The role a banks brand plays in digital customer experience

We explore why banks are in danger of commoditising their services by being drawn into competing on digital features and whether this is the route to building strong customer relationships. 

We look at the importance which brand, brand values and taking what's unique about your business and translating this uniqueness across digital channels and services.

We explore why a businesses brand is a crucial way to build a deep relationship with customers and is a critical way to differentiate their service as they are becoming increasingly digital. 

During this interview, we also covered:

• Why are a banks brand important
• The importance of understanding your brand values 
• Do financial service brands translate deliver on their values
• The challenge of de-toxifying a banks image 
• Do customers feel banks are serving their needs
• Have legacy banks become complacent?
• Do customers receive a fair service for the value they create for their bank. 

To get in touch with future questions or to be interviewed for a future episode, email hello@ratiopartners.co.uk or visit us at www.ratiopartners.co.uk

Transcript

RATIO Partners Re-imagining customer experiences in financial services Ep 3 - Transcript

[00:00:00] Mario Kyriacou: [00:00:00] episode of our podcast, Re-imagining customer experiences in financial services. I'm your host, Mario Kyriacou, co-founder of Ratio Fs and marketing data and customer experience consultancy. This is the show where we look to analyze how Fs brands can leverage digital to deliver experiences built to solve your customer's day-to-day challenges.

[00:00:36] On today's episode, I'm pleased to be joined by Giles Cross as we discussed the importance of brand plays in helping Fs businesses to differentiate their digital offering and its role in helping to build a strong bond with their customers. Giles is a financial service, professional, 30years experience in business leadership, corporate strategy and marketing across a wide [00:01:00] range of financial institutions, including helping sectors [00:01:02] as diverse as private banking, retail advice, assets, and wealth management to create and develop marketable businesses. Giles has held numerous senior roles at the likes of Sanlam, English Mutual and CMO, and later CEO at Peer-to-Peer lending platform folk to folk. During our interview, we explore why banks are in danger of commoditizing their services by being drawn into competing on digital features and why having the right brand promise, which your customers combined to help defend traditional legacy institutions from the rise of Fintechs.

[00:01:39] An interested episode, one I really hope you enjoy it. Thank you very much for joining me on today's episode, Giles, I've been looking forward to our chat for a while now. 

[00:01:49] Giles Cross: [00:01:49] Thank you.

 [00:01:51] Mario Kyriacou: [00:01:51] Firstly, just a quick recap on the purpose of the podcast, pretty simple really, it's to explore what goes into good customer experience in financial [00:02:00] services and [00:02:01] as part of that exploration of an enormous part of what we suppose exploring each episode is, is, is digital. But we end up talking on each episode around your technology, agile transformation, ways of working. And one of the things that we haven't really touched on it kind of skirted around the edges is this is, is, is brand and what relationship brand plays in the customer experience.

[00:02:26] And increasingly as most financial services experiences are increasingly digitized. Um, you know, what does that brand mean in terms of digital channels? And it's not something we've explored, um, in, in, in great detail. So, which is while I've been really looking forward to our conversation, say really, to explore the relationship or brands and, um, then what goes into a good brand, but also, I'll see negativity around brands, just trying to just tease out what, what makes an individual consumer buying into a [00:03:00] business and how does that get translated across, um, you know, the new medium of, you know, digitizing services and know digital experiences generally. 

[00:03:07] All right. Well, let's start off with a, well, I suppose I say a simple question, but it's probably going to lead onto a larger conversation is, is from your perspective, your experience. How, I mean, how do you see what I mean, what is the importance of a brand to a financial services institution, whether a bank or just generally Fs? 

[00:03:29] Giles Cross: [00:03:29] I think it's not a simple question, but it's a great question. Uh, actually, and it does lead us in so many different areas. I think if we start really with that definition of what is a brand, people confuse it [00:03:43] with branding, the idea of what something looks like its logo for Fanta users all of those sorts of things. But brand is, it goes far, much deeper than that. We are brands, you are a brand, I'm a brand, all organizations, whether they like it or not, whether they [00:04:00] recognized or not are brands and if we take a definition of what a brand or brand is, I think you can split it into two things.

