Josh DeTar: [00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of the Digital Banking Podcast. My guest today is Debbie Miglaw, the Vice President of Digital Solutions, Business Development for Broadridge. What fascinates me about people is when you have a conversation with them at a moment in time, you’re only getting exposed to them as they are at that moment in time.

And many times you have no context of who they really are as a person and the path they’ve taken in life to be the person that you’re talking to at that moment. So what I found interesting about Debbie’s story is she took her path all the way back to when she was nine and met a customer of her dad’s small bike shop, who is a competitive cyclist.

The interactions with this customer morphed into her and her three siblings’ interest in competitive cycling. Now, while the other three petered out of it over the years, Debbie stuck with it, even to the point of becoming a national champion in velodrome track [00:01:00] racing in her junior year. Side note, I’ve always found that race fascinating for whatever reason.

So it’s kind of super cool to me to actually meet someone who’s done it. Now, it was this life experience that taught her things like discipline, focus, grit, and creativity, and the ability to navigate complex situations, Think about trying to pass someone while racing at 30 miles an hour on a bike that can’t coast and has no brakes on a massively banked track, just for reference.

So it’s these skills that have subsequently been channeled into making Debbie, a phenomenal product manager and later solutions, consulting and business development professional, being able to move quickly while seeing the whole picture and looking for creative holes to squeeze through to drive results really invigorates her.

And it’s these experiences that have helped her to navigate life as a mom, a cyclist, and a dedicated professional focused on helping organizations navigate the rapidly changing landscape of communication and [00:02:00] engagement. Debbie said she likes to be busy and she likes making her brain work as she switches context continually throughout the day.

So no doubt you are in for a wide range of fun topics for today. So Debbie, thank you so much for coming and joining me on the podcast.

Debbie Miglaw: Josh, thanks so much for having me. I’m looking forward to this.

Josh: Yeah, so, okay. I mean, before we get into the meat and potatoes that I think, hopefully people really care about it and it is the topic of conversation today. I mean, I have to start by just actually asking you a little bit about, so tell me about this, like racing these crazy bikes around this ridiculously banked circle at breakneck speeds that you don’t even have brakes for.

Yeah,

Debbie: some other cyclists and, at first it was just road riding and criteriums and then. They were like, Hey, the track is only like 45 minutes away from where you live. You should go try it out. Everybody’s doing it. It’s really fun. It’s not like it’s easy.

And so we went and we [00:03:00] borrowed some bikes and the bikes are totally different and you get on them and you pedal, but you can’t coast. It’s called a fixed gear bike and you have no brakes. And then, as you said, a banked track. So. Our particular velodrome, I think, was 33 percent banked on the corners and obviously a little less on the straightaways.

And so you’re riding around an oval. I always say I’m really good at left hand turns, cause that’s what I just did over and over and over again. And so it was a very fun experience. In fact, it’s interesting to watch new people do it. Like one of the guys that we were with, and I was, I think I was 11 when I was on the track for the first time.

And one of them won the race and then oops, stopped pedaling and crashed, right? Broke an arm. And we have all these different kinds of races from what they call points races to sprints where it’s like one on one kind of man on man. So to speak in the old terminology and you say a variety of different things, a different style of racing.

And I got a chance to really become better by racing with some of the [00:04:00] men. They would actually have me substitute for them in the, like the, what we call the seniors back then, which just means 18 and above, not seniors, like demographics. and so, we, I would just jump in and they have races called a Madison and where two people are partners.

But there’s 40 of you out there. So, 20 teams and you’re dropping in and out of people racing at different next speeds. You have to, slingshot with a hand, right. To push the other, you have to like touch, touch each other to exchange. And so I just got like really fun experiences. And then I got to travel across the nation.

The East coast is very popular with big cycling races. I didn’t have quite that exposure, but I got to go to the national level and compete for about 10 years or so, 10 to 12 years. It was really fun. And I still am in contact with a lot of the cyclists from back then. They’re still some of my best friends because I was kind of the awkward person at school because I was into cycling.

So that’s kind of the story.

Josh: That’s hilarious. Mean, [00:05:00] that’s bonkers that I think that’s why it’s always fascinated me. If it is, it’s like a bunch of people on bikes in a blender. You just figure it out as you go through. And it’s just,

Debbie: If you went on YouTube, if you did YouTube and went to Madison is the type of race that I was mentioning. And there’s a cure and as well, you can, on YouTube, you’ll be able to see how crazy that is. It’s, but it’s exciting too. It’s thrilling.

Josh: yeah, well, but that’s what I meant. And the answer is I don’t, I’ve never, ever met another person that has said, oh yeah, I’ve actually raced in a velodrome, I think that is what really does fascinate me about people. It’s like we, we all somehow find our way into these, unique little clicks of things that we have done.

And then it’s how did you extract experience from that has shaped who you become. And it is, it’s so obvious when you look at some of those types of, competitive sports and things like how that creates some of that drive and that discipline and the focus and I’m sure, you’re having to get up in the morning early and you’re having to work out and you’re having to, [00:06:00] do all these different things to make sure you’re in top shape to go and race.

And then all of that kind of permeates throughout your life. And then obviously, if you’re doing it right, you’re parlaying that into your professional career and things, but it’s just, yeah, it’s always interesting to see you talk to somebody and they threw out some random hobby and you’re like, wait, you did what?

That’s super cool.

Debbie: Exactly.

Josh: Well, so, we were talking about kind of just introducing you, like helping people think about navigating the changing landscape of communication and engagement. And I think this really great timing of having you on as a guest, because this is a topic that really has been coming up a lot, I think, in the community financial institution industry.

And it is this massive evolution of just how we communicate and interact with people, right? And before we started recording, I kind of made the joke with Debbie. It’s if you take it all the way back, like at one point, we probably just grunted at each other and threw rocks at each other.

And that was how we communicated. And [00:07:00] now we’re at this point where I was

Debbie: right? Like

Josh: What’s that?

Debbie: Letters,

Josh: Yeah.

Debbie: Like telegrams and letters, right? Yeah.

