"Chief experience officer" is the kind of job title that seems open to interpretation.
Beth Johnson took on the role of vice chair and chief experience officer at Citizens three years ago. For her, the job title means that she's responsible for building the Providence, Rhode Island, bank's capabilities so it can deliver excellent
In the past year, Johnson has focused on data and analytics, an area that's rapidly shifting at Citizens. She's setting strategic priorities for different customer segments to figure out how to create personalized communications that make sense for individuals in those areas.
"We want to get the power out of our data and develop the skills to use that data effectively," Johnson said,
First, Johnson said, she is pursuing the democratization of data within Citizens. "We need single sources of truth that are readily available to anyone in the organization," she said. For example, Citizens' student lending team uses data to consider how it will market to customers in different geographical and demographic sectors. The same information should be available to anyone who works at the bank because it helps them make better decisions.
Next, Johnson is developing key analytic use cases to help Citizens up its market targeting game.
"We want to maximize profitability by sending the right thing to the right person at the right time," she said. "For instance, we'd like to understand when our customers are likely to be interested in leveraging tools for home equity."
To do that, her team is using advanced models and machine learning. They've discovered that the tools have applications not just for marketing, but also for fraud protection. "We have a model that uses computer visioning to better identify fraudulent checks," Johnson explained.
Deciding how to use artificial intelligence is a priority for every financial institution, and Citizens is no exception. Johnson hopes to develop generative AI strategies that are thoughtful and scalable over time.
The bank has developed three pilot use cases. The first helps equip contact center employees to talk with customers by searching and summarizing a wide variety of policies and procedures. The summaries give employees the information they need to solve caller problems faster than if the workers had to look up and read the original text.
"It helps them answer the questions that they don't answer all day long," Johnson said, noting that customers are happy with shorter wait times and employees are glad to resolve issues quickly.
Johnson's team built the tool so that it can retrieve and summarize other documents as well. A human resources department could use it to summarize coverage for an unusual health need, for instance.
The second use case involves assisting computer coders. "We asked how we could make developers more efficient and productive," Johnson said. An AI product tries to predict what programmers want to write and can help move code from a legacy language to a modern platform.
The third use case summarizes emails or meeting minutes, then tells the reader if there's an action that must be taken. A user may still need to delve more deeply into a text, but the summary "gives you a starting point," she said.
Johnson said the pace of change in the banking industry has been challenging over the past year, with rising interest rates and an increasingly complex regulatory environment. She's proud of how Citizens' talent has risen to the occasion.
"I see innovative thinking from new people across the bank," she said. "The new head of enterprise payments has a great mind for taking the technology we have and driving revenue for the bank. The business bank has won awards for a product that lets banking customers manage their businesses more effectively, with a simple interface and simple ways to think about receivables and payables, plus tips and tricks for managing cash flow."
A desire to see what co-workers are doing well reflects one of Johnson's additional roles. She is the executive sponsor for Elev8, a resource group focused on empowering colleagues to pursue their potential.