[00:04:07] It's expectation, what you expect of that organization, what, what it, what it stands for, I guess then leads from, from that into association, what you associate it with. Now, with the organizations that we choose as brands, they invariably reflect either our beliefs and what we stand for as individuals or how we want to be perceived either in our own perception or amongst our peer groups and friends.

[00:04:36] So that therefore, if you take an organization that is, is well-regarded where you expect customer service to be good, where you expect to be the center of their attention, where you expect to be valued that's really important. And then if you were one to associate with good things, with good practice, [00:05:00] with good outcomes, with good behavior, with good relationships, with the legal framework, with a regulatory risk with the planet around it brand becomes very important expectation and association.

[00:05:12] So now if you, if you look at that from the financial services perspective, one of the things is that all providers, all institutions and all companies have to deal with Is that a result of, for, for various reasons over the last 20, 30, 40 years, financial services has become a brand in itself. And one that in the eyes of many consumers is quite toxic, is that however much people talk about customer centricity, we don't quite buy it.

[00:05:42] We expect to be the, that the end of the food chain, when it comes to being treated properly, as respect to protestations about consciousness interests, we don't necessarily expect to be treated particularly well. We associated with either failure or bad practice or greed [00:06:00] and therefore, however, uh, if, uh, if a company wants to [00:06:04] attract a market share, It has to be and become a best love brand before it seeks to, to even romance a single customer, has to deal with that level of toxicity. It has to be kind to the brand that is financial services in my mind. So, to me, in financial services, especially having a great brand, one that represents the customer where there was great expectations and strong association on a positive sense is very important.

[00:06:32] Mario Kyriacou: [00:06:32] And it's interesting, It feels, I mean, you might, personally, my passion is around, um, digital, digitization and the role of digital and customer experiences. And, and perhaps that creates, you know, an element of bias in my perspective, whereas I equate a great customer experience with, uh, delivering the great, delivering the great brand, but actually, [00:06:54] based on our conversations recently, I think actually that's, I'm probably doing it a complete disservice because when I'm thinking about a [00:07:00] great customer experience, that's not necessarily teasing out what that specific brand and I'm thinking, say banks in particular, brand banks, brand means to that consumer and Lloyd and HSBC mean different things in the minds of consumers. [00:07:16] and thinking back to my relationships with banks over the years, I think my notion of what a Bank brand is, probably, I don't know, Pat broken down um, I, like most people joined my bank, uh, in school, someone came along, you know, bribed me with a rucksack and a bunch of stickers and, you know, I joined the Midland and I'd been with them since, you know, it became HSBC.

[00:07:40] And I remember they were, I think that the branding was around being the local bank and...

[00:07:44] Giles Cross:  The Listening Bank, before that, before NatWest decided to become the listening bank. But I think...

[00:07:50] Mario Kyriacou: [00:07:50] See, that, that kind of resonates, you know, brand round listening bank, If you're a consumer or a business customer, the idea that your banker will try to [00:08:00] understand your unique problems and challenges and provide you advice, support around that, that kind of things have broken down as we've gone into, you know, I suppose digital service, local branches have closed down and I suppose [00:08:14] my question to you is do you feel that idea of a bank's brand has disappeared? because if you look at the challenger brands, they feel like very much closer, um, in terms of defining what that brand is, whether you're a Monzo and Starling, I feel like I understand what they're about, uh, and my relationship that is built on that sort of relationship.

[00:08:38] Whereas with traditional banking, It, kind of, kind of feels something's been lost along the way.

 [00:08:46] Giles Cross: [00:08:46] There's something that actually struck me yesterday when I went into my local branch, but I'll, I'll come back into that. I think if we look at our customer journeys of how we, how we chose our banks then as to how we choose our banks 00:08:58] now, that there's a [00:09:00] huge difference. I mean, I started my career, Seehorn and Co the private bankers, the first, the first UK bank, still in family hands, which is less of a financial institution, albeit a very good, strong financial situation. But it's also a membership club, it’s a private members club, they provide banking services to family and friends and friends of friends.

