What Social Listening in Banking Actually Looks Like When It’s Done Right

[00:00:00] Why most banks don’t use customer feedback

Scott Lee Holloway: It’s really important that you do have a high level of trust. Trust is something we measure and monitor. Exactly the same way we want to, things like customer satisfaction. You can spend years building trust and in one poor decision really damage that trust that you’ve built.

Sometimes irrevocably in some cases that we’ve seen.

Brooke Sellas: Welcome back to the SMCX podcast, or the Social Media CX podcast, where we explore how brands use social and digital channels to create better customer experiences. Most banks collect customer feedback, but very few actually operationalize that feedback.

Today’s guest, Scott Lee Holloway is the head of customer experience at APS Bank, and he has built a system where social listening feeds directly into decision making and operational improvements. He’s basically here to school us. One of the outcomes that they’ve had through their work is AVA, which is APS bank virtual assistant who’s designed or it’s designed, who that.

It’s designed to improve the digital banking experience. Today we’re talking about turning customer signals into action, building digital CX in financial services, and where AI assistance fit into the modern customer experience. Scott, welcome to the show.

Scott Lee Holloway: Good morning or afternoon, depending on what time it is where everyone’s listening to this. And thank you for having me on the show.

Brooke Sellas: Thank you so much for coming. I’ve been following you on LinkedIn for quite some time, and I just always align with everything that you have to say. So I know this is going to be a fantastic conversation for those who are watching or listening. But let’s start, Scott, by telling everybody about your journey.

What first pulled you into customer experience as a career?

Scott Lee Holloway: That’s a great place to start. So thank you Brooke and I noticed in this field that there’s no one path.

And my entryway was through customer feedback complaints, VOC work. But it’s all about customer feedback, customer insight, and really making sure that we are listening to what our customers need from us. And that’s something I’ve always cared deeply about. So it just happened really organically.

Brooke Sellas: It’s lovely when it happens that way because I feel like you are pulled to it naturally because you actually want to help, like you’re a helper, as Mr. Rogers would say. And so the helpers, we often end up in CX. Right, Because we just really genuinely want to help people.

[00:02:29] What customer experience means in banking

Brooke Sellas: What do you think customer experience means in a banking environment where trust is such a core part of that relationship? Because you’re dealing with people’s money.

Scott Lee Holloway: I think that you’ve actually touched upon a really important aspect there, is that we are dealing with people’s finances, which is integrated into essentially every aspect of their life. So whether it’s their dream new home, whether they’re starting a business venture, whether it’s their life savings that they’ve worked really hard to save up whether duty of care to take care of our customers in the right way. And from a business point of view, it only makes sense to ensure that the moves we are making are. In the direction that our customers would like us to be heading in.

In a heavily regulated market, it’s always challenging to stand out from the competition. So the way to do that is to listen to our customers and to see what is it that they want from us and to make sure that whatever it is they need from their bank, especially in today’s world, because we need to keep in mind that the landscape’s evolving so rapidly that we are delivering on that. So we like to pride ourselves on being really attentive and really paying close attention to our customers. It’s not something we just say it’s something that we live and integrate into our daily operations.

[00:03:40] How APS Bank uses social listening

Brooke Sellas: I love that we also talk about that your team, how your team actively monitors social sentiment as a part of your voice of customer program. How does that process actually work? Or what does that look like at APS bank?

Scott Lee Holloway: So we look at insights from as many different channels and touchpoints as we can in terms of social media specifically. Then our marketing team has a tool that automatically screens and monitors very similar to like your kind of Google alerts, that type of screening and crawling, I would say. One of the challenges in our market is that certain forums are very popular on platforms such as Facebook. So member groups and I mean very popular. So the total population is about 550,000, give or take, and some of these individual forums have 170,000 plus members.

So you can see what a portion of the entire population is in one place. One of the challenges is these are private member groups. You have to be a member to have access. So the automatic screening and tools, they cannot view them. So sometimes it’s quite manual ’cause we have to go in and check what’s being said on these particular forums. And we have to monitor different groups. But we do that because it’s really important. There’s a lot of great insight there. Not only what’s being said about us, but about the sector as a whole, about some of our competitors.

