that a lot of other banks are asking, including the larger banks. There's this, this recognition during the pandemic that, you know, traditional FIS have realized that, hey, we can build amazing capabilities, we can offer incredible digital solutions. But today's world requires a blend of digital human connection, and how do you deliver that with empathy to the communities and be very purpose LED? So So I think, yes, it's a challenge for community banks. But I believe all FIS are grappling with that same message, we we do it through the leveraging of our secret sauce is the short answer given that that's already in our DNA. It's about how do we purposefully create capabilities that support the organization and our customers. And a great example is, you know, the, the orientation that we did with the launch of our multicultural branches, we have over 118 branches now in our footprint, that have been tagged and operate as multicultural branches, which means that they have employees that can speak the language of the people who live in those communities, they can culturally relate to the needs, be sensitive to the environment for them and show incredible empathy, along with the other cool stuff that we already do, which is, you know, marketing materials in the right languages. So everyone has equal access and equity and with access to financial capital is a small example as we scale, but a great way to apply to to, you know, directly to the health of the community that we serve.

Rick Denton: 13:28

Yeah, and, and what, what I appreciate about what you said, there's the multicultural aspect of that dropping that into those communities and expanding those communities. You didn't say just language, right? You could, you could print those marketing materials, and you have the language A, B, C, D, and E and F all the way down to Z. Right. But it's you mentioned that having employees that can culturally identify with and be a part of that community and be a part of that culture that builds especially in something that stereotypically we think of banking as being sort of sterile, but that's a really beautiful way to make that human to human connection that you're describing. It makes a lot of sense to me why MMT would would expand in that way and use that as a way to keep that at scale. I was thinking about okay, so thinking about multicultural always gets me thinking about travel. And I know that the pandemic created a new language ecosystem I call it around the word revenge, revenge dining, revenge shopping, and there's revenge travel, right people have these trips queued up and it's it can be hard to get flights and be hard to get hotels now because of all the rich revenge travel. I know you're going stir crazy a bit what is coming up on your revenge travel list.

Aarthi Murali: 14:39

Okay, I have to I have to admit, I didn't know this word existed until you and I had this conversation but I completely identify with the spirit of it. Yes. And I'll share a little personal story. So right during the holidays, you know, we we had this beautiful decompress time to focus on the family and the kids are at home. No worries you But we were captured at home. And we spent an inordinate amount of time talking about how we did not travel the past two years, how we have been captive. So my husband and I, we went ahead and booked this very long list of travel for this year, which puts us around, I think, all over the country and the world in multiple places at least six to eight times this year. It's aspirational. I will say it's aspirational, but we're going to try really hard to we do have a desire to go out west, visit a handful of the national parks. My kids are at Justice age where I think you know, it's a great time to hang out together and actually give them that experience that they've missed in the past few years. But of course, they want to go to Universal Orlando. So that is first on our list, and then the rest of follow.

Rick Denton: 15:52

So we're out west, because that does make me chuckle right. We as parents, we love to decompress the American West and Southwest is probably my favorite part of the US. I live in Texas. But I love going out to Arizona in anything Colorado, Nevada, whatever. Where are you heading out there? Because I find that to be some of the most beautiful parts of the country.

Aarthi Murali: 16:09

Yeah, Southwest is probably the first one that we've already made reservations to Sedona and to Yep, Arizona Sedona and then we'll make our way to Yellowstone eventually. And then we've got Utah on the list there as well. So again, aspirational, but we are going to try really hard to stick to the schedule.

Rick Denton: 16:33

Here's the little change of pace here. Now, with that kind of travel demand. I've got to imagine that you are going to be seeking the first class lounge in fact, you might say to the kids, Hey, y'all sit outside there but my husband, we're going to go sit in the first class lounge and relax, you put your headphones on and we'll be out here in a little bit. But join me today in the first class lounge we will move quickly here and hopefully have some fun. What is a dream travel location from your past?

Aarthi Murali: 16:57

Muscat Oman.