[00:09:19] And that goes back in a pan general generational basis to were membership and having a cage as a source of great pride as a status symbol. I mean, I remember a time being substantially older than you when we chose our banks, invariably, because of where our parents banked. I was kind of a NatWest customer to think of it more like parents bank to NatWest [00:09:40] and we had our branch in the world in Western-super-Mare, where my father was born and all of this stuff, and I could track that back and we were well-known there and we had names, whereabouts and account numbers and it was, it was all very good. And at the time when Lloyds was the sign of the back course, and these were institutions that that meant something that we took [00:10:00] great pride in that looked after us [00:10:02] and we felt that they were on our side. And then I think at some point, at some point something changed, and this is touched upon really well in a great book that the name of the author escapes me. Um, but, but look it up, It's called firms of endearment that talks about the fact that especially with the larger financial services institutions, there's something happened at a board level when the role of the CEO and the managing director came to, to please shareholders rather than stakeholders.

[00:10:32] And something in that, that closeness, that relationship with your bank and that point of pride, where you sort of knew what they stood for was lost. And I look at, I look at a lot of advertising now with the larger financial institutions, the larger banks, and I see a lot of their advertising, It it's more about retention rather than an attraction, [00:10:54] you know, when I, when I was in Lloyd's yesterday, who I bank with many years, uh, they've started using the [00:11:00] sign of the black horse again and it was about being a customer across the generations, which is gained as a retention pieces by retaining my family as much as me, but I felt slightly misty-eyed.

[00:11:10] because I recognize the horses and I remember the black beauty music and the adverts and all that sort of stuff. If, if you, if it's now very difficult, to identify within the larger mainstream bands as to what they actually stand for, what do I associate them with that isn't toxic, what do I expect from them that [00:11:27] Isn't just what I would normally expect as banking services from a hygiene factor. How do they represent me in my choices? What, what is it about them that I like, and I find that increasingly difficult to identify, but if I look at the challenger banks and there are challenger banks in all elements, I think of the retail cycle, [00:11:48] So right up at the higher end, in terms of the private space and right end, you know, for new entrance, it’s invariably, easy to identify what they're trying to do and the journey that they're on [00:12:00] and they're doing everything right from a marketing perspective, they're making it very clear in what they intend to do and where they're going.

[00:12:06] And because I know where they're going, it's easy for them to say, come with me and I can then make that brand choice to give them my business because I want to get on that journey. It might be whether it's part of disruption to give it to the man to destroy the hegemony of the large high street banks, It might be in protest to the closure of, uh, of the high street offering, who knows what the reason is.

[00:12:29] But I think within the challenge of space, so many of the, of the new entrance, are giving a very clear customer promise and allowing people to engage with it. But of course, their challenge will be to keep that promise. That's the challenge to all of us in financial services is to keep that customer promise that we will look after your money because that's the promise the industry gives, it's responsible for our money.

[00:12:51] It must be successful therefore, it must look after us, it must be responsible and unfortunately, in the last [00:13:00] 20, 30 years, maybe it hasn't been able to do that. And so that there's that break that the brand of financial services itself in many ways can overshadow the brand of an organization.

[00:13:36] Mario Kyriacou: [00:13:36] And I suppose in one sense, the challenge of brands has an advantage because they're built from the ground up, they can also build a brand for a new age and they don't have, and then I'm not thinking about legacy issues in terms of, you know, infrastructure and core banking systems. I'm thinking more... 

[00:13:54] Giles Cross: [00:13:54] Width so that when you lose control of that brand sanctity...

[00:13:57] Mario Kyriacou: [00:13:57] Exactly, like, you know, legacy [00:14:00] businesses, uh, have to manage the decline of, um, branches, they have to manage the decline of that many decades on our relationship being tied to a bank via, you know, its local branch and their local bank manager and it all business conducted in-person to being all that taking back into back-office system, centralized, you know, company personalized and, you know, into a new digital age and legacy businesses have a hell of a lot more products and services, which they're trying to administer them and challenger brands [00:14:33] they had the advantage of, I suppose, If you look at the likes of Monzo, you know, focusing initially on, um, current accounts, whereas, you know, if you're a Lloyd, um, it could be selling your mortgages. Current accounts, business accounts, you know, there's a whole…

 [00:14:46] Giles Cross: [00:14:46] And there are first people I ring when my car breaks down, [00:14:50] they’ve lost the ability to be nimble, and also, you know, it's not necessarily banks, you look at a lot of insurance companies or financial services providers, they, they weren't established in the digital [00:15:00] age and therefore the quality of the data that they hold for those legacy business for legacy customers for old customers, it wasn't gathered at a time when it had value.

