Closing the Racial Wealth Gap w/ OneUnited Bank | Simply Put

As a kid, I wasn't exposed to a lot of different career paths, but I loved puzzles, I loved math, and I loved people. Those same things that I loved as a kid are the things that I'm using today. Building a bank and managing a bank is really about solving puzzles. My name is Terry Williams. I'm president and chief operating officer of One United bank, the largest black owned bank in the country.

Terry, you're my new hero. Welcome, everyone. I'm Emmanuel Acho, your host for Simply Put, the show that takes complex business problems and brings them down to earth. So if you hear service agents empowered in an omnichannel environment with technology skillset and information to solve cases fast, we'll say simply put, happy customers. Which is perfect because this season is all about customer service. You know, the support you get from a company before, during and after you buy whatever it is as they sell. In other words, the people in charge of making customers happy. Now, you've already met Terry Williams, the president and chief operating officer at One United Bank. Terry will set the stage for us. She'll tell us what she does, introduce the rest of her team and lots more. You'll also hear from Nicole Granucci, service cloud guru of Salesforce, who will act as our guide during the season.

Exactly, Emmanuel. My role is to share how Terri and her team at One United bank turn customer service into customer satisfaction. Hopefully our viewers will take this knowledge into their own organizations.

Thanks, Nicole. Everyone ready? Perfect. Over to you, Terry.

Our focus is on closing the racial wealth gap and to respect everyone, regardless of their account balance. At One United bank, we believe that businesses are a platform for change. I love the fact that we have combined banking, financial literacy and social justice. I used to answer the question of my background by talking about, you know, I went to Brown University, I went to Harvard Business School, I worked in corporate America. But I no longer really focus on those resume items. I really focus on my great grandmother. She was a businesswoman in the 1930s in the segregated South. What my grandmother instilled in me is sort of how you treat people, how you make people feel is more important than money. And I think at One United bank we have instilled that in our staff and we show that to our community. My philosophy of customer service is empathy. Service cloud has allowed us to deliver empathetic service at scale. We have used it to improve our service delivery and to help our managers manage our team. Service cloud has allowed us to connect our employees to our customers customers in an authentic way. When our customers comment on social Media, we have our customer service team follow up. So the combination of telephone, use of technology and use of social media is very different than most community banks and most banks. Actually, 90% of our customers come to us digitally. We've doubled in size since the pandemic. We also have, you know, I would say struggled a little bit with that growth and that's where we have employed Salesforce. I will tell you that Salesforce has been a tremendous partner for us. Simply put, if we have a problem, we use Salesforce to solve it. We actually did 50 years worth of business in a year. So you can imagine that our customer service team was just overwhelmed. The efficiencies that we've gained through Salesforce are actually pretty enormous.

I don't know of many banks that match up to delivering the quality of service of one United bank. Customer service service delivery is tough as service teams have so much on their plate. Fortunately, we learned three tips today so any team can turn customer service into customer satisfaction. Let's recap. Tip one Lead with empathy. Terry said it best.

Remember, my philosophy of customer service is empathy.

Leading with empathy makes the art of delivering exceptional customer service more human and more relatable. That's where a full view of your customer comes in handy. Give your team total context with data from every interaction. Not just service history, but marketing, sales and commerce too. With this information at their fingertips, agents can anticipate customer needs. Automate the essentials, let in app tools, do the heavy lifting and give your agents a head start. To happy customers, look into using automation, AI and even coaching to help deliver ideal personalized experiences for everyone. Tip 3 say goodbye to handoffs. Once upon a time, one to one customer service meant waiting in long lines.

But these days, 90% of our customers come to us digitally.

Consider investing in technology like Slack that lets your agents swarm on cases faster and eliminates handoffs. Give customers a consistent, speedy resolution with tools that can help your teams work faster, be more efficient and ultimately work better together.

Last year the world's eyes were open to what it is like to be a black person in America. There's a lot that is shared about the black community which is negative. We focus on our assets as opposed to our challenges. When you look at slavery for 250 years, Jim Crow for 100 years, you know we have only been legally free for 50 years. And so for us at One United, we focus on those positive things. The fact that 90% of our community is employed, are supporting their families and that are working to close the racial wealth gap on this season of Simply Put. You're going to meet the extraordinary family we have at One United Bank. Rochelle Hine manages our marketing and social media. I used to be the social media manager. We had like a following of like 5,000. Now we have a following of several hundred thousand. Because of Rochelle, Jim Slocum, who is our chief information officer, not only is he a techie, he also understands the bank, the business and our community. And Karen Alvarado is in charge of our customer service contact center and our service delivery. I can turn any customer over to Karen who is mad as heck. And after they talk to Karen, they love us. My name is Terri Williams, and you're watching Simply Put.

A million thanks to Terri and Nicole for the amazing insight into banking and customer service at One United bank and what it's like to be a black person in America today. But wait, there's more. And who doesn't want more? So click the button and let's see how One United bank does technology in the next episode of Simply Put.