Rick Denton: 17:00

Really? Yes. Ooh, tell me more about that.

Aarthi Murali: 17:03

That's I lived there briefly but incredibly briefly when I was a child and I found that to be the most beautiful, beautiful locale with incredible weather and very hilly, very mountainous terrain, and an incredible opportunity to do a lot of outdoor outdoor activities. You know springs deepen the deepen the hills, and just the mountain climbing opportunities. It was just one of the most rugged, but scenic places that I had been.

Rick Denton: 17:36

Wow, I have not had a guest mentioned them on yet. And that's what a great description of it. So now, you just added that to dream travel occasion that I've not been to yet but for you. What is a dream travel location you've not been to yet.

Aarthi Murali: 17:50

I'm going to say Belize. Okay, um, it doesn't sound too far away, it should be doable, but again, in our aspiration to travel, it's on my list. Again, given my kids choose universal every time I have to fight to get this out into the travel agenda, but I'd love to go and visit the Mayan ruins. I keep I read a lot about it. And I have an incredible curiosity and to go and experience and step back in the past for a second and see what that was like. And just imagine what that would have been like, hundreds of years.

Rick Denton: 18:23

That's gonna be really neat. So I mentioned I live in Texas and that's just a two hour flight from us and yet I've not been to Belize yet but I've had several of my friends and colleagues have gone and have spoken very fondly of exactly what you described getting into the mind culture the diving is very good there. So definitely a place that I it's almost kind of a shame that I haven't been there been to Mexico several times, but I need to get a little further down the Yucatan Peninsula and head over to Belize. travel and food go hand in hand. What is a favorite thing to eat?

Aarthi Murali: 18:53

This is hard for me to answer because I am not a picky eater. I was very picky when I was young I gave my parents a really hard time I enjoy food period. So but I think for today maybe I'll choose some some Thai green curry as my one of my top favorites.

Rick Denton: 19:17

Yum. Oh, you just set my lunch plans for today. Good thanks Aarthi you know what I want to guess to say sometime What's your favorite food and for them to say what you just said food and just all of the above? So you mentioned being difficult to your parents. What's the thing your parents forced you to eat but you hate it as a kid?

Aarthi Murali: 19:33

All my vegetables.

Rick Denton: 19:35

All of them

Aarthi Murali: 19:35

all my vegetables bar none

Rick Denton: 19:38

I hear that a lot. What is one travel item not including your phone of course that you will not leave home without.

Aarthi Murali: 19:46

I really don't have anything. I think it's just my phone

Rick Denton: 19:54

you are a very flexible traveler. There you go. You're just gonna go with whatever it takes. I like that. You know Thinking back to that idea of customer experience and advancing customer experience in an organization. You know, it can be a challenge, right? Those of us in the CX community, right, we believe in it and have a spirit for it. But I know that you've said, Look, I'm going to take a bet that solving for what customers want will contribute to the value of the organization, how does this relate to that oft discussed ROI of CX discussion.

Aarthi Murali: 20:25

That's a that's a really great topic. It's a favorite topic of mine. And I'm when I say and I frequently say customer value equals business value equals organizational value. I come from a place of belief, but I also come from a place of having observed success. In the global experience economy. There are plenty of organizations out there with diversity of industry that have proven that thinking about and really putting customers at the forefront. And at the end of the day, offering them products and services that customers really want in the way they wanted, in the moment that they want is always good for our business, how could that possibly not be a great thing. But what can happen is it's easier maybe maybe to incorporate an implement that in a newer organization that's a startup or a new or a particular niche service. If you look at the subscription models that are out there, be it for music viewed for food delivery, grocery subscriptions for health care boxes, I mean, there's diamond dozen out there, they all cater to very specific needs that they believe that they're addressing for certain segments of customers out there. financial services industry has been around for a couple of centuries. Yeah. And I think I think there's a belief that this is a must have for everyone. And so there is a certain rigidity in some of the industry industries where this might have been around for a long time. And it takes some soaking in to get it in there. But I think I think all beings, thanks to the external influences and watching their own customers grow, are coming more and more to the realization that it's, you know, customer experience. And centricity is not just a nice thing to have. But actually, it's great for shareholder value. It's great for, you know, your revenue, and it's great for market share, and also showing up as a brand. Yeah, that's meaningful, which is also more important, more important now than ever.