[00:15:10] And so there's a huge Mafraq job, It's not unusual to see very big financial institutions that have huge IT issues And at the moment they was so much marketing and messaging and service delivery being done digitally is that it's much easier for new entrance to, to give that level of customer experience and customer experiences in many ways, when you're looking for advocacy [00:15:31] which enables us all to be the hero in the marketing or within the transfer of information or product to our friends and families. It's, it's very easy to transfer and communicate how nimble easy something was to use, how it reflected the way you like to do things, how easily you achieved your higher purpose, how stress-free it was how entertaining it was.

[00:15:56] Whereas, coming back to [00:16:00] entertainment because all brands now are in the entertainment business, whether they like it or not, it's very difficult for those larger institutions to be nimble, to be entertaining, to engage because, because they weren't set up in that way. And then you see, if you look at so many of the larger institutions are launching sub-brands on [00:16:17] different names and all this sort of stuff to try and capture and to try and compete. It's a pretty interesting space, but then it goes back to brand it's about who you really are to me. I think it's very difficult to say, we're brilliant, we look after your money, we're responsible, but, and then when you then equate that to reality, to travel around the world and see those institutions.

[00:16:36] In court somewhere for defrauding their customers, that, that that's where the opportunity for the challenger of banks have really come in with new brands is that they are the antithesis in so many ways of that. There are new Dawn for the, for the banking customers.

[00:16:51] Mario Kyriacou: [00:16:51] Is it fair to say that, um, banks, brands, they almost have to reinvent their brand for a digital way like you mentioned the tagline there, the listening bank, [00:17:00] and that would be that, that tagline has existed for many years and was built on a way of conducting business that, you know, no longer, you know, is quite the same in terms of digital [00:17:12] and you know, and increasingly, especially during the pandemic where for large period, we couldn't go into bank branches or I couldn’t walk around my local streets, just, the queues of getting into branches that are open, you don't want to just compete on digital by having the same features as your, as your competitors.

[00:17:31] But at the same time, you don't want to just become a commodity service where your potential customers can't differentiate, why they should bank with, you know, a Lloyd's versus a Santander. You want to have a reason for being different to track someone new. So, Is there a case to make for these brands having to reinvent who they are for, you know, new age and figuring out ways to then translate and communicate that differently?

[00:17:58] Giles Cross: 00:17:58] Absolutely, yes, absolutely, I mean, if we, if we move from the subject of brand really to marketing, I mean that, to me, marketing has two elements, relevance and salience. No, these digital tools, these things that we get on our mobile phones and all this sort of stuff is all about remaining relevant. So, you've got be in the game [00:18:19] really. You've got to join the noise there, I'll give a backtrack slightly, that to me, there's three elements of successful marketing firm really is, If we look at relevance and salience as the core parts, but you have three choices, you can make a noise, Join the noise or become the noise with the latter, being the Nirvana place for a world where marketing has to get to where everybody's talking about you.

[00:18:46] And I think within the digital world, making a noise, you can do it for a period of time, but sooner or later, everybody's going to catch up. So, to sustain it and become the DFS sale of financial services, where everyone is just talking about you all the time, and you've got that. That [00:19:00] campaign is, is very difficult.

 [00:19:02] I think to a certain extent for, in terms of the provision of service in the digital arena, you have to join the noise. You have to have a good app, you've got to be able to provide those services in a way that's really, really easily accessible for your customers and you, as TSB found out, you can't have a blip [00:19:17] the damn thing's got to work. It's almost unforgivable now.  And in, in terms of, you know, digitalization versus the high street, one of the challenges I think for brands who want to push out digital services to their customers is invariably, they never asked their permission. So, I think organizations have always got to be aware of going too far.

[00:19:39] And so did you see this a lot with supermarkets where there are still lots of people who would rather talk to somebody to check out their goods and services rather than, than use a machine because that's why they go there, they go there for human warmth, they go, they go there to see another person. Then those organizations didn't ask their customers if it was all right to just digitize the process.

