Putting your people first with TSB Bank’s Emma Springham
71% of customers are after personalisation, and 79% are frustrated when it’s missing.
How can we, as marketers, continue to meet these emotive needs yet still welcome digitisation with open arms?
On this episode of The CMO Show, we’re joined by Emma Springham, Chief Marketing Officer at TSB Bank.
Emma is on a journey to balance the human side of marketing with the evolving and changing nature of banking.
She’s also a huge advocate for coaching and protecting your team.
Join us as we sit down with Emma to learn about her approach to automation – recorded live at Adobe’s Executive Forum in Sydney.
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Credits
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The CMO Show Production Team
Producer - Pamela Obeid
Audio Engineers – Ed Cheng & Daniel Marr
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Transcript:
Mark Jones
Here’s a statistic for you: 71% of customers really want personalisation. And here’s another 79% of them get really, really frustrated when it’s not there. It's not shocking really. Everyone loves a human touch. The question is – how can we meet these emotive, human needs, but welcome automation and digitisation with open arms?
Hello, Mark Jones here, thanks for joining us on The CMO Show. The CMO Show is a podcast made for and by marketing leaders, created by ImpactInstitute, and proudly supported by Adobe. Speaking of Adobe, last year I was invited to the Adobe Executive Forum in Sydney, where I met some fascinating people. Last year, you heard from one of them, Henry Ajder, AI & Deepfake Expert.
Today I’m pleased to introduce you to the second person I interviewed, Emma Springham – Chief Marketing Officer at TSB Bank. Emma’s on a journey to balance the human side of marketing with the evolving and changing nature of banking. Let’s jump right in. Thanks for joining us.
Emma Springham:
Oh, my pleasure. Great to be here.
Mark Jones:
Now, first time in Australia. Loving it?
Emma Springham:
Yeah, loving it. Need to see a little bit more, but absolutely loving it. A little bit of a time difference, but it's absolutely fine. But no, loving it. Beautiful city.
Mark Jones:
Tell me about TSB Bank back home. I've got to confess, I don't know the bank, I'm presuming it just does normal banking things.
Emma Springham:
Yeah, look, it's a medium-sized bank actually, and that's what I think makes it very different. So, I own all of the marketing channels all in one place. So, I own it from branch to mobile, social media, I own all the customer research. So, we are almost like a challenger bank, but the differentiation for us is we've still got that human touch. So, we've still got the branch network. So, we call this digital with a human touch.
Mark Jones:
And from a positioning point of view, it sounds like you are trying to balance that human side that we keep talking about in marketing all the time, right? At the moment, you're here as a guest of Adobe and you are speaking to local customers. Give us a sense of the journey that you've been on. How are you reflecting on the way that banking is evolving and changing?
Emma Springham:
Our customers are telling us. So, I just always revert back to the customer voice really. 71% of customers are saying they want personalisation. 79% are saying they get really frustrated when it's not there. If you think about a loan, is a great example, if I serve you a blanket banner and then you go through the process and then get declined, that's a really miserable customer experience. So, by able to be working with product to get personalised rates alongside the Adobe tech, I can not only personalise the content, but I can also personalise the rates, which means I've got a much higher percentage now that go through and get accepted. But that to me is just creating great customer journeys. For me, it's about just making sure I'm meeting that customer need, whether they're in-app or in-branch or on social media.
Mark Jones:
I'm really getting at this idea of emotion and a set of expectations that people hold. So, what are you finding is important for your customers? What's either the emotive sense they're looking for or is it more about the immediacy?
Emma Springham:
I'm trying to get it almost like a watch type scenario where people treat it in a very similar ways of measuring their steps, but really starting to look at their financial health actually. So, for me, it's about prompting customers through a process at the right time. I think current accounts, for example, have become very complex. You can get rewards, but you need to do XYZ. So, how do I take those customers and prompt them to do the right action at the right time and make it really effortless for them? My job's to make it effortless, but to educate them at the same time of how they could be much healthier in their finances.
Mark Jones:
So, as the CMO then, what's your biggest problem?
Emma Springham:
I think what's changed for me is it's really important to get risk and compliance. There's this real focus, if you think about hyper-personalisation, how do I take risk and compliance on that journey with me? I don't think we thought about that as much in previous years because I could do my channels and not really worry too much, but I think that's really important. I think the big difference as a CMO these days is I get my own budget and I'm in control of that, and I can do whatever I like. I need to justify it, but I've got my budget, but now I need to pitch for change budget, and that's a real change. So, I've made some people in my team face off to the change area and that's been a bit of a change over the I'd say last five years of I have to pitch for that budget to really get the tech moving.