It’s really good to keep our ear to the ground and see what matters to the banking customer, and we then make sure that’s fed into the different projects, initiatives, work that the bank is doing so that we, again, it’s all about making the right moves that our customers want us to be making and really factoring in their perspective from the outside.

So that’s a big part of that. We monitor that really closely every day. We also report on it. Internally, we share it with all of our senior management team, including our CEO. What customers are saying on these forums, what they’re saying about us, what they’re saying about, again, the sector as a whole. So we share those as part of our storytelling ’cause again, it really helps paint the picture from the customer’s perspective in their shoes of how they see a situation. So that’s an integral part of our operations and it’s something that today I couldn’t imagine living without because that insight is so vital to fueling our improvement cycles and everything that we are doing.

[00:05:49] Why leadership involvement matters in CX

Brooke Sellas: It really is. And you said something that tells me just how much you all care, like how I know that you mean it because you said the reports go all the way to the CEO. If the CEO wants to see that data, that’s important data, which means that it comes from the top.

Scott Lee Holloway: It comes from the top and he doesn’t just receive it. He very regularly engages with it, responds, shares his thoughts. He pays very close attention to it as well as all customer items. So I really must say that we’re in a very fortunate position where we do have a leadership that really do walk the talk and really care about the customer perspective. Marcel, who is our CEO he emphasizes this at every given opportunity. But more than saying it he really lives it and you see it in, in his actions. So that sets the right tone from the top. So that definitely helps us in our work.

Brooke Sellas: Yes. If you’re a bank or a financial institution listening, it starts at the top. What kinds of signals show up most often when you’re doing this social listening work, and you’re listening out there on, on the social channels, what also what signals most often show up for a bank?

[00:06:53] Common customer signals and friction points

Scott Lee Holloway: It really does vary, but I think one of the things we’re contending with is sometimes when there’s points of friction, it’s things that are difficult to work around. So just to give an example, regulatory requirements, for example. So in banks, we have to have certain information from our customers. Certain documentation at times. At times that can cause friction or they don’t necessarily always understand why it’s required, why we need it. We do work hard to try and explain exactly why and also to make those processes as easy to comply as possible.

But at times that comes up, I see discussions around this. Sometimes it’s just that they’re comparing providers and they’re asking for recommendations on which provider they should choose, and we consistently rank at the top and we’re not the largest. So I always think that’s that’s really good to see because we have a huge amount of our customers that are our advocates and are recommending us.

So that’s really lovely to see. And of course, like all providers, there are definitely times where we don’t get it right. And if that comes up, we are very responsive in making sure that we address the problem, not only for the person who raises it, but we always look at the root cause and see if there’s an underlying issue, you know, that we need to work on or if there’s something we can improve. So I think it’s all about being accepting of the fact that you can always do things better and there might be a better way of doing it.

That’s a good starting point and then obviously seeing how to do that. What we like to do is as much as possible, co-create with our customers as part of the solution. So if we are not sure what’s the best way to approach it, we’ll sound it off with customers who are sharing this feedback and see what they think.

Brooke Sellas: I love that. I think a lot of brands, not just financial ones, can take a page out of your book. That co-creation piece is so important, especially when you’re working through those sticky spots or those spots where friction happens. So I really love that. Whose job is it or how does it come to fruition?

[00:08:40] Turn feedback into operational decisions

Brooke Sellas: Like how do you take these insights that you’re gathering over here? And move them from really interesting data points and signals into real operational decisions. What does that process look like?

Scott Lee Holloway: So my team is responsible for collating the voice of the customer and ensuring that it is heard across the business. And we include colleague feedback in that as well in terms of what our colleagues think we can do better. So as well as our external customers, we like to consider our colleagues as our internal customers.

So really that’s a great starting point because I’m always really mindful from CX that much of what we need to move is in other stakeholders remits. So it’s about working with them. It’s not dictating what needs to be done, but collaborating so that we’re all on this journey together and we have a shared vision and then, we work together to to make that happen.