Josh: Yeah. And there was legitimately a time where we had carrier pigeons, like I make the joke, but it actually was real at one point in time. Right. And now we’re in an era where, it was using the example of at one point in time, you can be having a conversation with one person that you work with and five different mediums and maybe having five totally different conversations and then it’s, how do you pick and choose the platform that you use for a certain type of conversation.

And it’s if I’m talking to somebody on my team and we have an email chain going, that’s probably something that’s pretty serious that we’re like trying to document through that we want to have, maybe some other people collaborating in, and then maybe we have a, a DM going and Slack, that’s like a little bit more like just back and forth.

And then maybe we have a text thread that’s going on. That’s totally whimsical. Right. And it’s just, [00:08:00] how do you then think about creating from a business standpoint. those interactions with customers. So, what have you seen in just some of the evolution of business communication and engagement?

Debbie: Yeah it’s funny because I think when you look at the, I’ll say the business aspect and then I’ll go into the consumer side, but like you just mentioned, I could be on a video call almost like this, but a meeting, right? Doing email, having text messages, right? Doing a variety of things and Teams messages.

That’s four things you’re doing all at once to communicate. And in some cases, it could be about the same exact topic. Right.

Because everybody’s, you could be on one topic and four things are happening. And I think just as business people, that’s a challenge, right? And now when you start talking about how businesses are communicating with consumers, they have all those same touch points because you, Josh might go, Hey, Send me all the important stuff as a text message, the rest is [00:09:00] noise, right?

And so, maybe I want text and print and mail and I want, such and such in an email and like all these different things, right, where you want to do, or a mobile app. And so I think when businesses are looking at this, they have to understand, they have to support all these channels. But then when you are communicating in more than one channel to a single person, how do you have access to all of that?

I think that’s one of the things that we have seen is interesting because you have to know, as a business, how you’re communicating. Oh, I sent Josh this in a text, but now he’s getting this in print, he’s getting this in email, etc. This was accessed on the website, this was in the social media interaction, right?

And how do you bring all that together? And so that you know when you call up, for example, customer service or talking to someone. At the, at a bank, for example, and they’re saying, you’re asking a question. They need to know you asked X, Y, Z, or had X interactions with it to truly make it a good relationship for you.

When you’re making that, I’m using a call as an example, but that’s kind of like how I see it all [00:10:00] coming together is. That’s a challenge now that people in these companies and banks in particular have to go out and solve for, right? It’s changed the landscape dramatically. And technology just keeps being introduced left and right.

So we, there’s going to be five more different channels that you and I are going to find out about in the next three years, right, that are going to be part of the mix, so

Josh: Yeah. I want to make one comment. I think just, I don’t know, almost a like soften the blow a little bit kind of comment, but. If you’re a financial institution listening and you’re like, yeah, no, it stinks. Like our platforms are so, disparate across, the different communications we have.

And yes, if somebody calls our call center, the call center doesn’t have the interaction point that the person had with the chatbot earlier. And they don’t know the conversation they had with a branch employee yesterday, and so they don’t have the whole picture. I don’t think very many businesses are doing a great job of that today, to be

Debbie: That’s correct.

Josh: Like across any industry. So. Don’t beat yourself up, friends. I think we’re all struggling with this [00:11:00] right now. It’s pretty cool when you do interact with a business that’s just like really figured it out and is crushing it. So this is a big area of opportunity, but I think it’s a big area of opportunity for a lot of folks, right?

Debbie: Absolutely. 

Josh: But I want to go back to one of the things that you were talking about, Debbie, and get your thoughts on. So at the same time let’s come back to the whole you have to have the back office systems kind of understand all these interaction points, but even just using our example of like the types of conversations that I may be having, with one of the people that I work with.

And it’s the example I gave was with Kevin, my senior marketing director, and I, we’ve worked together for many years, become good friends and. So we’ll have various lines of communication and they kind of degrade as they go down the different channels, right? And it’s like our email super professional in Slack.

We’re like maybe bantering back and forth about something a little bit, and then we’ll have a text message string for something else. And then we’ll be sending each other memes and instagram as well. Right. And you’re like, this is a wide range of communication. But what [00:12:00] that tells you about our communication.

Is that this type of topic? I like to use Instagram, right? And again, you go back just not that many years ago, and that wasn’t even an option, right? And so now we have this, but it’s understanding people’s personal preferences to how they like to be communicated to. And that’s so incredibly varying.

And I don’t think that, a lot of times I hear people say things like, well, This generation likes to be communicated this way, and this, I don’t think that’s true personally, and this is what I’d love to get your take on is, I mean, I know a lot of folks that are, considered older, but actually love to get things through text or whatever, and I know younger people that hate it, and so, what do you see and how do you like identify?

Let’s say you’re trying to service 100, 000 consumers. They all have different preferences for communication. And when you look at the different lines of business you may have with them, they may say, well, my preferred [00:13:00] is text. Well, but unless we’re talking about this, then I want that as an email.

Like how do you navigate that?

Debbie: Yeah, it’s interesting because the experience I’ve had in this area is really around the fact that you have to support all of those channels. And it’s, How do you give preference, right? So lately, preferences and giving them to the consumer is a big deal, right?

There’s a lot of regulatory changes coming. I should say legal changes are coming. But what we found is there is a need to align the preference to the type of communication and give it to the customer. And what I use by example is, For whatever reason, tax still, regardless of generation, people want tax documents sent to them in paper form, right?

Whether it’s to just have a hard copy and file because it’s tax and they’re worried about being audited. Right. Whereas I want important information. Maybe text message is the most important thing. I have to take action on it. Right. I also think kind of, if I step back a little to what you were saying, personal and business kind of communications like we don’t see a lot [00:14:00] in Instagram for example or Facebook or some of those kind of channels Like around business communications to consumers, but what I also find is people we are consumers ourselves using those channels It’s also about the reach, right?

So like for Instagram, it’s maybe about that reach and something that’s visual to connect to, right? You might use LinkedIn because you want to get something that’s more written or statistical in nature, different channels for different purposes. So I think the same thing is true, businesses to consumer kind of interactions, very formal things, maybe print mail, maybe semi formal things or an email, right, that are relevant and real-time. Right. Text immediate, take action. And so we look at how you bring all that together. So when I’m working with companies in this space, it’s really about making sure you have the optionality and so that you can give each customer the preference so you and I could be getting the same communication, but on different channels, right?