[00:19:58] So I think there are lots of challenges in going too [00:20:00] far, but I think you're absolutely right. You sort of got to tick the box and play the game, that makes you relevant. If we're not looking for salience to become that noise where you can, can become the organization that people think, actually I want to be their customer.

[00:20:12] I'm thinking of them first now, when, when I think of banking, I want to be that their customer, I want to go to them or I want to stay with them. I think you've got an increasing challenge within the digital space of, they are not really banks but ad firms like Apple pay is that I get as a result of COVID, you know, I was talking to, to another, some other people at the beginning of the year, my prediction was that [00:20:34] the one thing that COVID was going to do was we weren't talking about the removal of cash from, from society. But what we were going to see is the, that cohort of people who were not digitally savvy within the financial services space, but actually the diminishment of that, of that cohort was going to be massively accelerated by COVID where those, those [00:21:00] people who had not yet adopted digital services were going to be forced into that space.

[00:21:04] And I think those people who were keen to hang on to their branches and all of those things, that, that, that number is what is rapidly diminishing as a result of COVID. And we will, I think we will never get back to a space where people weren’t to think digitally first now respect to banking services. I think the problem for providers is not that they necessarily have to have an app or be accessible digitally, [00:21:25] Is that, that their services now because of Apple, because of PayPal, because all of these things is that we don't necessarily think of that, their services or anything special. 

That's just sort of that, you know, my money goes into an account. I can see it on my phone. I don't actually have to see it through that account [00:21:41] now. I can see it through somebody else's banking, show me all my other bank games. And actually, there's nothing special, there's nothing stand out from my bank in terms of the provision of services that makes me think, wow, that was a good choice, which brings me back to the importance of brand Is that now I have to think that the institution as a [00:22:00] whole was a good choice for me because the services are now [00:22:03] so, they become hygiene factors. There is no key drivers and anything my bank is providing to me that makes me think, wow, you know, and you see this in some of the new challenger banks are doing stuff that's quite interesting, but with the advent of banking, all these new services being adopted by everybody.

[00:22:19] So you almost have a uniform proof services provision of tech across the sector. You've got to go back to brand to get to salience. Who do you stand for? And I think this is reflected elsewhere in, in the growth of ESG. In the investment space where people are increasingly keen to look under the bonnet and not only in terms of the investment things that are invested in, but the companies they're invested with because it's the only way to make a damn decision is interesting. [00:22:47] I think that's one of the problems with, with digital tech is that there's so much tech, there's so much tech for tech's sake, but actually it means that it's pretty all uniformly, uniformly used and administered. [00:23:00] I can't think of anyone who's rubbish now and I can't think of anyone who's brilliant.

[00:23:03] Mario Kyriacou: [00:23:03] Yeah. I kind of agree. I mean, technology for a while, I felt a lot of conversations were driven around, but by technology, as in, you know, technology is going to solve the problems, technology is the cure to all problems and it's uptalk points, a load of rubbish, really. I mean, technology is an enabler, but it isn't the [00:23:23] cure. And isn't a way of differentiating your business because ultimately these businesses are investing into mocking technology stacks, but invariably they're buying their Mark Tech stack from a couple of the same vendors. The stacks have the same capabilities and you know, obviously the vendors are selling to multiple parties and you all have the same possibilities for leverage in this tech stack to deliver, you know, the same thing.

[00:23:51] And again, that doesn't necessarily, yeah, as an individual, what you were saying about, I thought that was really important. You know, what is it that's going to make me go out [00:24:00] and go, I want to be a customer of this business and then tell my friends and family about it. And that's, you think about the products and services that we love [00:24:06] and we talk about, no one's going to sit around. People never used talk about vacuum cleaners and until, you know, Dyson came along with it and actually really enough Dyson was interested enough to actually you would talk about it…

 [00:24:18] Giles Cross: [00:24:18] Interestingly, don't you see, Dyson for me is a really interesting brand to, to sort of look at is one to emulate for financial services. [00:24:26] I mean, obviously there are problems associated with that brand name, because if you look at how I'm looking at, you know, what my bank does for me and other apps that I use for my children's savings and all this sort of stuff is that, you know, brilliant. If I'm at Lloyd's, I get this discount to pizza purveyor somewhere and all this sort of stuff.