Brooke Sellas: Ugh. So good because I feel like brands are increasingly treating social platforms as customer support channels because this is where customers are now going to seek help and guidance and to interact with actual people or some representative from the brand more than just passive content conception.

Like if we think about traditional, we think if we think about social media a long time ago, right? Where it’s been around for a long time now. It used to be content distribution and content consumption. I think we’re starting to see more and more that it’s becoming a support channel. Do you see that social media is behaving more like a service channel for you as a financial institution now, or what are your thoughts about that?

[00:10:12] Is social media becoming a support channel?

Scott Lee Holloway: Us in particular? To some extent, yes, but I wouldn’t say as it’s not one of our main service channels. And in financial services it’s challenging because a lot of the queries are customer specific and you have to verify them in order to answer the query. What I do notice though, just as a consumer, is I do see the trend that you are mentioning. Just yesterday I was on LinkedIn, which is one of the platforms that I’m most active on as a, just as a user. And some large banks and fintechs. What I notice is they kind of just take it off the channel so they have another way of di routing them to somewhere else, but they’re very responsive and paying close attention to what is being shared on those platforms to help them guide the users towards some form of support.

But it’s definitely a hub of activity for customers and it’s about sometimes meeting them where they are. So that’s the reason why we do pay close attention to what’s happening on the socials. But then to resolve the issue will guide them to somehow get in touch with us offline where we can provide more dedicated support to them.

Brooke Sellas: Yeah. That’s a great way to put it. Let’s talk about if, is it AVA or do y’all call it AVA?

Scott Lee Holloway: Yes.

Brooke Sellas: AVA? Okay. Let’s talk about AVA, your virtual assistant. What problem were you trying to solve when the idea first came up? So the idea came from somewhere, but were you trying to solve a problem? Like how did it come about?

Scott Lee Holloway: So I think it, in a way it was solving a problem, but it was also about giving customers choice. So we did not remove any existing channels that they can contact us through or any existing support. And we also haven’t pushed it very aggressively. It’s just kind of been organic that the usage keeps growing over time.

It’s been really well received by our customers. And AVA is our chat bot assistant, but we introduced it quite a bit of time before the Gen AI boom. So we were a little bit ahead of the curve here and one of the things we were trying to address is that we don’t have a 24 hour support team. So we have fairly good coverage.

Our contact center is open seven days a week, but we’re not 24 hours. What I notice is about 80% of queries are the same common, top queries that we tend to receive. Much of them are quite generic and very easy to answer where you don’t need the direct customer information or verification.

So it’s a really good tool in those cases to be able to give live 24 hour support. And we’ve actually taken it beyond simple queries and they can book their own appointment directly in their preferred branch with AVA, again, 24 hours. So they can choose the time and date that suits them there, and then confirm the appointment.

They get a confirmation by email. They also get reminders by email ahead of the appointment, where if they just for any reason need to reschedule or cancel, they can do that as well. So it empowers the customer to essentially be able to set their own appointment and to be able to meet us again at the time and date that suits them on their own terms. It gives them the information they need ahead of that appointment, how they can find more information, for example, across the website. So it’s been an amazing journey. But the problem we were trying to solve, as I mentioned, a big part of it was the non-availability outside of working hours. Human channels, however great they are, and our people are incredible have very clear capacity constraints.

If there’s a 50% spike in queries, immediately, we’re going to struggle to keep up with that, right? Whereas an AI solution can cope with that surge in demand really well. So I think that’s one of the greatest benefits, is that during the peaks and troughs of typical business activity and traffic it can cope with it in a way that human channels simply would struggle to do. And I think that’s the same for all businesses in all sectors.

Brooke Sellas: I love how you applied thinking to AVA and AI, which was, I heard you say frequently asked questions, right? FAQs or frequently asked questions. These are things that people are constantly, you know, where’s your nearest ATM? What are your lobby hours? You know, Things like that. So it’s answering those questions in real time and it can answer them with 100% accuracy, 24/7, as you said.