Because it works for each of us. 

Josh: What do you think about just [00:15:00] within that to again, I’ll use just like you said, we’re consumers ourselves, right? You think about my own kind of approach to communication as well as there’s also escalation levels to it. I was just telling somebody on my team the other day, I was like, yeah, you got to think about it this way.

If you want me to see something when I get a minute, send me an email. If you want me to see something when I get a minute, it’s the first thing I see, send me a slack. If you want me to see something pretty darn quickly, and even if I’m probably in the middle of something, send me a text.

And then if everything’s on fire and you really need me, call me. And if I don’t answer, call me twice.

Debbie: That’s right.

Josh: And there’s kind of like that escalation matrix of communication. And I’m like, hey, if I get an email, like I’m getting to it when I’m getting to it. But if you’re calling me, you probably need me.

Debbie: That’s right. And you’re, I think it’s exactly the same way. I’m just having to throw print and mail. I know the focus is digital banking, but like print’s still kind of there for certain things, right? Like that we need, [00:16:00] but I think that you’re exactly right. That’s why I said text messaging is instant action.

People read those the most, right? Like you said, on fire, call, call 9 1 1 so to speak, put an alert on the phone, something that’s popping up. And yeah I agree. Like you called it out in the same way I see it in terms of that level of urgency or escalation. Exactly right.

They also play around by the way, with messaging. in those. So we found that things like the subject or the intro are really key to drawing attention. So, we’ve played with that, like with some I’ve had customers play with like AB testing of that to get different interactions. And so just the subject line of an email can cause different interactions.

So that’s almost another form of escalation using your analogy there, right? Staying with the first two words in your text message, right? To draw attention.

Josh: Yeah, that’s a good point. Yeah. If you put on fire in a text message, like I’m probably going to look at that pretty quick, especially coming from my wife,

Debbie: That’s right.

Josh: You’re [00:17:00] okay, you know what, everything else is probably less important than this. me on that real quick. Fun fact, actually, I was doing a podcast once and this is the really early days.

And literally my wife came running through my office doors and was like, fire. And literally we had a, like bacon grease fire on the barbecue outside. I made a joke back then. I’m like, yeah, I mean that kind of trumps everything. Like actual

Debbie: Then the fire alarm, but yes.

Josh: Like, yeah, top of the list. But No, just as you’re talking about this though, it also makes me think about, I mean, just the layers of complexity of this.

I mean, even if you just think about two channels plus escalation, it’s like that is crazy complex. But I mean, we probably have a hundred different ways we can communicate with each other anymore. And then, a million different levels of escalation across that. And you start to cross pollinate that I’m like, this is a really complex topic.

And I think that’s why I prefaced it by saying, if you feel like your institution is not [00:18:00] doing a great job don’t worry. I don’t think any of us like we’re

Debbie: exactly. There’s no

Josh: I don’t feel like I do a good job of managing my text messages. So that’s one

Debbie: That’s right. Yeah, definitely no magic bullet here. 

Josh: But so you also talked about something that I thought was kind of interesting early on, communication and engagement. And that those are kind of really becoming just one thing. Right. So how do you see kind of the, what does each mean individually and then what’s kind of the intersection of those?

And maybe from both, like you said, just the consumer side, but like a B2C side as well.

Debbie: Yeah, I mean, I think, on one hand there, there’s definitely an intersection, but there’s communications for just communication purposes that doesn’t always have an engagement. Now, a bank or a financial institution might want that engagement, but the reality is there’s things that are actually going out.

Regulatory needs, for example, right? Things you have to send out regulatory wise, I look at that as more a communication. [00:19:00] I look at engagement as something I might want to do. Or interact with so I think if you look at any kind of part of banking financial institution space There’s a need for certain communications, change of address.

I need to you know Your escrow is coming up on your mortgage, things like that where you do want some engagement You want them like i’ll use escrow because it always comes up in client conversations that like that’s a tough one every year like the escrow analysis comes out and you might have a shortage You have to pay a little more and all that drives call center stuff.

So it’s a very important communication that you want and engage a positive engagement with. I mean, like we all want positive engagements, but you don’t want to create negative actions. And so what it says and how you communicate and the channels that you do. So things like, do you need to have something that’s a digital communication in particular around there that tells them exactly what’s happening, right?

So they’re not going to freak out when they get their next statement and it’s higher, or they owe money or something like that. I just use that as [00:20:00] one particular analogy, but I think it’s important in the way that we send out a communication and the interaction that we’re trying to get. That drives the engagement, right?

And you want to keep them in that digital channel as much as possible, right? You don’t want them to make a phone call or do something and walk into a bank, should there be an office around you, right? You don’t want to drive those. So I think the way you communicate about certain things, you always have to be thinking about how you’re going to draw the action.

And I think the challenge for businesses is they look at it from their lens and often forget the consumer lens. And we’re starting to see that morph a little, right? Like the people now have CX leaders, right? Like a chief experience officer and things of that nature where the journey mapping of the customer experiences.

Has morphed a lot in the last, I’ll say five years even it’s been on that path. So I think as long as businesses continue to remember that they can put their, put themselves in the consumer receiving [00:21:00] that instead of in the business view of how I’m communicating, right. I, to me, that’s

Josh: That’s a great point. Yeah. I mean how many times do we receive communication or how many times do we have conversations where you’re talking in your own lingo and then you expect people to understand what you’re talking about, right? Wife and I use that example all the time just between our communications and it’s so she’s been in product management at Nike for 20 years.

And I’ve been in the technology space and so it’s like to me, When I’m just having a conversation with her about my day. I’m like, Oh yeah, I had this really fascinating call with the customer, we were talking about some of the API endpoints that they would use to access some of the, and my wife’s do you speak in Greek?

That makes no sense to me. I’m like, Oh yeah, that’s just like common language in my day, but it’s not for her. And then she’ll use some Nike acronym. And I’m like, babe, I, over my head, no idea what you’re talking about, and so if the

Debbie: Or it’s marketing. So it’s really high level. Right. And you don’t quite have the understanding of the product yet. So it’s a mix, right? All like it’s those kinds of [00:22:00] balances. Sorry, didn’t mean to

Josh: No. Yeah, no, it’s so true. But, and then if the business is communicating to me as if I’m supposed to know the business really well, and especially when we’re talking about complex topics like our finances, sometimes people really don’t know. And so we make this assumption and it was funny that you brought that up because that is one that that gets me every single year, Debbie.

Like we have had, the same mortgage company for the last eight years with this house, they take out our escrow for our property tax every year and I have a lovely high property tax. Thank you Oregon for that. And so every year I get this paper mail that comes to me and it shows my property tax and it’s from them.

It’s from my actual mortgage company. And it always says, this is the amount that you owe. And it’s this astronomical number. And every year, like [00:23:00] you would think that I would get it at this point, but it’s always, it’s a year later. So I forget by the time it comes around again, but it comes around again.

I open it. It’s on pink paper, Debbie. It’s on these pink paper and it says you owe. And I’m like, Oh crap. Like I didn’t plan for that. 

Debbie: My house.

Josh: What am I? Yeah. And then, like I realized, Oh no, this is, I’m just saying, this is what I owe, but it’s going to come out of the escrow. Like we’re fine.

But I’m like, man, who is writing this? Because I guarantee I’d like to think I’m reasonably intelligent about this industry and these things. And it gets me every year. It’s like, how many other people are having minor cardiac arrest when they open this piece of paper? Like I do just because nobody’s thought through, Hey, if an average consumer reads this, what are they going to take away from this?

Debbie: Yeah. I, and I think it’s missed a lot. And one of them we have a lot of, like consulting research, the access to that, and some that our company has done as well, but it talks about the clarity of the communication, [00:24:00] right. And who does it well, ironically, banks are at the top of that. of use Yeah, and we sometimes break out like different, there’s different lines of business within banking, right?

So, but, banks overall, like banks and credit cards, if you think of retail deposits, checks, right? On the other hand, check savings and credit card tends to do well. Well, think about it. That’s where our money is. It’s important to us. So it’s great that they have better experiences, but there’s other lines of business.

Like I used the mortgage, you can use auto finance as part of a bank, there’s wealth management and it gets very complex. Right. But I think as long as they could start to put themselves in that consumer’s shoes and you can tell which ones do it well, right. And it’s not across the board, even the ones that do it well, Don’t do it well for every communication type for every channel, right?

So, but the ones that you find, we all know which ones we like, right? We’re all consumers of different technology platforms, whether it’s banking or other things. And I think we’re always [00:25:00] judging companies based on that next best experience that we encountered, right? So the bar continues. I mean, I feel for any business in this space because their bar just keeps going up and up.

Right. Yeah.

Josh: before, but at least for me personally, I love when businesses communicate to me, not on a business level, just like on a very human core, basic level. And I still think this is one of the best examples for me personally that I’ve seen in a while. And this would have been two years ago. And it was the first year I was filing taxes after having our first child and I was using TurboTax and I’m going through and I add Jack as a dependent. And it asks me this question, Debbie. And it says, in this tax year, did Jackson pay more than 51 percent of [00:26:00] his share

Debbie: Oh, yeah,

Josh: in the household?

And I was like, you morons. Like he’s not even a year old. And as I’m having this thought, Debbie, literally a little pop up comes up. And it says, Hey, we know Jackson is less than a year old. And of course all they were doing is they were doing a call back to, I’ve already inputted his date of birth.

Right. And I’m actually super curious. I kind of want to go back and redo it again and change the birth date and see what it says. If I put him as a 12 year old or something. Right. But it literally said, we know he’s less than a year old. We know he didn’t pay this, but the IRS requires that we ask you this question.

So sorry we have to ask you, but we have to ask you about it. And I was like, Oh my gosh, that’s brilliant. Like I felt so good about that interaction.

Debbie: So you must have been using the online thing because I can totally relate to that question because I still got that. I have the software running on my [00:27:00] computer, right, on my Mac, and I got it. My daughter was 14 when I turned our taxes in, right, for this year, and I didn’t get a little bot popping up

Josh: Oh, really?

Debbie: me, worry.

Josh: Yeah. I just use the SaaS version.

Debbie: Right. So I thought, it’s interesting because it works. It works real-time there, but it doesn’t work in the software. Right? Because I’m thinking the same thing. I’m like she’s worked a couple soccer games to get some money. That’s not half our expenses. Right? So I’m laughing when you were giving it the example because I go through the same experience, but the software version didn’t have it.

Ironically, right? Versus the online platform.

Josh: Yeah. Well, I mean, 

Debbie: different experiences and

Josh: a pass on this one that maybe it’s like an update that hasn’t been done. Maybe you’re running on an older version but I think that’s, but I’m also glad that you made the comment because that’s also a great example of kind of what you were talking about earlier that I wanted to come back to, which is this concept that, as consumers have interactions with you in different channels let’s say I have [00:28:00] a phenomenal experience with you in one of those communication channels because this team built it out and this team thought really hard about those interactions.

And then I have a conversation with you or an interaction with you in a different channel and that team that built it out didn’t, it had somebody else running it and all of a sudden I’m interacting with whatever my credit union. And I’m like, Oh my goodness, this is amazing. Like they’re talking to me like a person, like they get it.

This is so great. And then I switched channels and the ball drops. I’m like, Oh, you were so close.

Debbie: Yep, we see that a lot. I think and I mentioned it’s not just the channels, but then the lines of business. So I’ll just say Bank ABC as opposed to using any particular bank example, right? But Bank ABC has multiple lines of business, but they might be communicating to me as if they don’t know Transcribed. I’m also a Mortgage customer, for example, when they’re communicating to me about my retail banking and vice versa.

And so it can be within A line of [00:29:00] business across channels, but then it can be across lines of business, even just things like branding. They may not use the same logo of the same size, like in their emails and one’s using different font colors and just, and messaging, right? Then obviously the messaging is the most important thing, but we see that as a challenge across the board.