Rick Denton: 22:31

So you and I both know, Nick Zeisler, and he talks about that a lot. He actually has this wonderfully contrarian point that we should never talk about the ROI of CX because whoever talks about the ROI of HR, or the ROI of finance right there, they're embedded in the organization, his argument is one, and he talks about that brand promise, and you sort of got there right there at the end of talking about that brand promise, as just a fundamental expectation. And you're right banking, if you look, traditionally, it would not be somewhere that necessarily banks and the financial services industry in general would be known for. But that external look, has really started to draw that. Are you drawing ideas from outside of the I imagine you are the financial services industry? Is that an important part of your thought process is how you go into developing great customer experiences?

Aarthi Murali: 23:16

Absolutely. Absolutely. I think the world is a very small stage right now. And it's it's imperative to look at industries to the left, right and center. And because those same customers of ours are having experiences with those other industries be personal health care, oh, my gosh, look at the wearables industry. Yeah, you could, you could buy an aura ring, which tells you your blood pressure, your heart rate, your like, your everything, and then you've got the Apple Watch, you've got Fitbit, you've got Garmin, you've got such a crowded space right there. And they're all fighting for a piece of it. But what that says is that customers are really looking for real time feedback, and they enjoy it. And then they show up in a bank branch with that same expectation. So how do we show? How do we show up with that little slice of their day in the middle of all that? And I think, I think I think that's key. I do want to comment on your on your question or the comment that you made around, you know, do you do you talk about the value of ROI, do you even justify it? And I think that's a fine line, right? To me, it's a blend of Yes, to the extent that it makes sense in the context of moving us forward. But at some point, it becomes a question of belief. Yeah. When you start getting into individual net promoters, and I say this on behalf of all my peers, the ex practitioners is when you say this, about, you know, hey, let's talk about the ROI of every point increase in net promoter score. That's not a winning argument. Like that's, that's a that's a question of belief. But if you're talking about, hey, let's digitize these platforms and acquire 20% were or retain 20% more customers, because that's a better experience. Now that's a real investment conversation you can have so that's how I distinguish those two.

Rick Denton: 24:59

Great I love how you parse that because, in fact, because of that exact point, Nick and I have actually created a videos at LinkedIn Live series where we argue with each other on purpose. So we set up this sort of conflict purposeful series of conversations we call their CX conversations we call them is really more just arguing. But it's a lot of fun. But exactly that I am not convinced that the ROI discussion has to can't let me say this differently. I am not convinced the ROI discussion is in our past, it is still a very important part of our present but your parsing of it there is so clear as to nits and gnats of okay, when it by three points, look at all the revenue now you're going to lose that argument. But the macro items, so so good. Let's go back to evangelism because I think that's an important part of this, right? You talked about belief, and buy in and and the like, and it's it's challenging enough to do that with one company inside of one company's culture and move them forward. But you're right in the middle of a merger with another organization. So I can't even imagine how one approaches the evangelism of customer experience blending to corporate cultures, and maybe even two different approaches to the customer. How are you going about that?

Aarthi Murali: 26:08

That's a great question. And the good news for us is it was made really easy for for both the organization's because at the heart of it, people's united, which is the organization that we're we're talking about here and context of this merger. The reason I believe that this will be such an amazingly successful integration between peoples and MMT, is that there's a very common shared belief on on caring and empathy for the customers. The culture of the organization of peoples is so eerily similar to to m&t that it brings a lot of joy to folks that we are truly all we're doing is expanding and welcoming employees and customers from people's verses. The word integration sounds like a hard push into an organization. And instead, this has really become a very, very much a unifying conversation of how do we now together show up for these markets that we're expanding into. And so I do think that that's an incredibly unique opportunity that MMT has, and having found is the soulmate for lack of a better word and people as we come together.