[00:24:45] So you start having to get me to get me to a customer not because you're brilliant, because I can get cheap pizza, which obviously everybody likes. It's almost to me, it's, it's, it's almost become a racket. It's been, five years ago, I remember people saying, and it was all [00:25:00] really very exciting. We wonder which way the world was going to go that five years ago, we said in five years’ time, if you're not a tech business, you won't be a business, but now we're all tech businesses and everybody's struggling for salience.

[00:25:15] Because the status quo has just evolved into the same place, but with a different provision of services. We now just by our, we, we, to me, we, we buy our services in a different way, but actually the same old rules apply. You've got to be a great business, you got be a decent business, you've got to treat your [00:25:35] customers properly, you have to give them absolute primacy in your relationships because they're not mugs. They see sooner rather than later, that they're just a conduit to making other people rich and that this is what it's going to go is, uh, there's, there's another brilliant book out there, the internet is not the answer.

[00:25:53] And it's quite challenging in many ways into the belief systems that so many people working within [00:26:00] organizations and technology have is that if you look at what technology and for instance, the internet was going to do for us, it was going to. Democratize education. It hasn't really, it's actually made education harder.

[00:26:09] Because we now live in a post-truth society as a result. It was going to make everybody wealthier, it hasn't, it's actually polarized wealth into the hands of a few people. It was going to improve the emancipation of women, I don't think it's done that when you look at the behavior of people online and our treatments of women and at the same with racism and all those sorts of stuff, if anything, [00:26:31] If you take the internet as a case in point, it's made the situation worse now with tech, because if you like of the head of gaming, they have certain providers and the way in which we do things, I think it's become harder for organizations to actually be visible because of technology, because we all look for our information in one place.

[00:26:51] And we looked at our service provision in it in a digital way is how do you as, as a brand, actually build yourself so that you can rise above it all and become [00:27:00] more than simply an app. How can you become an organization that people want to buy into? Because I, I look at things with a couple of bank accounts across a couple of providers and there's no, there's nothing different.

[00:27:10] I might as well just have one app that brings everything together and I just have some good services. I might as well be faceless. 

[00:27:17] Mario Kyriacou: I agree, I mean, I was trying to think. I mean, I always recommend seeing a brand like American express and I'm not sure what they would articulate is their brand values. But the reason why I would recommend...

[00:27:27] Giles Cross:  I was going to come back to Dyson there, but talk to me about Dyson in a second, sorry... 

[00:27:31] Mario Kyriacou: The reason I was recommending American express is, is customer service. I always have, I wish we could do, the customer service that they offer their customers is great, It's easy. You can always pick up the phone and you can have a conversation it's easier to solve problems. [00:27:47] And I don't know if that's the brand that they articulate the customers, but when I…

[00:27:52] Giles Cross:  No, but you're right because they've got well, they got the basics right because I've, I've also been an American express customer and you're, you're obviously you're, I think they do [00:28:00] what they do very well because you know, all great marketing aside [00:28:05] got be undeniably good below the surface. I think the American express is a great example because if you look at how many people there are in that charge card or credit card space, how do you, how do you differentiate between Barclaycard 118 Money, MBNA, in fact, the any way that those companies differentiate themselves is great sub brands, their own brands to try and…

[00:28:27] get more of the market in case people don't like them is that the American express to me with, was just genius. They became a means to which you could get the lifestyle to which you always aspire to. They, they, they, they sort of managed to send themselves instead of purveyors of debt into come and see, [00:28:45] you could do in The Bahamas, come to see Coldplay and stay at this fantastic hotel in Shanghai, be part of that with American express. 

And it became like, wow, this is really cool. This isn't about debt; this is about living a brilliant life. And [00:29:00] I think that's why people like American express and I I've watched that transition with interest. [00:29:04] And so it was fantastic. But if you, if you look at Dyson, you know, if you, if you look at the market they got into, we ha we, we had a Hoover, even if we didn't have a Hoover, it became the, the item itself became the brand-new bang for an industry, If you like. And if you look at what, what Dyson, did they, he didn't design a company or product with the end user in mind.