But again, we, as consumers, like you said, we’re looking for the one that resonates the most. And I think what we’ve seen also is the technology that’s out there now, Right? The companies are providing can actually help bring some of this together. So for the, for any of the institutions that aren’t doing that today, I guess the upside, like you’re always saying, like we always want the upside for the people listening, is there are tech stacks and there are companies that can help go across that and modernize it.

So you can now communicate in a better way. Imagine if the same message went across all channels. That is phenomenal, right? That’s what we all want. That’s that consistency when you move from one to the other.[00:30:00] 

Josh: Yeah, and that brings up a good point to just, I think this is probably true in any industry, but I see it very relevant in the banking space that a lot of times, we’re dealing with very antiquated systems, right? And we’re dealing with some older tech stacks that maybe don’t actually have the ability to back feed data into a central repository.

Right. You think about some of the institutions, both, in this industry and outside of the industry that are doing it really well. Well, how are you doing that? We’ve got to get one central repository where all of that information is being fed. So yeah, to your point, like if I’m talking to somebody about opening a credit card, they also know that I have a mortgage with that institution, for example, right?

So they understand my entire relationship. You’ve got to have a way to feed that in. So if your mortgage system is on some old tech stack and can’t feed back the central repository, then what are you going to do? Right. So [00:31:00] tech debt is a real, it’s a real thing

Debbie: Real problem. Yeah. Yeah. But it’s also a real opportunity because, I’m sure you’ve seen it, Josh, with your interactions with companies, but. There’s a way to actually bring almost like a middleware layer right to this to solve for that and there’s newer technologies that can do that can so you don’t necessarily have to go you know change the entire mortgage back office system in that example right so i think that’s the good news is you can put a layer on top that can actually help bridge that gap i’m not saying it’s super easy it’s not flip a light switch and it’s on but you know the good news is there’s companies doing that and i think we’ve started to see a lot of promise in that particular kind of method of approach.

Obviously there’s needs in some cases, like you said, sometimes the tech stack so old, you just have to make that, true change and upgrade but those are costly, big projects for people versus, a lot of the [00:32:00] companies that I talked to, they’re really trying to trade off that, how do I get a better customer experience?

But I don’t really have the full IT budget to do it, right? Because they still have other cost savings and other pressures on revenue and other things that are very critical. But at the same time, they know if they don’t improve the customer experience, they’re going to lose customers, right? And there’s other companies that are kind of the opposite, where they think they’re the big player, right?

The 800 pound gorilla. I’m not going to lose that many customers for that. So I’m going to focus on my other priorities, right? So it’s a real mix and every company has to make that choice. But I think those that can kind of find those lower investment methods to improve the customer experience they’re winning the small game, right?

Or the long game, if you want to look at it that way, because they’re not going to lose their customers in the meantime.

Josh: Yeah. I think there’s another layer to this too, that you kind of just touched on, which is. Thinking about this just from an [00:33:00] operational efficiency standpoint, right? And think about, I mean, how many times do I talk to financial institutions? And when I talk to them about operational efficiency, like one of the things that comes up all the time is, my back office staff is tabbing.

They’re constantly having to go from tab to tab, because they have to have this interaction on this platform, they have to do this on this platform, then they have to go over here to do that. And so. Also tying all of these systems together creates operational efficiencies. So it is really a challenge to look at what is the true, total cost of ownership of a technology product that may simplify operational efficiency is, well, sometimes in, the cost line item in your budget, it may be very high, but where some of the operational efficiency savings that can happen.

How can it make your employees more productive? And not only are you potentially doing a better job of retaining customers, you may even be doing a better job of retaining employees, right? There’s a high cost in employee turnover, but if you’ve got systems that are really easy for your employees to use and navigate, then they’re [00:34:00] probably a lot more likely to stick around.

And so you’re kind of solving for two things, both on the customer side and on the internal side. But you know, one of the challenges that I think comes into that is then you get the fear of people are like, Oh, they’re going to automate my jobs and we’ll lose my job. So then it’s on the institution to see, okay, well, but if we give this person more time back in their day, how can they have more meaningful engagements with our customers that drive value and or drive revenue?

So there’s a lot I think said for even the back office of this that we haven’t even touched on.

Debbie: It’s the critical part of every company’s business, right? It’s the efficiencies. And I think you have to, as part of that, we all have to learn how to communicate with people in a sense of the efficiency doesn’t necessarily mean job loss, but it could mean productivity in different ways.

Cause let’s face it. There’s a lot of these areas where people are stressed. There’s tons of hours. Like, how do I get it all done? And so you’re [00:35:00] maybe gaining in a different way. And one of the examples I’ll use is one of the companies that I’ve been working with in the wealth management space.

So, kind of part of our overall financial market here was really focused. They have advisors, right. That is out, talking about investments with the, if you’re my customer and I’m your advisor, I’m talking to you. And advisors were like, Oh, art, the introduction of artificial intelligence is going to make me not needed.

Right. And I, but I don’t want to lose Josh as my customer. He’s that’s the bread and butter. I get fees to help manage his money and do these things. And I think the way the company communicated to that advisor base was really important, which was to say, look, today, we analyzed by, doing research, we analyzed and said, okay, this percentage of your job is doing admin work, right?

This percentage is using these kinds of advisor tools. This percentage is actually working with your customers on advisor strategies, right? And kind of went through it and then said, here’s what AI is going to do. And what they did that was kind of brilliant, because you and I [00:36:00] previously had talked offline from this around like calendars, whose calendar is busy and full.

And they literally, to show today, here’s what your calendar looks like and how you utilize your time. And with AI, here’s how you get it. And it showed them the efficiencies, right. Allowing them to focus on the financial strategies to help. So I could help Josh do better against his performances, right.

As opposed to, I’m having to do admin work. And like you said, tabbing from one tool to the next and doing those things. So anyhow, it just brought that to mind the way you, your question and the conversation. And I think. Banks can do the same thing. Any company can do it. If a wealth management firm can do it, like anyone can.

So it’s how you communicate those efficiency gains. And then, like you said, you get happier employees, you get happier customers, it all comes together.

Josh: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that comes right back to the, just, communicate the way people are actually going to resonate with why you, so you brought up, a good example of the wealth [00:37:00] management side. You were referencing earlier, some studies that you’ve done on just who’s doing things well and who’s doing things poorly and banks scored fairly well.