But I also like that you’re using AVA to give people self-service because a lot of people want self-service to a point, but you didn’t say, here’s this tool and we’re gonna take away human experience, designers and people and support. You said we’re going to supplement. We’re going to enhance our team with this self-service and FAQ AI helping our customers.

Scott Lee Holloway: Exactly. And in fact that’s what we’re all about. So we’re all about making up. We are always improving our digital offering, for example, and making it easier and easier for our customers to manage their own affairs and their own finances.

[00:14:53] AI vs human customer support

Scott Lee Holloway: But actually there’s a great quote. It was from our CEO, but I took a note of it during one of our management meetings and I shared it with my team because I really liked it and I would like to share it with you. I, that’s what I was just pulling up while we were speaking. So he said we need to be digital where it helps and human where it counts. So I think that’s really, really important.

So the way that we see it, we’re always trying to optimize, streamline, automate processes and journeys where we can always with the customer, firmly in mind of what’s going to make it better for them. So it’s all about empowering them, making them self-sufficient for their kind of daily transactional banking.

But then we are very accessible should they need us for something that’s slightly more complex or that requires our expertise. So it’s about spending the same amount of time with our customers, but just in a way that adds the most value so that they can take care of things that, in their busy, hectic lives as best as they can. And then we are there when they need us.

Again, we are very, very customer centered organization and we find that’s what they want from us, because as you’re saying, they definitely want that ability to be able to self-serve, but they also do want to be able to get hold of us when it, you know, when they need to and when it matters.

Brooke Sellas: Yes. I mean, I think that’s the whole experience. I feel like if all brands could have your point of view when it comes to implementing AI for customer experience and CX like that is the play. I love the quote. We’re gonna make that a snippet for sure.

[00:16:16] Designing AI with the customer in mind

Brooke Sellas: So I love that so much. How did you approach designing the AI assistance so that it actually helped customers rather than creating friction? Did you co-create with your customers here as well or what did that look like?

Scott Lee Holloway: We did. O ur internal and external customers. So when we launched, we worked with our colleagues and looked at common customer query types to see what some of the top queries were. And then post-launch it’s all driven by real live usage data and the customer interactions. We monitor that really closely.

We have on ongoing optimization streams and workshops where we look at how we can improve how we is responding in certain situations. And that’s all fed by user data. In terms of how we approached it, I think it says a lot that it sat with me because as customer experience, so we approached it really with the customer firmly in the driving seat is help you know, if I’m the user at the other end, how do I want AVA to be responding?

And just as much about giving the right information, as you said earlier, which is very important. We also worked really hard to ensure that AVA was communicating in the right tone of voice that we also want for our customers. We didn’t want it to come across dry in like terms of conditions. We wanted it to come across how our human, you know, colleagues would also respond to our customers.

And that’s the way we’ve approached it from the beginning. We’ve always made sure that what the customer needs is always the central focus. And that’s how we’ve designed each step of the journey and everything we’ve added and enhanced with the virtual assistant has always been driven by what the users needed from us.

[00:17:48] Where automation works (and where it doesn’t)

Brooke Sellas: Love it so much. Where do you think automation improves experience and where do humans still need to step in? And I mean this just as a general. From your mind Right, to our ears way, you know, not necessarily what APS does, but like where do you think automation improves, but where do humans still need to be available to step in?

Scott Lee Holloway: Automation as a whole provides efficiency. If it’s done well, at least. Again, it must always be carefully considered, what does it mean for the customer at the end? Not only how many hours is this saving us, but if I’m the customer, how do I feel if I’m going through this journey?

But one of the other areas that I take care of is complaints. And I think when it comes to complaints, you really need a human consideration. It doesn’t mean aspects of it can’t also over time be streamlined and automated. But I think what’s important is that you do have a real human consideration for how that customer’s feeling, what their experience has been like, what feedback they’re sharing.