Rick Denton: 27:19

I wonder if that may be the title the episode, I haven't decided yet. But the one with the corporate soulmate? I doubt it. But you know, and that's, I imagine that companies have gone through this many times before and to have found the customer experience soulmate is wonderful. And it's probably made that a more delightful path. But I imagine that there have been situations and not necessarily in your experience with m&t bank, but having to go through that where there is that contrarian approach or maybe just not the same emphasis on customer centricity. And I imagine it goes back to the the spirit of that evangelism that you were describing from the very beginning, and and bringing buy in and storytelling and everything that goes into that. There's a question that is sitting in my mind, and it's something you've said to me many, many moons ago. And it's kind of related to that other industry conversation we just had. But you said MMT, you want MMT to be the Wegmans of banking? What does that mean? It's intriguing. Tell me more about that.

Aarthi Murali: 28:13

Definitely. And I cannot take credit for that. That particular phrase was coined by our chairman and CEO Rene Jones. Okay. And what is really beautiful about that is, Rene started this, this inspiring conversation hosted an inspiring conversation that really talked about what does it mean to have fan crazy inspiring experiences that we offer to communities and, and the immediate thought that came about was Wegmans. So for your listeners who don't know Wegmans is an incredibly authentic customer centric grocery chain, if you will, in the in the Northeast. And they are very well known for being very unique with their quality of products, but also the incredible out of the way care that they do for their customers. And so the customers who go to Wegmans are not you know, looking for, or maybe a better way to say it would be have a very high bar of expectation walking into Wegmans and Wegmans really distinguishes itself from from other places. The other cool thing about Wegmans is people and communities sign petitions and they send it to Wegmans and say open a Wegmans in my city. Really, there is no Wegmans in the entire state. Yeah, so Wegmans has this, their brand precedes them, the reputation precedes them, their authenticity, and and the impact that they have in the community precedes them, and then they show up and continue to fulfill that brand promise. So when you think about a bank in that context, I think and we believe I believe that we have that opportunity at MIT to be exactly that. And the reality is we are that already in many communities that we serve. And so how do we do that at scale? How do we do that effectively? We're all of the customers that we serve in across our footprint. And we believe that there's a there's a good, good opportunity for us to show up in that way.

Rick Denton: 30:08

Gosh, and what an inspiration right to use that in Texas. We have a grocery chain called ATB that it reminds me of the fan. The fanatic nature of its supporters reminds me of what you're describing as Wegmans. So I can totally see that. And it would be fascinating to be a part of a bank that has that as the aspiration that people are writing petitions to m&t corporate saying, please come to my community because you are such an amazing brand and we want you to deliver your parent promise here. Aarthi what a great conversation around customer experience. You've taught me so much every time I talk to you, I always learn a little bit more. It's certainly a delight just talking with you. But the idea of the human the human, the the community at scale, how we merge companies, I love the I love the corporate soulmate. And then certainly the aspiration of Wegmans of banking, what a brilliant Northstar to have. I just want to say thank you. Thank you for taking the time to talk here on CX passport. It's been a delight having you on the show. I've really enjoyed it. Thank you Aarthi.

Aarthi Murali: 31:07

Thank you again for having me, Rick. This was a fantastic opportunity to share some of my experiences and thank you again.

Rick Denton: 31:17

Thanks for joining us this week on CX Passport. Make sure to visit our website cxpassport.com where you can hit subscribe so you'll never miss a show. While you're at it, you can check out the rest of the EX4CX website. If you're looking to get real about customer experience, EX4CX is available to help you increase revenue by starting to listen to your customers and create great experiences for every customer every time. Thanks for listening to CX Passport and be sure to tune in for our next episode. Until next time, I'm Rick Denton, and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport.