How Communities & Culture Influence CX

INTRO:

You're listening to CX Confessions, brought to you by Khoros. In each episode, we’ll share the customer experience stories and insights you need — straight from the sharpest minds in CX — to better connect with your customers and create customers for life. Let's start the show.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

All right, hello. Welcome back to CX Confessions. I am Katherine Calvert, CMO for Khoros, joined as always by the Captain Fabulous, Mr. Spike Jones, the GM of our Strat Services business. How're you doing, Spike?

SPIKE JONES:

Fantastic. Beautiful day in Austin. Beautiful January, I might add. Happy to be here as always.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Gorgeous day out here in California, and we are joined by somebody from an entirely third state here. We have a great conversation today. As always, we love to share stories on CX and sometimes we talk about CX as the specifics of a customer journey. Sometimes we talk about community, sometimes we talk about culture, and we have somebody who's got a great story to share that ties all of that together.

So let me tell you a little bit about our guest. Today it's our privilege to welcome Ms. Melissa Perrin today. She is the Executive Vice President, Chief Culture and Communications Officer at First United Bank, where she focuses on developing and fostering organizational culture and expressing that culture through brand and messaging.

She started at First United in 2004. And in her current role, she oversees employee and culture initiatives, communications, and marketing. So it's a pretty unique role. She's bringing together the culture and people side with marketing and communications. I'm really excited to hear her story. Purpose values are threaded throughout everything that happens at First United Bank. She's in charge of employee and customer engagement, workplace and customer space environments, brand work, and then all things, “Spend life wisely,” which we're going to learn more about, which is a special project at First United. Melissa has a husband and two daughters, a passion for running, walking, the outside, and is powered by plants, which I love. Welcome to the show.

MELISSA PERRIN:

Thank you for having me. I'm honored to get to spend some time with you all and get to share my story.

SPIKE JONES:

So we've been looking forward to this for a long time, Melissa. So again, thanks for sticking with us and thanks for joining us. First of all, a separate conversation, love to have at some point: 17, 18 years at the same company — like, that's almost unheard of these days. But when I do find unique, awesome people like you and these amazing long-term companies, there's always a great story to be told there. Maybe for a different time, but I'd love to dig into that.

Because you've seen the evolution of this company happen almost over two decades now, which is super impressive, but to be in the position that you are now when it comes to culture. That's what I'm excited about talking about. You know, whenever we did our prep, you talked about the challenge of creating amazing customer experiences by starting with your employees. And a lot of people, you know, they say that and that's lip service, but I really loved how you brought it to life. Can you share a little bit about that journey?

MELISSA PERRIN:

Yeah, and I have to say, Spike, I was just telling an employee that is moving and transitioning to a new career, I was just telling him, you know, working for 17, 18 years at the same place was not an intentional thing, but it's something that you know, I just encourage our employees to, you know, stay with something as long as you are passionate about it. The day that passion runs out, it's time for a change. And I just feel blessed that I'm so passionate after 17 years to still show up and get to do all this fun stuff at First United. So I just feel blessed to get to do it each day.

But yeah, our charting at First United has been, it's been a fun one. We, you know, it's probably been close to probably for 13, 14 years ago that we you know, we were growing and we were getting more spread out as far as how many locations we had and how far in distances we're also gaining more employees and you know, we really had this moment of, how do we keep the culture that we had then, where nothing was written down or on paper, it was just a feeling you had being a part of it, right, walking in the door. How do we keep this as we continue to go on this, you know, this journey of growing and impacting, being inside and impacting more communities.

And so, the first thing that we did first was start out with we need to get this culture on paper so that we can help onboard new employees with it and even help tell our partners that are helping us, you know, make an impact and inside people's financial lives, how can we make sure that they're the right partners for us, onboarding them, how can we tell our community, you know, leaders that we're wanting to partner with on different initiatives that are passionate to us? How can we help educate them about what we're about and what we're doing? And so we did that. We took, I took a year with a few other folks that we traveled to each location. Every single employee had the opportunity to give us their feedback about what is it that you love, you know, why do you love working here? What is it that we want to continue to aspire to be and do? You know, kind of who are we on our best day?

