Bank Conversions: A Playbook for Success with Superior

Announcer  00:04

Welcome to the Treasury Update Podcast presented by Strategic Treasurer, your source for interesting treasury news, analysis, and insights in your car, at the gym, or wherever you decide to tune in.

 

Craig Jeffery  00:18

Welcome to the Treasury Update Podcast. This is Craig Jeffery, your host today. Our conversation today is about bank conversions and coming up with a playbook for success. I’m joined by April Levin from Superior.  April, welcome to the Treasurer Update Podcast.

 

April Levin  00:35

Thank you for having me.

 

Craig Jeffery  00:36

So as background, technology and business processes certainly change over time. That’s part of the nature of work. Banks acquire other banks. They have to reduce the number of systems, and this progress means conversions impact their clients in a positive way in the long term, but in the short term, conversions can range from being a strong success to a negative impact on the relationship as well as the service level. Today’s discussion, I wanted to find out how banks can best set themselves up for success for these inevitable conversion events, and also provide some insight to corporations and commercial clients who use their banks before we get started into that April, could you just give a quick introduction of what does Superior do and what is your role there?

 

April Levin  01:24

Superior is a treasury solutions company. We work mostly within the commercial sector of the banking industry, and we provide multiple solutions to banks to help their clients through the banking process. We do anything from printing checks down to supplying hardware, including warranty repair services, but we have a division that is dedicated to the conversion services. We call that division Technical Assistance Center, where we have a team of people that understand banking platforms inside and out, and their whole purpose is to walk the bank’s clients through any kind of process change when it comes to converting from one software to another or one hardware to another,

 

Craig Jeffery  02:10

That must be pretty constant. And in thinking about bank conversions, I want to talk about the broader impact, both from the bank perspective, as well as what corporate treasury AP your AR users have. So maybe, why do we have a podcast on this? But why do banks and corporate and commercial customers care about how the conversion process is handled?

 

April Levin  02:35

The conversion process can be very painful to people, particularly if they’re not expecting it or, I mean, it’s essentially a force change on the end user to switch platforms and in the commercial space that can affect multiple people at the client, particularly because you might have them in the platform using different things. So what happens is, if it doesn’t go quite right, they do defect from the bank. We have seen that happen, and hear that information from our clients on that they are trying to reduce how many people are defecting during that conversion, and so they they really do need to put a proper communication plan in place in order to help those people through the conversion.

 

Craig Jeffery  03:20

Yeah, defecting seems like such a terrible word, right? That means things have gone very badly. That’s some good background. And there’s so many conversions that happen. I mean, just tech is on the move as we talk about assessing a conversion project, that’s the area that I wanted to dive into a little bit more. There’s changes all the time, and we don’t need to be super formal about very minor changes, there gets to be a point where, I guess this more formal, more organized approach matter. How would you determine, how would you advise banks when a project is complex enough or important enough to target, you know, a higher level of resources to make a conversion go well.

 

April Levin  04:03

So sometimes a change in platform could be just a small GUI change, and that doesn’t require a huge support staff to monitor it. Could be done with some communication and a simple Help Center for inbound phone calls. Most of the conversions that we assess that that require more planning and more proactive implementation is complete changes going from one online banking platform to another, particularly in the commercial space, that would affect products such as ACH and wire positive pay RDC software, those require more proactive approach, as well as having the assistance, because it’s very unlikely that their information will transfer over into the new platform in a seamless way. There’s always bound to be some kind of change that’s going to. And on the client side, whether it’s setting up the service again, or installing and reinstalling software on their own side, the other factor that determines needing a proactive approach to a conversion is if that change is going to happen over a single weekend. So it’s what we call a Big Bang within our industry. If it’s a conversion that spread out over multiple months, it can happen over time. People can come on at their leisure. You don’t need to do so much planning around it, and you could probably support it within your within the bank environment. Once you decide to do a conversion, and there’s a big bang approach, you’ll have the masses trying to accept that change at once, and most likely, it will change what your support model will look like after that conversion, just based on the influx of inbound calls and questions that happen during that change.

 

Craig Jeffery  05:55

When do people use the Big Bang and say, we’re on such and such a weekend, the old systems being decommissioned. Everything is going to move this weekend to the new platform. Let’s say. How often is that done?

 

April Levin  06:10

It happens more times than we would like it to happen. Almost all online banking platform changes happens with a big bang, with the exception that sometimes we see our clients are able to get a waived approach, so they’ll be able to tear out their customers and bring them on in groups. And in other scenarios, we’ll see banks be able to acquire a preview period, so you might have four weeks prior to your big bang that allows customers in to see what the changes are going to be, and so the Big Bang has a less impact, as far as a negative impact on it, but nine times out of 10, it’s a big bang that we see, even though it’s the one thing we wish we didn’t see, just because we know it will disrupt the customer experience.

 

Craig Jeffery  06:58

Do you think you’re seeing more of that? Let’s say the nine out of 10 you’re seeing more of that, because they’re coming to an organization like yours, when it is a bigger change, and the ones that are they’re scaling out the handle on their own.

 

April Levin  07:11

That could be very true. We do get involved in some that don’t have that big bang, that are able to tier it out and allow those preview periods. I think the bank gets a handle on what that customer experience is a little bit better when they take those proactive approaches. We also see that though, in some of the smaller platforms, most of the larger platforms, we see are done within a big bang. We hear from the bank that from a technology aspect, it’s easier to do a big bang because the transition is a clean cut. It’s you’re ending one platform and starting the next over transition of a weekend, maybe three days. So it’s much easier on the technology side of the conversion. Unfortunately, it’s a harder transition for the customer experience.

 

Craig Jeffery  07:59

Yeah, I always think sometimes, when they’re doing construction on airports or whatever they they do 56 adjustments of the road flow, because they have to keep the stuff going and change things. Change things to make whatever their future plan is. They got 19 interim steps. You know, all those changes cost money, I think, to to April. You know, the the cost and calibration of making these changes. Sometimes these are not like they’re not necessarily large money makers for the bank or the technology provider. It’s how do you, how do you determine the resources you put against the clients that, let’s say, the clients of the bank, you know, some of them might do one thing that’s simple. They don’t need as much as you know, say, really a high maintenance or high value client? Yeah. How do you determine who to target for what type of conversion services?

 

April Levin  08:53

So we typically advise our clients to break out their customers within three tiers. We ask for the top tiers, what they call like a white glove experience. We usually see that the target is the top 10% based on what they consider is their value of customer, and most of it’s based on revenue. So they’ll take the top 10% and we’ll give them a white glove experience, make sure that their transition is as smooth as it can be. They get a lot of hand holding. They get the, you know, the premiere package, essentially.

 

Craig Jeffery  09:28

When it’s a premier package, does that mean that someone’s visiting them, that there’s a separate call? How does that work?

 

April Levin  09:34

So they’ll get a dedicated rep that will conduct online appointments with them to give them previews and training within a demo experience prior to the transition, if there’s change within their ACH or positive pay environment and files need to be uploaded, or QuickBooks needs to be reintegrated into the platform that transition agent. Will walk them through all those steps, or do those steps on behalf of the clients. So they’re trying to make it an easy transition before the platform goes live. And then once that platform does go live, that agent will reach back out to ensure are all the users within that account. Are they on the new platform? Do they have any questions? Is there any additional training that needs to be done. Additionally, we’ll house training videos in an online environment that they’ll have access to, as well as any kind of training that we might have conducted with them that we can record and send to them.

 

Craig Jeffery  10:34

Okay, if the first tier tends to be 10% as the white glove, what’s the percentage of the second tier and what, what colorful description do you have for that?

 

April Levin  10:44

We usually take about 20 to 30% after that and we give them a modified experience. So instead of conducting one on one appointments, right off the bat, we’ll put them through group webinars. We’ll still provide all the wonderful digital help, as far as in a landing page with videos they can access and help guides, but will steer them towards those group settings within webinars that will conduct over the three to four weeks prior to the conversion. And if they find that they still need additional help, they’ll be able to reach out to us and and schedule a one on one appointment.

 

Craig Jeffery  11:24

And what’s, what’s the third tier? The bottom looks like 50 60%.

 

April Levin  11:29

Yep.  So the remaining 50% or so, they’re typically commercial clients that only have one product. So they’re they’re not on ACH, they’re not using wire, they’re just using basic treasury management services, those people will receive all the digital tools that they need. The bank typically will roll out a communication plan that has a series of emails that will lead them to landing pages with help guides. They’ll have access to training videos, but they aren’t invited to the webinars, and they’re not invited to one on one appointments. Instead, they get all their training as self service prior to the conversion, and then once conversion weekend happens, then they’ll have access to an 800 number Help Desk in order to get assistance if they have questions after the fact.

 

Craig Jeffery  12:19

Okay, yeah, so the top tier is one to one, very much hand holding the the lowest level is more self service. And then the middle tier is, is a bit of a hybrid. There’s a opportunity to get, get some more assistance, it sounds like. So the the whole plan for the conversions underway, and you know, the the bank or your company is looking at managing those conversions. A couple of things that come to mind. I’ll throw some of those out and let you talk about them. You know, we’ve had conversations before. You know, one of them is activity in a conversion isn’t necessarily even like you mentioned the four weeks before, and you mentioned the conversion weekend. So how do you handle that? And then how do you handle like, some of the changes, like, nobody pays attention until the conversion happened. They’re like, I can’t do this. And then they’re they’re cycling back. How do you find that Conversions can be managed better, particularly with those types of issues.

 

April Levin  13:17

We recommend that communication starts at least four weeks before the conversion, weekend, they should be getting information from the bank telling them that it’s happening, and then four weeks prior, we’ll start our outreach on letting them know exactly what those changes are and what kind of access they would get to trading materials prior to conversion. There’s always early adopters, and those early adopters are the first ones to raise their hand. Want to get trained as soon as possible and have access to the system. But then there’s always a lull. Most people want to wait until right before and that’s when the influx will come. Our particular solution, we spread out the people throughout those four weeks in order to make sure that we have a consistent amount of staff assisting the population and ensuring that we can reach everyone. So our tools are especially designed to spread them out. The goal is to get everyone pre conversion into training. It doesn’t always happen. We estimate on an online conversion we talked to about 55 to 60% of the population that we have been provided. They’re the ones that will reach out to us, that will make sure that they’re fully trained. Still have 40% that hasn’t made that initiation or the connection that I really should learn this before it happens, and that 40% will be calling as soon as conversion week. And happens?

 

Craig Jeffery  14:41

Okay? So 40% is conversion week, and then the four weeks before you said there’s maybe about 60%.  Who are the early, what percentage of our adopters will call in when you the first communication goes out, what does that look like? 10% or less?

 

April Levin  14:57

Within our first communication cycle, we’ll get about 15%of people responding and raising their hand for training throughout our communication cycle. Our goal is to get up to the 50% within the first two weeks, and then that way, our schedules will be full and we’ll be able to ensure that all the training is taking place appropriately.

 

Craig Jeffery  15:20

Able to scale up, yeah, because it’s not just a technical capacity, it’s people talking people through things, sure.

 

April Levin  15:27

And then post-conversion, you know, the 40% is going to end up calling, particularly the ones that have services that needed an extra change involved. But there’s additional impact when a conversion happens, if there’s a change to any login or password reset needed, say, a login has changed from one platform to another, the call volume spikes, and we’ll get calls from up to 80% of the people affected.

 

Craig Jeffery  15:57

Wow, how does a bank, or how do you as a company servicing that handle this? I don’t want to call it zero to 60, but you know, this huge scale up of of call volume, you know, on the Monday, the Monday and Tuesday, when people come in because they’re they’re also panicky because they’re using banking services to to handle it.

 

April Levin  16:19

So we don’t recommend that a conversion happens at the end of the month, because month end, particularly in the commercial side, is very important, so we recommend that it happens more mid month in order to offset any impact from end of month accounting needs. And then we staff up appropriately. So we do, we do have discussions prior to the start of a project to understand how many people are being impacted. We do try to figure out if there’s going to be particular change when it comes to login and password reset, if it’s access that our agents has in order to perform those password resets or login changes that are needed. We prepare as much as we can ahead of time, and then we staff up appropriately. So we bring on additional staff for post conversion. Those calls can take anywhere between two to three weeks to get through. The goal is to try to get through as many as you can within the first week to make sure that there’s a steady stream of calls. So as calls come in, we have agents manning the phones, as well as a system that is recording messages and agents calling back in order to mitigate any of the call volume issues.

 

Craig Jeffery  17:35

Excellent. Now, you’ve already shared some of the metrics, right? I’m listening for the numbers. The question that I had and still want to ask is, what other metrics are you using to make sure a conversion is that it’s running smoothly, and what might be a signal that a conversion is, I don’t know, failing or certainly performing sub optimally? You know, not well. What would you say to a bank exec to say you have to monitor this?

 

April Levin  18:05

So we look at three numbers in particular. One is pre conversion. We look at what we call a completion rate, or those who have been trained prior to the conversion. We want to make sure completion rates are as high as possible, because that mitigates all the issues that can happen post conversion.

 

Craig Jeffery  18:25

Well, so high as possible, like you had mentioned, like 55 or maybe 60% is that a success? Like, what? When would that be bad?

 

April Levin  18:33

So 55 would be a success. Anything below 45 would be low, and we would be trying to find other communication methods in order to get that number higher.