[00:29:31] He didn't, he didn't think, Oh, you know what those people are looking for is a Hoover that sucks in a completely different way. He didn't think that's what we were all looking for. What they created there was a business that they wanted to deliver into the market, so, if you like inside ape thinking, Apple did the same with the iPod. [00:29:51] You know, nobody was asking for an iPod, they wanted to be able to run around without their CD jumping all over the place. And suddenly there was this thing that we, we didn't even know how to use, but suddenly we had one and [00:30:00] we could use it and it was all amazing. This notion of inside out thinking, if you look at these really successful new entrances into the financial services space, they have designed their businesses to be the businesses that they wanted to deliver, and then find a way to market it to the customer.

[00:30:15] And the customers loved it because they've stood for something, they were something and they will visibly different. They weren't part of that game they weren't part of that racket where everybody seems to be queuing up for their opportunity to put their nose in the trough as the consumer perceives. And you know, Dyson is a solitary lesson for any new businesses, get, design that, be the business that you want to be first. [00:30:35] And then when your customer, then win the market that way. American express, I think have done the same within the credit card space and they're undeniably good behind the scenes.

[00:30:42] Mario Kyriacou: [00:30:42] Yeah, I suppose. I mean, I think your point earlier about, um, you know, Fs businesses are going to be increasingly digital first and I think they are, but I think a lot of that is not necessarily driven by...

[00:30:54] Giles Cross: [00:30:54] Don't you know that's a mistake, digital first rather than customer first, but being customer first is too damn expensive so nobody's [00:31:00] going to make that commitment.

[00:31:01] Mario Kyriacou: [00:31:01] Well yeah, because my impression of being digital first, I mean obviously, uh, you know, delivering a great experience for the customers, I'm sure it comes up in conversation sometime again, but being digital first to me, the, the, I suppose the driver is money really because it's cheaper.[00:31:15] Look at, say acquire, you know, onboarding a new current account customer, uh, the cost of someone walking into a bank branch versus the cost, or someone ringing up a telephone line or, and, or, you know, signing up via an app, It's obviously much cheaper to acquire that customer via an app. So just the imperative to be more profitable is going to drive a digital first approach because [00:31:37] It's frankly, more profitable to have that customer satisfied and know end of the day, I know banks get treated as uh, bit lightly, you know, uh, the post office in the Royal Melbourne, they are obliged to deliver the service for the market, but the end of the day they're treated like that, but they are private businesses. [00:31:56] So their imperative really is driven by shareholder value, which is, you know, [00:32:00] being more profits, which I have…

[00:32:02] Giles Cross: [00:32:02] Pension schemes, who all are, you know, but it's an ecosystem, isn't it? I mean, we, we can mourn about organizations and banks and say they could do it better, but they're all part of an ecosystem, as you've just said…

[00:32:12] Mario Kyriacou: [00:32:12] You feel customers are delivering a fair, [00:32:14] I mean, you know, customers are financial services institutions, do you think they are getting a fair service for the value they create for these big institutions?

 [00:32:21] Giles Cross: [00:32:21] Never, never, ever, never, ever. But I think that to a certain extent before that everyone starts shouting and hating me, I think, what's the best way of putting it? Financial services is, is it, uh, I don’t know, having a go bank senior, but you can actually have a look at it and this is an org, [00:32:39] this is an industry that I love, I’m fascinated by, and my ambition is always to build our best love brand in the space, because I think the customer deserves when I did, I genuinely do and I, I, that, that is aspiration of, of all leaders within financial services is if, if you actually look at it, I'll, [00:33:00] I'll take your money and I'll do something with it and take a turn.

[00:33:11] For the, to earn my money, and in a way it doesn't matter if I do something well or badly, I still, I still get paid. Um, but you need me to pay for your bus fare to go and get a pint of milk, to get a car, to get a mobile phone contract. It's sort of, with the consumer's cause under the, you know, I, I, talking to, I think about, you know, you can talk about strategy, you can talk about building a great brand. 

[00:33:40] You can talk all about all these things, is the, what is the most, I love organizations to genuinely put their stakeholders, their customers, and their staff before there's to shareholders, but it'd be career suicide. Everyone's got to keep that job. Yeah. You know, that's the other thing, [00:34:00] but. Well, we can't do without financial services. [00:34:03] It's a little bit of a closed shop. We can't do without our banks. We can't do without our services. So, we sort of, in many ways have to lump it, Is that the final shareholder, the person who underwrites it in many ways, who put their money in, who supports it, whether that be the British public or private shareholders or pension funds or whatever.