And I believe that’s really important. Because at the point of a complaint, they’re telling you that something hasn’t gone right for them. Or that they don’t feel seen and heard, or that something isn’t quite, how they would want it to be. So I think that you have a duty then to take that seriously and to make sure that there’s someone really looking at that.

But I think it’s important that when it comes to complaints, there’s always a human that’s had a final look at that resolution, made sure that the customer’s got the right outcome. We’ve done the best we can to support them in whatever it is that they needed from us.

Brooke Sellas: I knew I was gonna enjoy this conversation with you because we feel the exact same way, like when someone’s complaining, that’s not the point to introduce ai, right? That’s the point. To get a human in there as fast as possible, and typically with like complex things, right? Even if it’s a fun thing, if it’s a complex thing, maybe AI is not the right position, but we all have different opinions and ideas. Ours just happen to align.

Scott Lee Holloway: Exactly. Exactly.

[00:19:38] Building customer trust in banking

Brooke Sellas: Let’s zoom out for just a minute and talk about banking, because I feel like , financial institutions, they’re one of the most trust sensitive brands, or it’s a very trust sensitive industry, let’s call it. How does that shape how you approach the digital customer experience?

Scott Lee Holloway: That’s a great question and you are spot on that trust matters in most sectors, but it definitely matters to varying degrees. And when you have got a significant amount of your holdings or your savings with an institution or when they own your home, once you’ve got your mortgage and your home loan with them these things, right, are very extensive relationships that run deep.

And it’s really important that you do have a high level of trust. First of all, trust is something we measure and monitor. Exactly the same way we want to, things like customer satisfaction. So it’s something we keep close tabs on and I believe it’s something that you have to consider in everything the business is doing because as any institution you can spend years building trust and in one poor decision really damage that trust that you’ve built.

Sometimes irrevocably in some cases that we’ve seen from other companies. So it’s about always considering. I think if we are squarely putting ourselves in the outside perspective and in the shoes of our customers, then those kind of missteps are less likely to happen. When that occurs, I believe it’s when sometimes the customer perspective isn’t considered as strongly as it should have been.

So again, I’m very fortunate where we are that every move we make, it really is the case that we think, what does this mean for our customers? Is this making it better for them? And that’s really, really considered. And again, we ask our customers what matters to them. So we make sure that we are focusing on the areas that matter most to our customers. I believe when it comes to trust, transparency is really key. And sometimes we have to do things that might not be ideal.

So I think communication, transparency, all of this is really, really important. And then just being reliable. So it’s no good that I have a good experience just some of the time and then other times, you know, it’s terrible. Consistency is also key to building trust because do I consistently know that every time I deal with this company I’m gonna have a great experience? Or is it hit and miss?

And I think consistency. So it’s not always about wowing and having these wow moments. A lot of the time it’s just about being consistent and delivering the basics that you are offering really well. But again, if you monitor it and keep tabs on it, you’ll also know what matters to your customers in terms of being seen as trustworthy. And I think that the customer and the consumer is a lot more switched on than some brands give them credit for. They know what’s authentic and what’s not.

So you might be saying all the right things, but are they experiencing that through your people, through your journeys, through your tools, through your systems. If there’s a disconnect, it doesn’t matter if you’re saying all the right things, they’re not feeling it. And I think that’s important.

So customers need to not only hear what you are saying, but they also need to experience it. And they, if they do, and it matches what you’re promising to be giving to them and what you promise that you’re all about then I’m sure that there’ll be a high level of trust.

[00:22:39] Where most financial institutions struggle with CX

Brooke Sellas: Yes. Where do you think most financial institutions struggle or still struggle when it comes to CX? Because obviously you are an outlier. You’re carving the path. I think you’re an exemplary example for a lot of financial institutions, but we know that they all don’t have the viewpoint that you have.

So what do you think most financial institutions yourself excluded still struggle with when it comes to CX?

Scott Lee Holloway: And I think sometimes it is that leadership might be far removed from the end customer. Perhaps they don’t know what their priorities are. The other thing is that.

