Emotion and Connection Drive USAA to Best CX scores in the Industry

The business world is keyed into all things CX at this point. But, it is not enough to just know if a customer will recommend your brand (NPS). A company needs to go deeper. They need to know why a customer doesn’t churn. Why they are amenable to upsell and yes, why they become brand ambassadors. Screaming from the rooftops that you must buy this brand.

There are three areas to look at when determining if a company is creating a good CX experience.

• Effectiveness – Does the experience deliver value for the customer?
• Ease – Is it easy to get value from the experience?
• Emotion – Does the customer feel good about the experience?[1]

The emotion part of the equation actually has a bigger impact on customers’ decision making and loyalty than the other two drivers.[2] Emotion is the key to differentiation in an industry. And “contrary to conventional wisdom, making customers happy is not the most effective tactic to make them loyal.”[3] In the direct Banking Industry, it is only when the key emotions of feeling valued, appreciated, and confident are exhibited that customers truly become brand loyalists. And the more targeted and positive those emotional responses, the better the customer experience. Forrester Research in its annual survey to determine rankings of companies by CX metrics found that brands that scored in the top 5% provided about 22 emotionally positive experiences for each negative one. The bottom 5% of brands provided only 3 emotionally positive experiences for each negative one.[4] That is really telling.

So let’s take a look at the Direct Banking Industry. We can see from the chart to the right that USAA consistently scores higher for overall customer experience than other banks during a two year period.[5] In fact, they have topped Forrester’s CX Index Rankings for three straight years.[6]  And when you look further into the data at the chart below you can see that USAA is consistent across multiple key drivers in the industry. [7]

 One can look to its website and marketing to see reasons for this. They are making an emotional connection with the service members that they target as customers. USAA’s renowned mission focusing on service for its clients, known as members, are the military men and women - and their families who protect our nation, - our way of life - and our values - with selfless service to others. And as we can see from the results in Forrester’s Survey that USAA’s customer targeting and marketing message is not just rhetoric. It directly relates to how they interact with their members. Customers (members) get the feeling that they are in it together with the USAA brand.

USAA understands its members and their patriotic mission. They look for patterns in members' banking regimen through AI to indicate major life events such as deployment and reach out to them to help.[8]  And their commitment to a valued and emotionally connected customer journey goes further than that.  Each employee at USAA is a customer (member). They are encouraged to live and own the products that they interact with each day and make recommendations to improve them. In fact, “A security guard at USAA came up with no fewer than 25 customer experience ideas for the company that were patented and implemented.”[9] 

There has been a commoditization of products and services in the banking industry over the last couple of years. Everyone is lowering prices to win customers’ loyalty. Charles Schwab’s decision to lead the industry and not charge fees on transactions in October of 2019 in response to upstarts like Robinhood speak to this development. All other major players in the industry soon followed suit. Customers were happy. But they want their cake and eat it too. They want low prices and great service. They yearn to have a connection and experience with their business partners as our survey bears out. They want personalized service and made to feel valued.

USAA has shown the banking industry how this can be done. Create a brand and an experience that creates an emotional connection with its customers and deliver on that connection. Other companies in other industries have and can do the same. The key is finding that connection. Here are three other examples of companies which have done just that:

Whole Foods - Grocery shopping used to be thought of as the pure commodity play. But then came along Bread and Circus which became Whole Foods and an entirely new segment of grocery was born and with a clear leader in the industry. Whole Foods is connecting with its customers – telling them that they care about their health with their messaging and actions. 

Apple-  Since the beginning of its inception, Apple has targeted the school market with its products. Sometimes selling them at cost to create a legion of brand ambassadors that down the road will continue to feel loyalty to a company that was there for them in their formative years ----– now that is playing the long game.

Blackstone – They launched a social impact investing platform in 2019 to take the lead in the industry. This type of branding and targeting directly attempt to make an emotional connection with the growing number of Americans concerned with global warming – and help our planet.

In the end, it is not enough to just come up with a marketing gimmick to win the loyalty of a customer. It takes really connecting with them, following through on that message, and doing it across all channels and interactions with them.  USAA has done just that. 

[1] Dylan Czarnecki, The US Banking Customer Experience Index, 2017 (Forrester blog, Oct 16, 2017) https://go.forrester.com/blogs/the-us-banking-customer-experience-index-2017/

[2] Rick Parrish, The US Customer Experience Index, 2019: Some Small Gains, Widespread Stagnation, No Real Leaders (Forrester Blog, June 11, 2019) https://go.forrester.com/blogs/cx-index-2019-results/

[3] Alyson Clarke, Banking CX is Stagnating (Forrester Blog, June 19, 2018) https://go.forrester.com/blogs/forresters-us-banking-customer-experience-index-2018-shows-cx-is-stagnating/

[4] Rick Parrish, The US Customer Experience Index, 2019: Some Small Gains, Widespread Stagnation, No Real Leaders (Forrester Blog, June 11, 2019) https://go.forrester.com/blogs/cx-index-2019-results/

[5] Steve Cocheo, The Financial Brand, Best Customer Experience in Banking Blends Digital with Human Touch. https://thefinancialbrand.com/89867/customer-experience-usaa-navy-federal-credit-union-personalization-amazon-cx/

[6] Alyson Clarke, Banking CX is Stagnating (Forrester Blog, June 19, 2018) https://go.forrester.com/blogs/forresters-us-banking-customer-experience-index-2018-shows-cx-is-stagnating/

[7] Chuck Rogers, Retail Banks are Making Customer Experience Comeback ( Marketforce Information) https://www.marketforce.com/blog/banks-are-making-a-customer-experience-comeback

[8] Steve Cocheo, Best Customer Experience in Banking Blends Digital with Human Touch (The Financial Brand, October 30, 2019) https://thefinancialbrand.com/89867/customer-experience-usaa-navy-federal-credit-union-personalization-amazon-cx/

[9] Michael Solomon, How USAA Bakes Customer Experience Innovation Into Its Company Culture. (Forbes, Sept. 13, 2018) https://www.forbes.com/sites/micahsolomon/2018/09/30/how-to-build-a-culture-of-customer-experience-innovation-the-usaa-way/#2bdad7762378