Like who scored really poorly. I’m curious.

Debbie: So healthcare is kind of in the middle of that. We have A variety of different markets that we talk about. Insurance doesn’t always do so well, right? And I think that’s interesting. We might be surprised and we get this question a lot. Utilities does well. Would you think of your utility space as doing well?

If you think about it, cause it’s regulatory in nature. So is that really relevant? But I think what’s important about that is it, we care if the lights are on, right? So that’s really important to us. And I think one of the things that we found is another area that doesn’t do it as well, because that’s where your real question was, is retirement, which is ironic, but retirement I think about it as [00:38:00] I can go online and see my retirement balance whenever I want.

So do I care about the communication as much? Right. And then loans, which is not the same as mortgage. Cause that’s separate we break that out. Other kinds of loans that people have often are a challenge. And I think it’s because we owe debt. And like you said, sometimes you get a communication, like the escrow example that you gave, right?

Oh, red paper. Oh my gosh. Like the house is on fire. And I think that’s kind of the thing. Right. Banks definitely and cards definitely are at the top, which is good for good news for that part of the business.

Josh: What do you think are some of the strategies that help you to score higher versus lower that you’re seeing be successful?

Debbie: So we found that for communications and if I focus more on like Communications that get delivered so to speak we found that the clear concise type communications and the way the layout and structure is what’s relevant and so You kind of talked [00:39:00] about like you want to be spoken to in plain english Well, there’s often the, speak to me like I’m a fifth grader, right?

And what happens is, marketing often speaks like you need a college degree, right? That’s a lot. And then if you think about what regulatory and compliance speaks, like you need a law degree, right? And so it’s kind of a balance. Maybe you need to speak as a sophomore or junior in high school, right?

So you don’t necessarily need to be all the way there, but you don’t need to dumb it down completely. I think the other thing that’s interesting, especially when you talk about the digital channels, I don’t think we touched upon this so far in our conversation is you, I think you said make it fun or make it relevant, but make it truly fun in the sense like personalized, right?

Make it about me so that you’re actually talking and enjoying something that’s part of it. And I think companies have a lot of information about us as consumers, right? But the communication, how often have you received a dear, valued [00:40:00] customer communication, right? And it’s no, my name is Debbie.

It’s not a valued customer, right? Or make it fun. And when I think of fun, I, this goes, I don’t even know how many years it goes back. In the last 10 years for sure. I remember when I fly United a lot for based on what my city has access to. And at one point United changed the way their app worked to kind of show where you were in the journey, right?

And it was like, Debbie, don’t forget your next flight coming up at X and then you’re going to be at X gate and it’s going to take you three minutes to walk to the next gate. And That was different when it first, like now it’s common, right? Across, I just use United, but like it’s across any of them, not, they’re not all doing it, but that was kind of a revolutionary change, right?

It made it personal about me and my journey at that point in time or places I wanted to go. And I think banks can do that too. I think the challenge for banks is they often speak in that regulatory compliance, right? Type of language. And so how do you [00:41:00] actually make it more relevant? They do it on the marketing side when they want our business.

But they don’t do it on the other side when they’re servicing us, right? So I think that’s an interesting point for banks to really consider Yep

Josh: I think that is a great example of just identifying true pain points that are easily solved through communication. Right. I mean, how many times did we all talk about this? Like communication, like so many different areas of our life, it can be the good or the bad or the ugly of this scenario is literally just communication.

And you think about air travel and what’s one of the number one things that you typically worry about when you’re flying is are my bags going to make it? And this is older now, but like when Delta rolled out the whole they scan their badge or they scan your bag and then they sent-push notifications.

If you have the Delta app and I would literally get a notification on my watch that says your bags on the plane, Josh. I’m like, that’s awesome. That’s [00:42:00] great. Cool. Now I can rest easily. My bag’s on the plane. And it just cuts down so much of the wondering, the stress, right? And it probably means that it’s going to lower my barrier of stress in a stress interaction with them because they’ve already taken care of so many of the other things for me.

But it’s also funny you’re using the example of just poorly communicating when there’s so much opportunity. What came to my mind is, anytime I get the actual physical mail, I quickly sort through and find out what’s junk and what’s not.

Debbie: Yep

Josh: And one of the fastest ways I can tell you sent me junk is if it says, current resident.

Debbie: Yes

Josh: I’m like, I’ve lived here for eight years. Like you have the

Debbie: bother

Josh: who lives here. Okay.

Debbie: Yeah, I may as give it to my neighbor

Josh: Yeah, it’s completely, I can tell you’re soliciting me for something because you don’t even take the time to care to say to Josh Datar, like it’s [00:43:00] not that

Debbie: Yeah, I mean believe it or not like us so just the company I work for, right? We, billions of communications a year, and yet we still have customers that have some communications with valued customers. Right. And even in an email, an email is such an easy place to change. I get print and mail is a little harder, but right, but even in emails, and that just tells us like people aren’t paying attention, right?

There’s probably not a customer experience owner that’s done a journey map of every communication touch point they have to improve it, right? And it sounds so easy, but obviously it takes people, time, resources, like to get it done. But it is always interesting when you receive one of these and I’m sure anybody listening now is going to be paying attention to the next communication they get that says something like that.

Josh: Yeah, I think that is funny. I mean, given you probably do a lot of the same thing given your role, but given my role, I do the same thing. Like I, judge the heck out of

Debbie: Yep.

Josh: and I get all these marketing communications and actually that’s funny when I was talking about Kevin and I, and some of the [00:44:00] threads that we have, that’s a lot of what we use, like the Instagram one for is we love to send each other back and forth like ads that we see.

And we’ll highlight Hey, this is super this is really clever. This is phenomenal marketing. Like they great job and they’re like, Oh my gosh, look what these morons did, and 

Debbie: Yeah, I do the same thing with my colleague, Matt Swain, who runs our consulting and CX part. He and I always are sending samples. Hey, what’s a good one? We do the same thing with our chief digital officer. We’re always just interested in what we don’t want, the different things that are out there, good and bad.

Right.