As you said, there are different providers and sometimes the industry as a whole gets lumped together and all of them are tied with the same brush as it were. When there are banks and other providers, not only ourselves, there are others in other markets doing some great work, really caring about their customer, really making sure that they put them at the center of what they’re doing.

So I think it’s important that we do support those providers that do care that extra bit and do go that extra mile to deliver better customer experience ’cause there’s definitely alternatives out there. So my message is always, if you’re not happy with your provider, you know, look elsewhere, check reviews, see what people are saying on the social, see what people are saying online because definitely that’s going to be a key driver in terms of who you should be selecting.

Just today I was reading Trustpilot financials that they’ve been done, they’ve done really well, and one of the reasons they’ve done so well is that. The Gen AI solutions are drawing really heavily according to Trustpilot. They’re one of the top five referenced points for data because they’re looking at whether the customer’s, users would recommend brands before they recommended it onto the end customer, the end user of the AI solution.

So that’s really interesting that even in a highly automated, more AI driven world that the AI to make its recommendations is looking for really human experiences to help inform it, which I think is excellent and is a really, really great thing because in this feedback economy, those that are going the extra mile and are prioritizing their customers, will benefit and will win from that.

And it incentivize those that maybe have a few more areas to improve and to really work on those improvements. It’s all about having a really clear picture to leadership of what’s really happening on the ground. And I believe if that’s the case, that all leaderships teams that you know, care to do a good job, will want to address those areas.

Customers believe need to have a bit of improving. So it’s about being human, being receptive that we can do things better and always being closed in proximity to your customers. I think that’s what all banks need to do.

Brooke Sellas: Yes, yes. Okay, I wanna wrap up the show by asking you three practical lessons for our listeners that they can take with them today, tomorrow, next week, whenever they listen. Are you ready?

Scott Lee Holloway: Yes. Go for it.

[00:25:27] The first step to social listening

Brooke Sellas: Okay. Number one, if a company wants to start using social listening or some kind of social listening, voice of customer tool to improve customer experience, what do you say to them is the very first step?

Scott Lee Holloway: So first of all, when starting anything, it can be overwhelming if you feel that you’re quite far behind the curve or if you have a lot to catch up on. What I would say is it’s always better to start than to not, because it’s only that gap’s only going to widen, and it doesn’t need to be necessarily a fancy tool or system initially.

You might decide later on that’s the step you need to take. But initially just start by going and looking, and even on platforms like Facebook, Reddit, these types of places, you can search by your brand’s name, by your company name, and see what users are saying. Recently I was interviewing a customer and I asked her what brought her over to us and she had a bad experience with another provider and she was looking around because of her negative experience elsewhere.

What was the most important to her was the customer experience. That was her main deciding factor. So she went on the social forums and she didn’t just see what was popping up in her timeline. She actually searched by each provider’s name, including ours, and that’s how she selected us.

If that’s how your customers and potential customers are making a decision whether to use you or not it’s really important you see what’s informing those decisions for good or for bad or for better or for worse, because that’s going to be how prospective customers are also shopping around.

And it’s the same when they ask for recommendations. Look up who’s recommending you, why. If there’s anyone not recommending you, what’s the reason for this? Because all of that’s going to be informing your potential customers. So I think that’s the best place to start, which doesn’t require any expense, any system, any fancy tools as a starting point.

And then obviously, depending on the scale and size of your operation and the market you’re in, and ev and the sector that you’re in all of this can then. Determine over time how to build it. But when I joined the Bank seven or eight years ago now, I was the first one at the voice of the customer and then customer experience.

So we built out the team slowly and built up what we’re doing over time. So Rome isn’t built in a day, so you don’t have to do everything at once. But again, my compass has always been our customers and our customer feedback. What if I have a number of things I would like to improve, but I have to focus in, you know, a certain area.

What would our customers like us to focus on first and what’s most important to them? And I think if you go by customer feedback as your compass, you can’t really go wrong and keep them in the loop of obviously the improvements, the changes that you’re making, and they’ll see it and experience it for themselves, that you really are listening to their feedback.