And so we got that on paper, had lots of you know, sticky dot activities, surveys that went out. But, really every employee had a chance to participate on that. And then when we got all of their feedback, and literally every word of our values was, you know, was something that was shared with us from our employees, the onboarding time, which is nothing. And you know, I think a lot of times companies do it the reverse way. They hire an ad agency or someone to come in and very quickly help them create values or kind of this aspirational culture. And then they work for, you know, years to try to get that to be a reality or truth and we went the opposite of: what do we want to preserve? What do we want to keep? Who are we on our best day? And let's get that on paper so that you know, we can look at that as our true north.

And so values was the first piece, our purpose, and it's just continued over the years. We just launched our Vision 2030, which was a 10-year vision, and even that exercise, you know, we had an event where we hosted three days where we invited, you know, around 50 different stakeholders. Some of those were non-customers. They were maybe members in the communities that we’re in. Employees. You know, just partners, folks that, and we did have customers that came in and said, Hey, what would you like, what would be helpful for you at First United? You know, what should we be doing in 10 years from now? What do you hope that looks like? Help dream with us.

And so we continue to involve others as we work on, you know, who we are and who we want to be. And I feel like doing that just creates this, you know, it creates this just the center point that everything kind of comes off of. You know, this is how we want to talk to all of our stakeholders. And that consistency of how we show up is something that I think is really invaluable, you know, to have that. Whether that's something you receive in the mail from us, an email, that's a physical space you come into, it's an opportunity you have volunteering with one of our employees, you know, at an event, it's something on our social media, it's an in-person, you know, in our lobby transaction, or maybe it's, you know, an employee working here — that all of that has that consistency. It really builds this, you know, this brand that people expect and appreciate.

SPIKE JONES:

Yeah, I love that intentionality for sure. For sure. Very, very cool and, and everything being that sounding board. I remember I worked with a gentleman years ago where you know, we were talking about identity and talking about values and who we wanted to be, but also he asked the question: who do we not want to be? What do we never want to be, too? Which I think was a pretty cool way to look at it.

MELISSA PERRIN:

For sure.

SPIKE JONES:

Yeah. That's great.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

And I wrote down: who are we on our best day? What a great question to ask yourself.

I want to talk about how you bring that to life for your customers. But I'm so curious, I really appreciate how thorough and comprehensively you’ve thought about what it means to be First United. What it means to be a member of the community and getting those voices from so many different places. I'm curious, were there any big surprises or things that you hadn't even known or thought about yourselves as a company until you really asked everybody this kind of a question?

MELISSA PERRIN:

You know, there really wasn't any surprises and there, honestly, it was so, when at that point, we knew some, you know, we knew what that true heart of our company felt like. I can remember exactly where I was standing in the moment I showed our owner, CEO, hey, this is a year's worth of work. What do you think? This is what everyone said. And it's kind of distilled down into these values and a couple of lines that you know, express each one of them. And he looked at it and he read it and he goes: sounds right.

It was just so evident that it was true to us, coming from our employees. And even at our 10-year mark of our values being out, our CEO and I went back out and we traveled to each of our locations, and just did a little, I mean, it was a, we showed up with you know, kind of breakfast in tow of like, hey, we just want to hang out for a few minutes and just hear stories about what this looks like alive in your communities. What does this look like with your customers? What does this look like in the break room with employees? And just to make sure that those were still you know, on point, that those were active and, and just to, to, you know, just refreshing for our spirits and soul, just to hear what those were like alive in our communities.

And so it felt good to just do a little check on that and make sure they were still relevant and everything.

So, yeah, I think just keeping at it like that is important. And how it shows up for our customers and our employees. I’ll start on our employee side. We're really intentional about things internally that we don't just talk about them, that we actually do things with them. So a couple of really easy examples are we do a weekly email that may share a customer testimony or an employee testimony. They're also just things in the spirit of you know, right now. It's the first of the year. So we're talking about, you know, being intentional about what you want to do this year, setting goals for yourself and that includes things within our values and our culture pieces. And what that looks like for you and your family. So we do this weekly letter that goes out that draws on some piece of our culture, whether it's our stakeholder model or our vision or our values or our purpose statement. And so that keeps it active and we ask our teams to use that in their weekly team meetings, to you know, to draw out stories and ideas from each other. And so that really helps.