 

Craig Jeffery  18:46

Okay, thanks. I’m just, I just wanted those numbers in my head, but that was, that was number one. So the completion rate, pre conversion, and I guess you’re on number two then

 

April Levin  18:54

The second one would be our customer satisfaction scores. Every time we touch a customer, we send a customer survey to ask them how the experience went, and they’re allowed to provide us feedback to say if there’s anything that they missed or if they need additional training. So we monitor our customer satisfaction scores, and our goal is to maintain a 98% customer satisfaction score.

 

Craig Jeffery  19:19

One question that you said they give feedback on, is there more training? Is that more training for like, the the agent, or is that more training the customer is like, Hey, I got it, but the immediate issue is solved, but I need more help. Is that the type of training?

 

April Levin  19:33

Yes, it’s training for the customer, if there is anything that they need in addition to what they already received.

 

Craig Jeffery  19:39

So what’s number three?

 

April Levin  19:40

The third thing that we look at is post-conversion. We look at our call metrics and to ensure our hold time is kept down to a reasonable amount of time, so that way, it’s having a positive impact on the customer, rather than ending up in a hold queue and not getting their question answered.

 

Craig Jeffery  19:57

I was on hold for nine minutes. Yeah. Yeah, well, that’s That’s great. How about before you go live and go live? One of the things I want to know ahead of time was, what are the most common concerns or issues that can be encountered. You sort of described, well, you did describe how you know if something’s is a success, are there anything? Is there anything else on the before you go live or immediately on go live that people should be looking at.

 

April Levin  20:22

The biggest things to look at before we go live is the impact to the change in system as far as integrations go. So that includes, is the ACH information being transferred over, or does it manually need to be done by the client? Is the QuickBooks integration a simple plugin, or does it need? Does a file need to be mapped in order to make the integration work? So there’s certain key things that will impact the client post conversion, and those are the things that an agent is going to pay attention to to make sure that they’re set up ahead of time and ready to go come conversion day.

 

Craig Jeffery  21:05

So, so that’s a great example, I think, right people who have done the automation to make their process more efficient, it’s different. If you’re changing something you’re doing on the screen, you grab something from the desktop, load a file up. That’s not much of a change. But if you know a bunch of steps were performed by the computer now they’re not, you might that might not be staff for those that’s that’s a real good example. You know, April, I know you, you’ve written papers, you put out a lot of material about leading practices and what organizations need to do. Any other leading practices for these bigger conversions that you’d like to share, I know you’ve got a lot, but maybe just pick a favorite one or two.

 

April Levin  21:48

The biggest one is to make sure you’re properly staffed. For it, the banks that rely on internal departments that are already doing another job tend to not have such a smooth transition just because they’re not properly staffed. So it really is key to ensure that whether the bank brings on temporary staff at the bank, or that they contract with the vendor to make sure that there is enough staff to communicate and touch all the clients that need to be touched during training and post conversion. The other big thing is to understand the demographic of your clients, to ensure that you have people available to assist them. And that could mean bilingual agents. That could mean bilingual materials that they can read, videos that they can see, particularly depending on where the bank is located, that could be a very impactful addition to the service in order to make sure that you’re able to communicate with the customers.

 

Craig Jeffery  22:51

Thanks, April, those are some good examples that you know. It’s helpful for any type of change management, whether it’s smaller, it’s a larger conversion project from a commercial or corporate client, maybe as a CFO of an organization, small organization, or the Treasury group or the shared service center. When a conversion is coming up, what would you suggest they ask their banks about, let’s say, an upcoming conversion, or how they approach conversions, they acquire somebody else, or they’re just upgrading. What would you suggest they ask?

 

April Levin  23:28

From a client perspective, they should ask what the value of the new platform or the new service is going to be to them, and they should be able to talk to someone one on one to understand that value and how it works and how it will affect the businesses staff to ensure that they can use all those products and features, and particularly paying attention to the key products that they use on a routine basis. That might be the RDC product and they may use check scanners and how, how does their current hardware fit into the new platform? They should be asking questions to make sure that the transition is smooth and that their business isn’t going to be interrupted.

 

Craig Jeffery  24:14

Excellent factoring in a physical item like RDC scanner or card swipe readers or anything else in addition to the to the digital version. April, this. This was a good conversation. I kept learning more and more about how this conversions worked. I’ve been part of that with banks and working with a number of companies to see it, but just you know how you dissect that was very enlightening. And appreciate your time. Thanks for joining me on the treasurer update podcast.

 

April Levin  24:42

Thank you for having me. It’s been a pleasure.

 

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