When they really see that feedback coming to life and being translated into action, they’re even more engaged and willing to provide it ’cause they know that it’s not just, that it’s really being listened to process and implemented. They’re seeing those changes firsthand.

Brooke Sellas: Yes. So the message there is just get started and you can do it yourself. I remember, gosh, this was probably like 15, 18, 20 year, who knows? The very long time ago I was doing this in spreadsheets. There weren’t social listening tools a hundred years ago. But, you know, you absolutely can do this without a tool as Scott said, so just get started.

Okay.

Scott Lee Holloway: What are you waiting for?

Brooke Sellas: Yes. What are you waiting for there? Yes. I think people get nervous about the complaints, but man, that’s just opportunity to improve and get better and have more customers who love.

Scott Lee Holloway: And another way of seeing it, sometimes I think some brands are scared that what’s being said about them is less than positive, but try to look at it this way that’s a great opportunity because there’s plenty to get your teeth stuck into and to improve, therefore, so there’s a lot that you can do with that insight is a true treasure trove of information.

[00:29:06] One mistake banks should avoid with virtual assistants

Brooke Sellas: Yes, I couldn’t agree more. All right. Question two. What’s one mistake you would caution other brands, whether they be financial institutions or otherwise? What’s one mistake they should try to avoid when launching their own AVA or virtual assistant?

Scott Lee Holloway: What’s important with any initiative of that kind is to see it as a journey rather than a destination. So you don’t introduce it and say it’s done. That’s really the beginning. It’s about fine tuning, maintaining, enhancing, optimizing it. As I said, we have regular optimization streams, so I think a mistake would be to implement it and say that’s done now, and to forget about it in the corner, because unless you are putting in that work.

To improve it, fine tune it, optimize it. Over time, it’s not going to keep getting better. And the way I view a virtual assistant like AVA is that it’s a virtual colleague. So you wouldn’t have a colleague start your team and then just leave them to get on with it. Never coach them, never train them, never help them, and just ex.

Expect them to get better over time. You do need to guide them. You do need to feed the information that it needs to get better. So I believe that’s the most important thing to avoid. View it as an ongoing item. It’s never finished. You can always improve it. And we see how rapidly these technologies are unfolding before our eyes, literally day to day at times.

It feels like certainly week to week. So keep tabs on what’s happening in the market, keep seeing how you can improve it and make sure that you’ve. You’ve allocated sufficient focus to be able to make those optimization efforts. Let’s put it this way. So never see it as a implementation, and once it’s in introduced, it’s done.

That’s really the beginning of the journey for a tool like AVA.

[00:30:44] The CX habit every organization should adopt tomorrow

Brooke Sellas: Yes, all AI, virtual assistants, chatbots, they should all be iterative projects. Yeah, I could not agree more. All right, final question. What’s one customer experience habit every organization should adopt tomorrow.

Scott Lee Holloway: I know I’m a broken record, but it’s listening to the customers, but also making sure that what matters to customers is feeding through the organization. Does everyone at different levels know what customer priorities are and what the business is doing to work towards those or to help address those better? Because often that’s a missing piece. Check in a lot with your colleagues. They have a lot to offer, a lot of great insight and they’re delivering your experience, so ensure that they’re part of that process as well.

So I think the key thing is to really ensure that you’re listening to your customers, first of all, that you have the insight then to make sure, exactly as you hinted earlier, that’s not just stuck with the VOC team or in some sort of destination somewhere that it’s truly being amplified across the business.

That’s really when it comes to life. And my experience is that all stakeholders do want to do the best thing by our customers. They just might not be as close to them in terms of their daily work, their operations. So they need that help to know what matters to customers, what they’re looking for from us.

Without that insight, they would, no one would ever intentionally make a decision that’s not customer centered. I don’t believe that to be the case in most organizations. But they just might be far removed from what matters to them.

So keep feeling that insight, keep being part of it. And we are very hands on, I think in any organization it’s about being an active part of what you’re doing. We are definitely not just a dashboard reporting team. We’re actively hands-on in projects, initiatives, work streams, training. We are really spread across everything the business is doing because our customers need us to be, and I always say that the boundaries of my work start and end where the customer needs me to go.

