Wells Fargo Seeks to Strengthen Culture, Foster Brand Loyalty

For Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan, rebuilding trust is a major priority, which is accompanied by efforts aimed at strengthening the company’s culture that can, ultimately, foster brand loyalty.

During Wells Fargo’s recent second-quarter earnings call, Sloan said that team members completed a company-wide third-party culture assessment, which provided them the opportunity to share feedback about Wells Fargo’s culture.

“We are processing these results and the goal is to identify both positive attributes and potential weaknesses, so we can take actions that will strengthen our culture,” Sloan explained. “We launched our new nationwide marketing campaign, Building Better Every Day, which builds on our commitment to creating a better bang for our customers, our team members, communities, and investors. We still have more work to do, including the completion of a third-party review of our sales practices in the Community Bank as part of meeting our consent order obligations as well as a voluntary review of accounts from 2009 and 2010 to determine possible unauthorized accounts and associated harm, which we expect to complete by the end of the third quarter. I'm pleased with the progress we've made and I'm confident we're on the right path.”

Strengthening the internal company culture breeds positive employee engagement and customer loyalty.
In March, Sheila King Goodwin, senior vice president, retail banking at PeoplesBank, told Loyalty360 that employee engagement and customer loyalty are forever connected.

Based in Holyoke, Mass, and established in 1885, PeoplesBank has seen quite the evolution in customer loyalty and customer behaviors during the past 132 years.

“Employee engagement and customer loyalty are joined at the hip!” King Goodwin told Loyalty360. “If you do not have employees that are onboard, your customers will see the seams splitting in your experience and loyalty initiatives. You can’t buy your way to loyal customers with pens, plants, and rewards. It’s personal and that aspect of the relationship has to be a connection made by your employees.”  

While Wells Fargo is focused on reducing expenses and improving efficiency, it continues to invest in its businesses and in particular technologies that make it easier for commercial and consumer customers to manage their finances.

“During the second quarter, we rolled out Zelle, a P2P payment platform for 28 million digital customers, provided enhancements for our Treasury Management customers to streamline and automate accounts receivable, launched a chatbot pilot for Facebook Messenger, began the rollout of a new streamlined mobile checking account openings experiences for our customers, and launched a new service for commercial card customers that allows them to upload and manage receipts with their mobile device,” Sloan explained.

At the end of the first quarter, Wells Fargo was the first large bank in the U.S. to offer card-free access to all of its ATMs and customers are Sloan is excited about this added convenience.

“Our customers had used the new card-free ATM access code over 1 million times,” he said. “We are also focused on improving the operating performance of the company by increasing our emphasis on core banking products and services that we believe are most relevant for our customers and provide the best financial returns for our shareholders.”

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