Shaping Customer Experience at Scale

Allison Landers, Chief Experience Officer (CXO), Banking & Lending, UBS

Allison Landers is a proven CX, EX, and digital product leader with 28 years of experience across industries, including 20 in financial services. Skilled in transformation, customer insights, and digital innovation, she drives smart strategies, predict trends, and delivers impactful, customer-focused outcomes across global markets.

In an exclusive interview with Banking CIO Outlook, Landers shared her views on Human Centered Banking.

Career Milestones to UBS Role

My career has been a zig zag across industries and functions. In every role, my goal has been to pick up new and/or sharpen existing skills, because who wants to do the same job over and over again?

I have officially been leading experience functions for the last 10 years, during the period when the discipline became a mainstay in financial services. Looking back on nearly 20 years of work before that, in and outside of financial services, my roles in Marketing, Digital Product, and Omni-Channel Management from sales to service were all responsible for designing and delivering customer and employee experiences.

The textbook definition of Customer Experience (CX) is the perception customers have of a firm based on all their interactions with it, including what they read in the news. The role of a CXO and Experience Team is to look across, prioritize, and optimize those interactions. Having created client experiences from acquisition to exit, I bring a unique perspective and an ability to connect dots.

At UBS, this is the fourth bank I have worked for. What is new in this role is integrating Banking into Wealth Management, which is the reverse of my previous experience (working for Retail banks with Wealth Management and/or Private Banking arms).

Shaping Leadership for Scalable CX

I spent nearly the first decade of my career in the dot-com space working for AOL, American Greetings, and Sabre Networks, the parent company of Travelocity. That time shaped how I approach work, think, and act even today. It was less about the size of the firms and more about their approach, such as getting new technology to market quickly, that taught me valuable lessons:

• to think from the outside in, beginning with the customer, prospect, or employee’s point of view

• to leverage insights from sources like Voice of the Client, Voice of the Employee, market research, and behavioral data to identify opportunities and apply what we now call design thinking to address them

• to test everything with end users at least once before it goes live

• to keep listening and tweaking after launch since perfection rarely happens out of the gate

• to set aside personal preferences and focus on what resonates with clients and prospects

• to break complex initiatives into smaller pieces for faster execution, while balancing longer-term efforts that require investment or culture change

I have applied this mindset in financial services, running my function like a startup: small, focused teams delivering fast, meaningful impact by knowing customers, listening to customers and making things easier for them.

Transformation and Its Success Factors

The first bank I worked for had been one of the first regional banks to build digital capabilities in the mid-1990s, as reflected by the copyright on its public website and online banking platforms. However, after the initial launch, leadership believed the work was “done” and invested only what was necessary to keep the lights on for the next decade. As a result, when I stepped in to run the Online Channel in 2007, the bank was significantly behind its competitors.

“Transformations take time, and I stayed long enough to see the impact.”

I remember being asked what I could accomplish with the annual $1MM budget. I created one slide showing how I would spend the funds and another 50 slides outlining opportunities to close competitive gaps such as implementing a content management system, redesigning the public web site, and introducing a new bill pay system. I also proposed ideas from other industries, such as adding a “shopping cart” to save partial online applications.

Over the next five years, my talented team and I methodically crossed opportunities off the list. By focusing on customer experience and competitive benchmarks, we transformed the bank from laggard to leader, winning awards, boosting usage, and delivering innovations like text banking, responsive web, and Mobile apps. Transformations take time, and I stayed long enough to see the impact.

Innovation with Human-Centered Service

I’m a strong believer in honoring customers’ channels of choice – there are some clients and situations that will always require human assistance or intervention.

In Wealth Management, Financial Advisor teams are often the relationship quarterbacks. They generally take lead on all account opening and servicing. That said, it’s critical we support them and our clients with a 24/7 fully enabled contact center and self-service digital capabilities. For us to have a chance at winning our clients’ everyday banking business, we must offer the same capabilities our customers have come to expect from the top national banks. The virtual channels are intended to augment, not replace, the white glove service our Advisors have earned a reputation for delivering.

Future of Bank–Customer Connections

I know you expect me to talk about AI. I see AI first as a way to increase the knowledge and efficiency of employees, which, in turn, will improve client experience. For example, instead of having to wade through hundreds of pages of product guides and FAQs, when front line employees or virtual agents can provide customers the information they’re looking for quickly and easily by leveraging AI, everyone wins. Save the lengthy interactions for your best customers and/or complex conversations.

In addition to making interactions with humans more efficient, I do envision a day when you’ll just tell your phone to pay your landscaper $100 for mowing your lawn without having to name the vendor, identify the most appropriate payment method, provide contact information and/or navigate through screens to get it done.

And, although most firms and industries have made great strides to enable multi or omni-channel experiences, there’s still a way to go to achieve full connectivity and transparency across channels.

Advice for Emerging CX Leaders in Finance

My recommendation is to stay focused. Again, driving experience transformation is difficult and takes time. Unless you’re lucky enough to inherit a solid practice, the first part of your journey will require building out foundational capabilities like Voice of the Client/Voice of the Employee Feedback, Journey Management and/or Design Thinking. The work may be manual until you can prove its value and earn investment in supporting technology.

It’s our job to get partners to think and act differently – it will be a push at first. You will know you’ve made it when partners, especially the initially resistant ones, start to pull/ask for your help.

Financial

AI

Customer Experience

Retail

Contact Center

Content Management

Test

Marketing