Wherever our customers need us to go, that’s where they’ll find me. And it really is using our customers as our compass, and I feel that we have a really strong duty to. To do that for our customers and for the business because ultimately prioritizing customers will also be great for business in the long run.

So I believe that these two go hand in hand. We really owe it to the customer and we really owe it to the business to also get that right.

Brooke Sellas: Yes. Yeah, I think one of the things I’ve noticed with the financial institutions that we’ve worked with are that, to your point. What we do in social care or customer support through social, digital care, whatever you wanna call it. Really they make sure it touches all parts of the business. You know, we’re talking to support, obviously we’re talking to marketing, obviously sales, we’re talking to HR, legal.

It really touches all pieces of the business, and I think that. Other brands who are not financial brands could take a page from your book, because I think that’s the smartest way to do it, because that voice of customer data really does improve or inform every part of the business. So take Scott’s advice here.

Scott Lee Holloway: Yeah.

Brooke Sellas: and do it.

Scott Lee Holloway: is you have. Whatever you are doing, you have to maintain because you can’t just say we’ve done that. Now even if you have done something well even soft turnover alone will ensure that you have to keep embedding those messages, keep passing on the what’s important and making sure that it’s being consistently delivered on the ground.

So I think that’s important. It’s just as much about maintaining as it is about starting anything you’re doing. And going back to the last one about let’s just get started. Don’t worry if it’s not perfect straight away, at least you’re making headway and you’re moving in the right direction.

You will fine tune and correct your pause as you go along, but at least you’re on the right path. And I think that’s really important for all organizations, all industries. Don’t be afraid because you might not get it exactly right the first time. Again, if you’re listening closely to your customers, they’ll let you know if it’s not exactly what they need, and then you can work towards ensuring that what you deliver is exactly what they’re looking for.

Brooke Sellas: Yes. I think the theme of the show should just be get started. Number two, make iterations and then like repeat number one, like keep going. It’s not rocket science. It’s nuanced, but like everybody, everybody could do it. Just get

Scott Lee Holloway: exactly.

Brooke Sellas: started.

Scott, thank you so much for sharing your experience, your insights, all of these wonderful stories that you’ve been able to share.

For our listeners or watchers who wanna connect with Scott Lee Holloway and his work on customer experience and financial literacy, we’ll include your LinkedIn profile in the show notes, but tell us where can people find you, where do you hang out? All of those good things so that people can connect with you and continue this wonderful conversation.

Scott Lee Holloway: Thank you Brooke, though please do. I’m always happy to explain my network. I am most active on LinkedIn, so that is the best place to get me. Just Scott Holloway, CCXP, because I’m a certified customer experience professional. I also have a personal website, but the best thing to do is to connect with me through LinkedIn.

So if you want to reach me through them and if you want to find out more about our bank you can find us on our website, apsbank.com.Mt.

Brooke Sellas: Awesome. We will include, if you are listening, the show notes happen on YouTube where the video is. So you’ll find Scott’s episode in that transcript below YouTube, we’ll have Scott’s LinkedIn profile as well as APS bank website listed there.

So thank you again, Scott, for joining us. And for those of you watching and listening, if AI is becoming part of your public customer experience strategy, you should definitely check out our State of Social Care Report 2026, which explores what responsible implementation actually looks like.

A lot of it follows what Scott was saying here today because we’re just aligned on our way. Thinking. So it’s gonna look at governance, trust signals, operational discipline, all of those things. You’ll find that link in the show notes as well. And if this show is helping you think differently about customer experience and risk in public channels, please rate and review us at ratethispodcast.com/smcx

it helps us bring on more thoughtful leaders like Scott and helps us grow our community with intention. Until next time, think conversation. Not campaign.

Brooke Sellas | @brookesellas: Thanks for tuning in to the Social Media CX podcast. If you loved today’s episode, don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review and share it with someone who needs to up their social care game.