You know, for me what I think's been kind of like this aha moment in that exercise has been when someone talks about or we share a story about this customer experience that went really well, it almost gives permission to other employees — or like permission, or even like a spark of an idea of like, oh, we should do that at our location. Just the other day I had someone sharing, you know, the little envelope your money, your cash goes in, when a banker hands it back to you. She was writing, you know, inspirational, whether that was, you know, Bible verses or inspirational little quotes on those, and just those little things. It's like, oh, we should do that at our location. And we could do that. And so it shares these ideas across and so just having these prompts each week to talk about it really keeps it activated.

Another cool thing we do is in all of our kind of bigger team meetings, we start those off with a story about our purpose and value. So they may draw something from that weekly letter or share something that's happened with a customer and then we also do check-ins where we're checking in on each other. And that really builds this environment of care and just, you know, interest in each other, each other's passions and what each other is going through. And then we end our big meetings with appreciations.

And so that really helps exercise that message of gratitude and, you know, being a part of a team that's working together and acknowledging each other. So those are kind of some internal things that really do translate in front of the customer.

But even with our customers, one of the big things we've been doing is we have this, when I would talk about “Spend life wisely, for us, that's really four things: your financial well being, your personal growth, your health, and your faith. And so we don't pre-define what those are for anybody. My financial wellness is going to be different than maybe the reviewers, and so our goals are different for our health in different things. But we create workshops that we host inside of our communities, inside of our locations, that anyone in the community, doesn't have to be a customer, but they can come in and participate and learn something new about where they're at in their journey on one of those areas.

And so that's just one example. We give away books and resources in our lobbies that customers can leave donations for, but it's content that we feel passionate about in those four areas that we really want to educate on. And if they do decide to leave a donation, those go to a cause in that local community. So just trying to think of those types of things that really elevate our communities and our customers but it also represents, you know, our values in action.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

I think that's what was so striking for us learning your story. You know when you think about, and we have a lot of customers who are financial services orgs, and the most successful are doing what you're doing. I think there's a perception, or when people think of banks, they think of spreadsheets and ledgers and measures and suits and numbers, right. And I think what's so interesting about your story, and the success you've seen, is, I mean I was just looking up your values and you have a lot, but they kind of fall into these two buckets. And how many banks do you see where one of those big headers is, “Spread love” and then the other is, “Make an impact.”

I think it goes to this idea that while there's always numbers involved in finance, banking is so personal and you've been so intentional about recognizing that people and their money — that's very personal, it can be incredibly vulnerable. Some of the biggest moments in a person's life are tied to their bank, tied to big financial decisions. And I think it's so powerful the way you have taken your — started with the employee experience to drive that empathy.

MELISSA PERRIN:

Yeah, I'm a huge believer that every time you interact with someone, even if it's nonverbal, that every time you interact with someone you have an opportunity. I mean, even if it's at like this tiny micro level, to make their day better or a little worse. It's hard to really be neutral. I mean you're impacting just a smidge one way or the other. And especially when, you know, a customer comes in, especially now, in the kind of world where so many people are interacting with their financial institutions, you know, online or through an app, if they physically come in, something major is likely happening.

They, you know, they may have, are trying to get a mortgage or they're starting a new business, or had an issue with their account. And so, you know, people walk into a bank like you say, they're a little nervous about the conversation. And I always use a fist, they kind of walk in like this. And so it's like anything we can do just to, you know, just kind of give a deep breath to folks and help them feel more comfortable and more you know, like they're, like they're not on this journey alone, especially with their finances. You know, we really have that — I believe we have that opportunity to make their day better, and definitely a goal of ours with each interaction.

SPIKE JONES:

Now, Melissa, you've already unpacked most of this, but if there's anything you'd like to add, I think, you know, that the idea, or the word community, is thrown around a lot these days in many, many different industries, but also in yours, a community bank. And so when you talk about community, and again, you already have a little bit, but we’d love to hear about a little bit more. How does that really translate for y'all, being a part of that community?

MELISSA PERRIN:

So, the word branch is a huge no-no at our place.

SPIKE JONES:

That’s super cool.

MELISSA PERRIN:

You’ll never hear us talk about having branches. We are a collection of community banks and a couple of ways that shows up from the business side of things, we strive to make 99% of our decisions local, so you have a local team in your local community making those decisions and doing what's best for their community, and they know the customers better than someone at corporate does. So they have that authority to make those decisions and do what's best.