Josh: Well, but you know, too, you brought up a point. That’s I think going back in the, like, why do some people use valued customers is that might actually be the right approach for them. really crummy data, right? Because

Debbie: old legacy system. Well, it’s hard to change.

Right. 

Josh: But the reason I say the data side is just from the same point, if this is my personal opinion, but I think I would rather see something that comes to [00:45:00] me that says dear valued customer than says, hi Debbie. Right? I’m like, I’m not Debbie. Nice try. You tried to do personalization. You got it wrong. If data stinks, right? And you’re like, go look up the field customer name and input in the email and your database is horrible. You might as well just say to your valued customer, right? But the correct answer is, you should then fix your data, which to your point, like that’s sometimes not a simple solution, right?

If you’re in a legacy industry or a legacy institution, it’s just compiled years and years of bad data. Right. And you look at, I think in the credit union and community bank space, like one of the areas we see that pop up a lot is in things like core conversions, right? And you really realize just how bad some of the data is sometimes.

And so it’s one of the reasons why those projects are so intensive [00:46:00] is they’re like, Hey, you know what? We’re ripping the bandaid and we’re changing course. Like at the same time, we might as well go through and try and clean up this data as much as possible. Do we have good contact information?

Do we have good details about this account holder? And that’s a process, but you got to do it.

Debbie: Yeah, it’s a fair point. I think We don’t find it as much anymore with the companies that I talked to but I do I’ve had a couple just in the past two years that are like I gotta go solve for this I really want to do what you’re asking us to do because that’s the right direction to go and modernize our communication approach and get digital engagement, but they’re like But I can’t quite get there until I solve for this other problem, right?

But fortunately, that’s a small percentage of the companies I talk to, right? Which is good news in some ways, right? But, again I keep going back to mortgage because they have so many, I think they have so many horror stories of different servicing platforms over the years that it is hard for them to go in and do that.

Whereas I think retail banking to me, and cards, you know who we are. Like, At that point, we should be able [00:47:00] to fix it somehow. Again, there might be a little niche points like to what you’re saying, where it’s much harder. But let’s face it because of all the fraud and other activities that have gone on all these acts, we’ve had to know it is Debbie Migla.

And we’ve done a credit check on her and we’ve done this, that, they probably have like my fingerprints somewhere. I’m kind of joking, right. But they generally know who we are, which is good news. And so hopefully it’s just those fringe cases, like you were talking about, certain systems or things that have acquired over time that you have to clean up.

Josh: I do find that fascinating that you look at even some of the major institutions that do this really poorly in just some niche areas. And as a consumer, it’s really difficult to build trust with people, right? But it’s crazy easy to kill it,

Debbie: Yeah, 

Josh: right? I mean, you can spend a decade building trust with someone and then one thing can blow it all up.

And the same thing happens with trust in a business, right? And so how do [00:48:00] you? I’m kind of exaggerating it, right? But how do you make sure, like through your communication touch points, you continue to only do better and not go backwards and saying we know who you are. And yeah, to your point, I mean, just about no one has better insight into us than financial services, right?

I mean, everything about me, you have all my personal data, you have all of my spending habits, you have all of this stuff. And yet Amazon knows me a heck of a lot better than most of my financial institutions do from a standpoint of how they communicate to me.

Debbie: That’s right.

Josh: Now, granted, I would say Amazon’s budget for that is probably a little bit different than my unions. I’ll give them that one,

Debbie: They probably don’t have a lot of legacy tech stacks to worry about.

Josh: legacy

Debbie: Okay.

Josh: tax, but it’s also interesting too. When you think about this you alluded to this earlier, right? Like the complexity of the business also changes this, right. And then layering in things like regulatory elements. And so, for Amazon, like it’s, [00:49:00] they are a B2C like retail.

Online provider for me. So they’re very focused on just trying to sell me these products. And yes, you could argue so as a financial institution, they’re just trying to sell me the products that they have, like those products are not just Hey Josh, we noticed that typically buy I don’t know, deodorant off Amazon.

Would you like us to just set this up on a monthly thing? You’re like, Oh yeah, that’s actually great. Then I don’t have to think about it. I just get my deodorant once a month. That’s a little bit different than saying Hey Josh, we’ve analyzed your entire financial picture and we feel like you could make some improvements to your financial habits by doing this.

And then opening this product with us because you also have this product with us and that’ll, boost your this. And that is complicated stuff.

Debbie: It is. And there’s a fine line of what the financial institutions even do in that space, right? There’s times where it’s like, Oh no, a little too much about me. If you’re going to tell me exactly where to go, right. advice. But it is a good point for sure. Yeah.

Josh: Well, yeah. And I like the [00:50:00] example of Can you versus should you? Right? And it’s yes, you can analyze my transactional data. And you could probably put a pop up in digital banking when I log in that says, Hey, Josh, just FYI, like we’re super concerned about your health, bro. We have seen how much money you spend on coffee.

It is unhealthy. Like you should probably get that looked at, right?

Debbie: Yeah.

Josh: I’m not going to be okay with that message. Don’t send that

Debbie: Yeah. Stop going to the fast

Josh: they could, yeah, they could, but should they

Debbie: Yeah,

Josh: Probably not? That’s not the

Debbie: a fine line at times, right? you want to give advice, but which advice should it be? You want to get them to buy a product, but are you intrusive because of the products you’re advertising to them?

There’s so many fine lines like, in the marketing space, like it’s key. But I also think it’s even key in the servicing side cause that example you’re talking about fits right in that wealth management, the conversation I was having earlier. Right. Which is, where is that line of the communication and what you do?

But I could also argue I don’t know about you, but like in financial [00:51:00] advice, there’s almost, sometimes I feel like my advisor is too quiet at times. Right. But I also don’t want him to bug me. Right? So it’s like, where is that? Where is it that I get a set? Now, in that case, I can send him an email and say, Hey, I’d like to hear every month from you.

Or I’d only like to hear certain things. But that’s kind of like a, like back to your point, I get, I’m using email or text to like message with him. But when we’re talking volumes and volumes, that’s like a one off almost personalized relationship. But when you’re talking: a bank as a big company, trying to do that, how do they do that?