Mark Jones:
And with the risk and compliance, that means, I presume, the team. So, keeping people on the same journey with you or making sure that you all are speaking the same language, can you give us a sense of what that's like?
Emma Springham:
I launch internal marketing plans, and part of that is risk and compliance. So, it's about engaging them really early on what I'm trying to achieve, but also pointing out the benefits for them. So, a great example is we've just moved our web platform to an Adobe AEM. That's increased our accessibility for customers, and compliance and legal love that, that's exactly what they want. And also they don't want me serving a banner and you end up getting declined. They want me to give you the right message at the right time, but you need to educate them. It's a bit like how you educate customers. I see it in exactly the same way. So yeah, we write internal marketing plans to engage them. We use workshops as well, just get people face to face, make them feel like it's their idea, make them feel like they're seeing the customer insight, and then they start to build it into their strategy and they're reporting that back up to the ExCo level. And that's the real winner for me.
Mark Jones:
What are the benefits that you're seeing for customers out of the personalisation journey? Because I think that's really where the rubber hits the road. What happens when you get it right?
Emma Springham:
I just love using the data. So yes, you've got the product side of offering personalised rates, magical customer journeys, but there's also a growing number of vulnerable customers and it's really thinking about that data. People in branch are really good at spotting things that you can't see. So, they had a carer's account. So, other people are looking after that account for that person. They're very vulnerable. And the branch staff started to notice there's some large transactions coming out, this doesn't feel right, but they've got that sense, if that makes sense, from a human viewpoint. But they're coming to me and saying, "How can I use that data to almost highlight this abuse of the account that's going on and large transactions happening? How can I use that data to almost flag?" So, I just find it fascinating of all the different things that I can do with the data, not just product, but also service and experience.
Mark Jones:
Honestly, that's what customers expect, isn't it? That you would know them and look after them specifically, that there would be that individual care.
Emma Springham:
Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
Mark Jones:
But how hard is that?
Emma Springham:
I think people have got a little bit worried now, the branch networks, I think across both UK and other countries, I think the branch networks are shrinking.
Mark Jones:
Shrinking, yeah.
Emma Springham:
But I think what we are finding in the research is they still want that human touch. So, when you're having a miserable experience, so fraud's a great example. If you get a piece of something on fraud, that's where we are finding that the more technical banks fall down because they can't phone anybody. As soon as you get something like that, that's a really worrying, anxious experience. They want to speak to an expert. So, we talk about being digital, but with a human touch, and I think it's really important that they feel that they've got that support and someone to speak to if they need to.
Mark Jones:
Well that actually taps into something I wanted to ask you about, which was this idea of your brand positioning and how you create that difference in the market. So, the digital with the human touch. It implies frictionless, maybe lower cost, easy, but a human that I can call. Is that a defensible position that you think you can hold in your market context?
Emma Springham:
Yeah, I think customers want to be able to serve themselves to a certain extent for the simple, really simple things like in the mobile is the perfect time. You're in that zone of doing your finances, it's the right time to look at stuff. And they want to be empowered to make those changes themselves, but it's when it becomes a little bit more complex. So, like a mortgage for example, it's a lot more higher purchase. So, that's when they want that human interaction. But it can be online, it can be through web chat, it can be through video. It doesn't have to be in a branch on a high street, but it is having that 24/7, I think people demand it these days, don't they? It's about that flexibility of getting information.
Mark Jones:
Yeah, they do. So, with AEM and the personalisation and the growth journey that you're on, what are the levers you're going to be pulling next in terms of how you take your campaigns to market? What's on your agenda? Can you give us a few insights so we can learn from some of your experiences?
Emma Springham:
Yeah, absolutely. So, we've pretty much turned most of the products now to personalised. So, if you've got a renewal of a mortgage, I'll offer you the right amount that we can actually lend you. We've got overdrafts, for example. We saw in the data that a lot of customers didn't have a direct debit, which meant their credit score could then get affected. So, we've been making sure we've been putting personalisation into products, but I think it's more about now the customer journeys and how do I create, say for example, if you're opening up a current account, how can I use the personalisation to create a journey that you've never experienced in a bank? You get a welcome email or you get something that's very traditional, but I'm trying to think about the prompts and how do I take that customer through so that they really feel that they are getting that one-to-one, almost like I mentioned, that health watch type experience of them constantly feeling that we are looking out for them and prompting them in the right decision. Because our research shows only one-in-five customers talk about their money worries. And therefore, what often happens is you could be in serious trouble, but it's too late by the time they speak to the bank. Whereas if they talk to me early, we can put things in place, we can support that customer.