So we definitely strive, and I think the larger we get, the smaller we try to feel, and try to give that empowerment to those communities. And then if you're just inside of a community, whether you bank with us or not, when you start working here, you get all of your paperwork and stuff but you also get a red volunteer t-shirt. And so we're very intentional that working here means being a part of the community and giving back. So you definitely will see our red shirts throughout our communities giving back and rolling up our sleeves and getting involved especially, you know, pre COVID. We were inside of school systems, kids and their financial literacy is a huge, huge deal for us. And so yeah, you see those red shirts throughout being involved so that's a big piece of it as well, as just how we make decisions and treat our customers.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

That is so great. Branch is a no-no. That's something I will think about for a while. Speaking of no-nos: a question we always ask our guests, Melissa, what is an industry practice or a widely held belief in your industry that you just really disagree with? That you think is wrongheaded?

MELISSA PERRIN:

You know, so you actually spoke to it just for a few minutes ago of just this idea of banks being boring and just solid numbers. And I'm just, I am not our number person, that's for sure. I always say I'm the word person here. But, you know, over the years there's been lots of things that we've tried to do to make the vibe at this place less boring and less uptight. Things like changing our dress code and changing our physical spaces to be more open and inviting, and just really trying to invite the community and their families, and our employees and their families, inside our spaces.

You'll see ping pong tables and, you know, puzzles, take puzzles or domino games happening in our lobbies. And so I'm just trying to make it less intimidating for people and you know, I just, I can remember 17 years ago thinking gosh, I really liked it here. I think this could be something, but like, like I don't want to work this way for my whole career. I'm gonna have to have a little fun here.

So trying to ditch the stuffy suits and have a little more fun and play in the workplace is really important to me. I think that translates to your customers as well.

SPIKE JONES:

Now you talked about that you're not a numbers person, but I do have to ask the data question because we all need data in our jobs. What is the data that you look for? What's the data that matters to you, that lets you know that you're doing a good job?

MELISSA PERRIN:

Yeah. So internally, our employee engagement, we partner with Gallup and do that, you know, Q12 each year, that is good data for us internally. But I'm actually working with Gallup right now on an awesome project along with Haley Rushing from the Purpose Institute, she's on our board.

SPIKE JONES:

Nice.

MELISSA PERRIN:

We're working on — you’ve probably heard of KPIs, key performance indicators, but we're working on key purpose indicators. And so this will be our first year that we will actually do some surveying of our, all of our different stakeholders, our communities with even non-customers, customers, employees, different partners, and actually get some data back on where they're at, kind of like, you know, within these four pillars of “Spend life wisely,” and but also how their interactions with First United is helping them on that journey. So that's some work we've been doing to start, you know, get us to the point where we can start trending some of that data and really look at it and see kind of that love and impact taking place over the years.

SPIKE JONES:

Key purpose.

MELISSA PERRIN:

Isn’t that fun?

SPIKE JONES:

Super cool.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Key purpose indicators. That is really cool. That is so fun. I mean that really just gives you pause, right, as you think about how to keep teams engaged and how to give people a sense of being connected to the work. It’s so easy to talk about, but how to be intentional about measuring it. That is, that's really cool.

That's a lesson I just learned. But Melissa, another question we always ask our guests — because it's CX Confessions, so it is confessions time — what is, when you think about your journey, one of the hardest lessons that you've learned and helped to make you the leader you are today?

MELISSA PERRIN:

Gosh, if I think about that personally, you know, one of the things I, you know, I try to tell people is when I first started working for, you know, a bank, I thought man I need to be that numbers person. I need to be able to sit in these meetings and follow these spreadsheets and, and you know, I pretended to do that for a while, and I can remember this and even just back then really trying to blend in. I was the only female at that time on an all-male team, and much younger at that time than most people on that team, and so I tried to, you know, play the part of the navy suit and the very mature conversations and the numbers and isn't that interesting?