[00:34:27] They're always, probably going to get greater value than the customer, but then what is the customer getting? They're getting, they're getting an app, they are getting cards, it's conduit to buying things. I think, you know, what, what service do I expect? I expect it to be good, I expect it to work and I expect the institution to behave vulnerably, decently [00:34:47] around the, in the country in which I live and work and around the world, I think there's good service to equate with great value. I don't know. I always think it would just look kind of expensive. And I kind of look at the levels of [00:35:00] profit that somebody is making them from the money of UK and global consumers.

[00:35:04] And it's very easy to say, well, they look like everybody else is sort of riding my back here and I think they are, but we're all sort of part of that because, you know, if you look at so many shareholders and their pension funds, Again, it's an ecosystem. It's, it's, it's, it's really difficult. My, my, my immediate answer would be, no, I don't think the customer does great, great value, but actually society benefits.

[00:35:27] So do they potentially, it's a really difficult one. I think we will want to be part of great brands and feel that we're, we're being treated well and we're great customers and we're valued. I think that's what we want from, from any service provider, whether it's automotive or our hairdresser. So, I would think that banks, banks building societies, financial services, a whole could be better, could do better by the consumer, could be loved more and every effort should be made to deserve win that love.

[00:35:56] Mario Kyriacou: [00:35:56] And I think that's why I think challenger brands, challenger [00:36:00] banks have been great leaders in the industry over the last couple of years because they have forced the situations to start looking inwardly in terms of how can they be better really? They have this have this strong North star, which isn't in their own ecosystem, but the more they can compare themselves with day in, day out and actually their own employees are comparing themselves and wanting to be more like these brands.

[00:36:27] I, you know, from my perspective, I always feel like the likes of Starlin, Monzo have been great for the industry in terms of, of beginning to force through innovation and benchmark and against something which is within their space and they can see what good is. I mean, it's interesting when you say about, you know, shareholder value, you know, ethics, all of these things. I suppose you could list it out [00:36:53] on a piece of paper, all the things that they should be doing, but actually, in the execution day, that is obviously incredibly hard [00:37:00] because these are fusions where you're employing tens of thousands of people across different times zones... 

[00:37:07] Giles Cross: And also let's be honest is that it's very easy, cause I, I'm not in the habit of bank bashing because you know, it really, if you crystallize, I think what you've just said with, with, with my point here is it's very easy for me to say they should be like this [00:37:25] and for the new and for the new entrance and challenger banks to suddenly take banking in a different space, but they've been able because they're new and nimble to capture the zeitgeists in, you know, with larger organizations who've been in, in, in play for decades, hundreds of years, in some cases were built up in their infrastructure and their systems, their attitudes [00:37:51] Were built at a different time when we, maybe we didn't care so much when maybe service was different than the provision of service and customer expectation was [00:38:00] very different in terms of UX and how we interacted with our bank or even went to the bank were very different. So, I think the one thing that gets challenged are new entrance challenges and new entrance we've been able to do is capture our feeling.

[00:38:14] And that is why maybe we, we, we rush to them because they do make, they, the old style of doing things look cumbersome, slow, make it, maybe that make them look at lack, empathy, make them seem less customer centric, but they, they would, they have, they've been built at different times, almost existed. They existed in different sorts of dimensions [00:38:39] I think. 

[00:38:41] Mario Kyriacou: [00:38:41] Well, thank you. I think on that note, I think that's a, I think that's a perfect way to finish today's interview Charles, I've enjoyed today's chat, it’s been really interesting to, I suppose, unpack this concept of brand and where it sits, you know, nowadays in a, in a yeah. [00:39:00] In a well, incredibly digitized and increasingly digital first world. [00:39:04] So I've enjoyed it… 

[00:39:06] Giles Cross: [00:39:06] Me too, and I think it’s proven to me, one thing that I believe for a long time is that maybe there's so many things in the world have just got a little bit too big and it's the, it's the new things that can really lead us forward and take us somewhere new.