Mark Jones:
It makes me think of gen AI and the broader AI conversation. What are the opportunities that you see emerging in that context? Because the reason I ask is quite simply scale.
Emma Springham:
Yeah, we are very much, I say we're in the test and learn phase at the moment around the gen AI. So, I've been quite conservative just to build trust as well on my side. So, we've done things like web chat, but we're still having that human intervention at the moment. Just as we are learning, we don't want to take everything away. So, again, my risk and compliance, like the way I'm taking a conservative approach, building that trust with them. But the agent still gets three options and we're still learning through the data of what's the right option. With content, we are starting to test and learn, obviously Firefly, but again, we are very much in the testing. I'm not putting it live just yet, but we're just putting all of our brand assets in and training AI to learn what we're trying to move out. But I don't think I'll get rid of human interaction. It's having that, for me, as that safety net.
Mark Jones:
Can I ask, personally, where are you learning about gen AI? Because there's a test and learn component that you just spoke about, which was internally obviously mucking around with this stuff, and then other sources. And the reason I ask of course is that everyone's in the same boat.
Emma Springham:
I've always been the same in my career actually. I think it's one of the reasons that you get promoted is by looking outside and bringing in those new ideas. We have a really strong relationship with Adobe and their ultimate success teams, and they often bring proactively to us case studies from outside of financial services. But I think you've just got to constantly be learning. So, I love podcasts, I love blogs. I like that bite-size information. But you're constantly having to look outside, because that's what I love about marketing though. I started off with direct mail, email, but now it's just constantly changing. So, I'm always being challenged. But I like to be first to market, a little bit like when we took on AEP, we were the first bank in Europe to sign up, but you need that trust behind you and build that trust internally to make those moves.
Mark Jones:
How important is it to be ambitious in your role?
Emma Springham:
Oh, I've talked about being brave. Yeah, it's one of my key things that I try and get the team so-
Mark Jones:
What does that mean for you?
Emma Springham:
For me, it's stepping outside. So, it is trying to be first to market, thinking about different ways to do stuff. I talk about growth mindset with my team. And it's that constant learning and evolving. So, I've always encouraged the team to be brave. It's that step outside, be brave. We need to be, I don't want to get to the end of my career and go, "Yeah, we just followed the line. I copied the competitors. I kept in the..." I don't want that really. And that's why I'm really proud of the personalisation journey.
Mark Jones:
How hard do you think it is in financial services to be brave in that context?
Emma Springham:
What I've managed to do with personalisation is I've got it at the centre of the business strategy. By using the voice of the customer, we've now got it right at the centre. So, I've got the whole organisation now focused in. So, even HR for example, are now designing the whole of their training packages around data and digital. So, once you get it into the business strategy, it just starts to flow because everyone's leaning in across the organisation. And marketing consent is another great example where it's often just the marketing team trying to get the consent to then send the customer the message. But now I've got other teams proactively thinking, "How do we improve the quality of data? How do we encourage through telephone or branch to collect the marketing consent?" And they understand the reason and the benefit to the customer.
Mark Jones:
Sounds to me like you've got executive engagement and alignment around this.
Emma Springham:
Yeah, I've been really lucky, I think. It's been using the voice of the customer though, not my voice. It's just showing them the voice, what's the stats, what's the customer saying?
Mark Jones:
This is what they expect.
Emma Springham:
Yeah. And also using other industries as an example, not just banking. And that's where Adobe are really good to bring in case studies from, whether that be TV networks or completely different industries that aren't financial services.
Mark Jones:
So, do you think of what you're doing as transformative or evolution oriented?
Emma Springham:
I'd say evolution.
Mark Jones:
Yeah.
Emma Springham:
Yeah. People talk about it as transformation, but to me... yeah, people still talk about digital transformation. I think when I started my career, I was leading the digital transformation, but I call it now data and digital. But I think it's an evolution.
Mark Jones:
Yeah, transformation had its time in the sun there for a while everything was being transformed.