Right? How do they get the right preferences that I’m Getting enough, but not too much. I’m getting the right things communicated to me at the right time. Right. you’re not getting you might, you can set your own low balance alerts, but they’re not sending me something that says, Hey, by the way, you should probably every three months, you should transfer money from your money market to your checking to cover, your bills or whatever.

Like they’re not doing that because again, can you, should you like, right.

Josh: Yeah. No, that’s a good example. I think. Yeah. How do [00:52:00] you do that? At scale is a challenge. In, and it is more than just like a toggle for these are my communication preferences. And I was just thinking I liked the example that you use because I had that exact conversation with our financial advisor. And Zach did a great job and he kind of asked me in the early years of working with him. He’s Hey, how much do you want to hear from me? And I was like, I’m going to be quite honest. Like I started with you pretty young, not as young as I should have, but I started with you pretty young. Like I have a really long time horizon before I’m touching any of that.

I was like, I don’t ever want to hear from you. Unless the ship’s on fire or you needed me to make changes. I was like, but I don’t have the emotional stability control to handle like you reaching out to me every month and being like, Hey, just FYI, like your portfolio dropped 20, 000. Hey, this month it went up 40, 000.

Like I don’t need to be on that roller coaster, man. Let’s just have the touch bases when they’re necessary. But on the flip side. Right. Somebody else, even maybe in my same exact demographic, age bracket, et [00:53:00] cetera. Maybe no, I want to hear from you every single month. Like I pay you good money to manage my money.

I want to hear from you. I want to know you’re working for me. 

Debbie: Yep, 

Josh: Right. And so without having that conversation, like how would Zach know which personality type I am and which style of communication I want? And yeah, that’s a lot easier when you are a wealth management advisor who has a small subset of the clients that you’ve built and developed relationships with over the years versus you’re a bank that has a hundred thousand consumers that bank with you.

Debbie: Yep, that’s exactly it. Scale could matter, especially how you communicate and, like I said before, even just the words you’re using in the communications too.

Josh: Yeah. Yeah. What do you think that means as we continue to see even more channels of communication and kind of this shift in, I know we were talking about earlier, like sometimes age and demographic don’t [00:54:00] necessarily matter. Like just saying older people don’t like technology is total bogus.

But as we do kind of see this turning of the tide off, there’s no longer going to be people that have never had technology in their lives. So we’ve always grown up with technology. And we’re starting to add more platforms to communicate in. Like, how do you see that impacting? What is, I don’t know.

You probably don’t have a crystal ball, but if you do, what do you think that’s going to look like? 

Debbie: Think It’s hard to say. In many ways, I think it’s going to be the same challenge, just a little bit more complicated, almost like a little more spaghetti kind of mixed in there, the different ways to do it. But I think the winners are going to be those that find I kind of used middleware as an analogy earlier on the things it’s almost like that though.

You have to have this layer that’s actually going to help you navigate to all the channels, right. And manage those preferences. And I think Because some of the regulatory and legal changes that are happening around consumers controlling the privacy [00:55:00] related, like how they want to be communicated, what they own, right.

Versus what someone else owns. I think that is going to force companies to leverage those components and other technologies so that when you do add channels, it’ll be easier because you’re going to have had to solve for it for this other legal regulatory lens, at least that’s what I’m seeing at what we’re dealing with our customers right now and where they’re headed.

Right. And so if that happens, then you should just be able to add sort of more holes to the, to that layer and plug and play what you want. Again, not a crystal ball, but

Josh: No, but I like

Debbie: what

Josh: I think that’s a super astute statement in that it is only going to get more complicated. But at the same time, you have the opportunity to put things in place to prepare for that so as it gets more complicated, it’s actually easier. I don’t know. I like that assessment.

Debbie: Yeah.

Josh: Yeah. I mean, this has just been a fascinating way to kill an hour on a Friday. I can’t [00:56:00] believe how fast this conversation went.

Debbie: very quickly.

Josh: I mean, but I do, I think this is a really fascinating topic for me personally, right? We are in a really different day and age in how we communicate and create engagement with people, right?

I mean, we made the joke earlier, but it’s used to write something on a rock and have to leave it for somebody to come find later or actually meet face to face. And then, we had letters and now you have 10, 000 different ways you can communicate just from this little thing that fits in my pocket.

Like it’s just mind boggling and trying to navigate that is a challenge, but there’s a lot of opportunity in solving it and not even just solving the whole thing perfectly, but just solving bites as you go, getting all this communication kind of consolidated. So you’ve got a good holistic view, both internally and externally.

So I think there’s some serious challenges, but some serious opportunities too.

Debbie: Yeah, absolutely.

Josh: Yeah. Well, before I let you go, I have two final questions for [00:57:00] you. So where do you go to get information about what’s happening in the industry? Any different things that you follow that you’d like to shout out?

Debbie: So where I go for information? 

Okay. So, it’s interesting. I don’t go to one place because I know you asked that early on as a kind of a think in mind, like what you’re doing. I like to go to a variety of sources. So I often am going to many companies that I talk to, fortunately, I have that experience.

I get to talk to all these companies, so I like to see what they’re doing well. And so sometimes it’s just playing a customer so to speak, like signing up for new business and so that I can actually see the way communications are doing that. And then like anybody else, I use a lot of resources through LinkedIn, by connecting to either research firms or [00:58:00] industry studies that are out there and that way I can watch how the customer, these companies are communicating through LinkedIn, through third party research reports, and then me being a customer, right.

And using them. And so I kind of just use a variety, no magic bullet again, like in terms of where I go for content.

Josh: I think a lot of companies who produce content are probably really happy to hear you use that answer. 

Debbie: Yes.

Josh: And then if people want to learn more about Broadridge or if they want to connect with you, how can they do that?

Debbie: Yeah. So certainly broadridge.com, our website has a lot of information. I happen to be in the customer communication space. People can reach out to me and find me on LinkedIn. That’s the most common place that you’ll have access unless you have my email or phone number readily available. But would be happy to entertain anyone for any follow up questions.

And, Josh, again, it’s been a pleasure joining you for this [00:59:00] hour. Thank you so much for having me.

Josh: Yeah, no, thank you so much for coming and being a guest on the digital banking podcast. Thanks Debbie.

Debbie: Thanks, Josh.