And I finally got to the point where I'm like, I just can't do this anymore. Like I have to show up as me and be okay that I'm not the expert on some of these things in the room and not even try to act like I even care about some of these certain things. And for me, my biggest lesson probably is that is I wish I would have done that sooner because the more I've stepped into my passions, I see the last thing that bank needed was another, you know, number crunching person, you know. That it's really allowed me to kind of step into my true self and help me even just personally connect my personal passions and creativity with my work, which creates better balance for me and so it serves myself and the company way better. And so just an encouragement, I guess for others to you know, be true to themselves and not try to blend in.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Oh, that is powerful stuff as we dive into the new year. I love that story. The navy suits. I was looking at something the other day, thinking, when’s the last — because suits just don't. All right, well this has been fascinating. I've taken so many notes — key purpose indicators, who are we on our best day, the larger we get the smaller we try to feel — that is very zen, Melissa. Powerful stuff. You’ve shared a little bit about yourself.

We always, because everything is personal, we'd love to end with a few fun questions for our guests to get to know you better and your own journey.

MELISSA PERRIN:

Awesome, let’s do this.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

So it’s time for quick fire. Yeah. Spike, you want to kick us off?

SPIKE JONES:

Sure. What was your first concert?

MELISSA PERRIN:

NSYNC.

SPIKE JONES:

Yes!

MELISSA PERRIN:

Justin Timberlake.

SPIKE JONES:

You could do worse. You could do, that’s a good one.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

That’s a good one. How about your first job?

MELISSA PERRIN:

Probably, 15, babysitting, and I look back and I think man, those parents were crazy. I had no clue what I was doing.

SPIKE JONES:

They just wanted to get out of the house.

MELISSA PERRIN:

Professionally though, it was working for a company doing some of their just entry level marketing stuff: newsletters, community involvement pieces, articles on different things happening in the company. So yeah, I think that passion started early.

SPIKE JONES:

Sounds like it did for sure. If you weren't doing what you're doing now, which you obviously love and do very well. What would you attempt to go do as a different career?

MELISSA PERRIN:

I think I would definitely be on the show “Hoarders.” I have this huge — not as —

SPIKE JONES:

I was about to say. Okay.

MELISSA PERRIN:

Helping host. I have a huge love of purging and making things look better and feel better after I've been there. So I think I would just work to make things a better space for people.

SPIKE JONES:

After my own heart, for sure. Speaks to my OCD very much.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Yeah, that's a great one. Any chance you’re coming out to the Bay Area soon, because I could use some help.

MELISSA PERRIN:

Come over and help organize. Trust me, that would be a fun day for me.

SPIKE JONES:

I’m with you.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

What about your phone? What's your favorite app on your phone? Or most used?

MELISSA PERRIN:

My husband would probably say Amazon, but I'm gonna go with, I love the Headspace app. I wish I used it even more than I do. But I try to get on it almost daily. And I always, anytime I commit to it, I always leave feeling better than when I started. So it's probably my favorite tool.

SPIKE JONES:

That's a great one. Also, they're also great to follow on LinkedIn for just little inspirational things during the day as well for those of you out there. And then finally, if you had to name it, what is your biggest indulgence?

MELISSA PERRIN:

Biggest indulgence, well.

SPIKE JONES:

Besides organization.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

And Amazon.

MELISSA PERRIN:

Yes. This is probably, you know, similar to most people's, but I definitely love a good, like, Sunday afternoon in bed just binge watching a favorite show. So most recently, over the holidays, I had to catch up on the 10 new episodes of “Emily in Paris,” marketing and brand at its finest with a little fashion involved. So I definitely have those days where it's just a huge treat to get to hide out and indulge in something I wouldn't usually spend time doing, so.

SPIKE JONES:

Very fun. Very fun.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

I love that and yes, the second season is delicious.

All right, well, Melissa, this has been so fun. What a great way to kick off the new year for us and our show and thank you for joining us. Thank you for sharing your story. It's been wonderful and inspiring. Thank you all for tuning in. Please join us next time for the next episode of CX Confessions.

MELISSA PERRIN:

Thank you for having me. It's been fun.

KHOROS:

Your customers expect to be understood — their likes and dislikes, their history with your brand, and their communication preferences. But so many companies struggle to connect the dots of the interaction across their own teams and channels and its creating customer experience challenges and disasters. That's where Khoros can help. Khoros is the award-winning customer engagement platform built to turn those siloed interactions with your customer into enterprise value. Khoros works with more than 2,000 of the world's leading brands and powers more than 500 million digital interactions every day. Khoros is the award-winning platform for digital-first customer engagement. Ready to create human connection across the digital customer experience to create customers for life? Learn more at Khoros.com.

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