Maximize Customer Relationships: Leveraging Digital Tools to Drive Primacy and Retention in Banking

Recently, we hosted a webinar in partnership with CBA, the Consumer Bankers Association, that featured Lisa Fitz, Digital SVP, Storefront Onboarding and Product Team Manager and Chris Parsley, Digital Product Management – Product Manager, both from Regions Bank, who shared insights on their use of digital tools to improve account quality and drive primacy. Facilitated by Relay’s own, John Thomas, the conversation was filled with interesting insights and best practices that have enabled Regions to have great success with their digital tools.

Regions Bank prides themselves as a relationship bank, ensuring that they are establishing solid relationships with their customers and fostering those relationships throughout the customer journey. To do this, they use a combination human/digital approach– meeting with customers in person to build personalized financial plans together and then leveraging digital tools, like the Relay Feed, to communicate updates, financial goals, and milestones thereafter.

The banking sector has typically been at the forefront of digital transformation, as early adopters of new technologies to enhance the customer experience and streamline banking operations. Regions is no different. While they utilize more traditional channels like email and direct mail for customer engagement, they did thorough research to determine the next-best way to get in front of customers. “The number one thing was we did so much research at Regions that just indicated that customers really want to be communicated to this way. This is not just something that’s being done in banking. This is being done across industries. Most of these other interactions are coming to you through SMS on your phone that then opens up into a personalized feed that you can either complete a transaction or do some other tasks. So, our research was hands down in terms of indicating that our customers really wanted to be treated this way, spoken to via this channel, be able to accomplish as much as they can on their phone.”

Proven by their research, customers today want to engage digitally via mobile, and more specifically on mobile feeds, like they see and experience every day through social media feeds and news feeds. Regions breaks down how they are using mobile feeds to drive some of the important outcomes that lead to better account quality and retention.

Regions has adopted mobile feeds alongside their email onboarding journey as an additional way to get customers up and running at the bank. They use these tools for things like: quick and easy account set up, account funding, digital tool adoption, like online banking and mobile app, and bill pay.

One of the places where they have found the most success using mobile feeds is in account funding. While they give customers up to 45 days to fund their new accounts, about 20-30% of those customers don’t fund in that time. Chris shared, “when we started our journey, we really had a challenge around new account funding in the digital channels. We don’t require customers to fund immediately. We give them a period of 45 days, and we had trouble convincing them to fund, but Relay definitely helped us. As Lisa mentioned, Relay really helped us getting to the right point, the right message at the right time. We spent a lot of time and work making sure that at day four, at day eight, we keep prompting and pushing and making sure they take that final step to get the account funded so our funding results are very good.”

While email still has its place in the customer journey, Lisa found that there were some limitations to what email could do. She shared, “I think what the email journey couldn’t do is bring that personalization and that immediacy. We’re giving a user a one-click way to get some more information or to do that action. And just giving that personal touch, giving their name and having bits and pieces of what they just opened, what product they’re in, where their local branch is, how to get in contact, having that front and center, I think it’s compelling. People are scrolling, why not give them something that’s relatable, but informational and very helpful. The email journey had its moment. But we’re all on the feeds. This is where we’ve kicked it up to that next level.”

Regions has also succeeded in using their mobile feed for test and learn purposes. They are continuously analyzing customer behavior within the feed and adjusting the content and strategies accordingly. By doing this, they are ensuring that they are providing the best experience possible for their customers while also driving results.

Additionally, as part of their program, they have built in a continuous feedback loop using a survey right within the mobile feed. They have found that customer feedback has been incredible positive and opt-out rates continue to run below peer averages. In fact, Chris shared, “the survey we had at the end of the feed, the results have been very strong –  90% of customers find it very helpful. It just substantiates the research that we did and that that customers really do want to be communicated to this way.”

The implementation of a new digital tool doesn’t come without its challenges. Chris and Lisa spoke about how strong partnerships across their organization, including with marketing, customer experience, legal, and compliance have helped them to navigate these challenges more seamlessly.

They worked closely with their customer experience and marketing teams to develop the content for the mobile feeds and ensure that they were optimized for mobile. To avoid customer communication fatigue, they are thoughtful about their outreach strategy using this new channel, looking to strike a balance across their omnichannel approach. Throughout the entire process, they involved legal and compliance to make sure that customer consent was clear and content was service-based to be in line with TCPA regulations.

Given the success that they have seen so far with their program, Lisa and Chris teased additional campaigns that they hope to deploy on the mobile feed channel. In the near term, they have a campaign for their student checking product, packed with educational information specific for those customers. As a continuation of their test and learn approach, they plan to build out campaigns that target their existing customer base with personalized insights and targeted messaging based on bank products. Additionally, they see opportunities for expansion into other product lines like small business banking.

Regions Bank’s journey toward maximizing customer relationships through digital tools highlights the power of combining human interaction with innovative digital tools. By leveraging mobile feeds, they’ve successfully enhanced the customer experience, improved account quality, and driven retention—proving that customers want and expect digital, personalized interactions.

For banks aiming to stay competitive, the takeaway is clear: adopting a digital strategy that prioritizes customer preferences and personalizes the experience is key to building lasting relationships in today’s digital-first world.

To learn more about how Relay can help in driving increased customer engagement, reach out to sales@relaynetwork.com

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