Emma Springham:
But it can be a bit scary when you say that actually, people get a little bit more nervous. So, I think evolution's a nice way of positioning it.
Mark Jones:
So, it's a nice segue to the other component that I wanted to speak about, which was financial and social inclusion is, I know a passion of yours and more broadly, you've touched on it already. Can you just give us a quick window into that world and how you see your role influencing ultimately this benefit to your customers?
Emma Springham:
Yeah, I think it's just working out how you manipulate the data actually, and thinking about the data in a slightly different way. So, one of the things I'm looking at, at the moment, is penny bullying. And a lot of people aren't aware of this. So, if you've got someone trying to abuse you through email or mobile, you can block them, you block them out. But what people often do is then use the bank account. So, with the reference, they'll start to put abusive messages in the reference, they'll transfer a penny.
Mark Jones:
Yes, I've heard of that.
Emma Springham:
Yeah. So, I saw a case, I was starting to get the data gathered. The other day, I saw one where a customer in one day had 600 1P transactions. And when you looked at the references altogether, it was almost like a letter or email that was just pure abuse going down. So to me, if I can protect customers, that's where I feel like I'm giving back and really thinking about those. I get quite passionate about the vulnerable customers, definitely. And that segment is increasing year on year. More and more customers are becoming, with cost-of-living crisis and mortgage increases, more and more people are becoming a little bit more vulnerable.
Mark Jones:
It's just stunning. But to your point about the data and the approach, you're taking that compassion, but you're applying it and thinking, "All right, this is going to become an increasing issue. How do we develop new solutions to counter that effectively?"
Emma Springham:
Yeah, and I think it's just thinking a little bit differently. I think a lot of people think product straight away, how do we get the products into personalisation? And yeah, I've done that and I've proved the business case. So, I've got the trust. But for me it's now, again, how can I be brave and how can the teams be brave to really think about those micro segments in a way that's really different?
Mark Jones:
And do you think about how you can tell that story too? I presume there's got to be a big upside here in terms of communicating that care for customers.
Emma Springham:
Yeah, so I've launched my big pink elephant. That's our brand character. The elephant’s come from the elephant in the room. People don't talk about their money finances, people don't talk about financial abuse. People don't realise that they can block people from their accounts. They don't realise that if they talk to us really early, we can provide much better support and guidance.
Mark Jones:
So, what are your lessons, in closing, that you can share with CMOs from this journey you've been on?
Emma Springham:
I'm only as good as my people and my processes. I really do adopt a coaching culture. I love the coaching side. I feel like that's where I get a lot of benefit from that myself, just knowing that I'm helping people. So, all of my leaders are trained in coaching. It's something that TSB have now... They do it right across the leadership. So, for me, it's actually making a difference through the people. But without the right processes to support them, they'll just fail. So, again, it's being really process driven of what's going on around those to protect the staff as well. So, it's two pronged. So, if someone makes a mistake, I don't go straight to the person and say, "Oh, you've made a mistake." It's, "What process did you follow?" And half the time they'll say there wasn't a process. And you go, "Ah, okay. That's where the problem is. There's no process." But I think it's getting the teams excited as well that they're part of that journey. I mentioned internal comms plans, they're part of building those. We run the workshops to build them. And I think as part of that, they feel like their ideas are in there. They feel like they're part of the journey. And if they've got skills gaps, again with the coaching, we are making sure that we're filling those so they feel that they're progressing with us.
Mark Jones:
What I love about that is that the teachers are the ones who also learn most, right?
Emma Springham:
Oh, yeah. Every day.
Mark Jones:
So, that must be extraordinarily rewarding.
Emma Springham:
Yeah, I love that side of it. It's where I get real energy and motivation. I live with a nurse, so they come home saying that they save lives every day. I'm like, "I did some coaching and helped someone."
Mark Jones:
Emma Springham, Chief Marketing Officer at TSB Bank, thank you so much for being our guest today.
Emma Springham:
Oh, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you.
Mark Jones
That was Emma Springham, Chief Marketing Officer at TSB Bank.
That was a great note to end on – the importance of coaching your team, and putting polices in place to protect them, not harm them.
It’s a great reminder for leaders, too. It’s important to keep nurturing your direct reports as the next generation of leaders.
A special thanks to Emma for joining me on today’s episode.
You’ve been listening to The CMO Show, created by ImpactInstitute and supported by Adobe, and I’m your host, Mark Jones.
Thanks for tuning in. We’ll catch you next time.