Unlocking Growth Mode Series #2 Bridging Digital Banking Implementation Gaps

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Jim Marous (00:05):

Are you a community banker thinking, how do we stay competitive in 2025 without losing our personal touch? At Backbase, they've just released a new research paper that dives right into that. It's called Unlocking Growth Mode for Community Financial Institutions in 2025. It's a strategy snapshot packed with insights for community banks and credit unions looking to modernize without doing a complete tech overhaul.

Jim Marous (00:32):

For instance, you'll learn how to close the AI readiness gap, how to deliver seamless onboarding and personalized service across your entire customer lifecycle, and how to get real ROI from digital investments without ripping out your entire core system.

Jim Marous (00:51):

We're talking about quick wins, FinTech style agility and sustainable growth, all while keeping that high-tech service your customers and members love. If you're ready to move beyond buzzwords into the actionable strategy, grab the paper at backbase.com/growthmode, or click the link in our show notes. That's backbase.com/growthmode, and let's unlock growth mode together.

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Jim Marous (01:21):

Welcome to Banking Transformed, the top podcast in retail banking, I'm your host, Jim Marous. In the financial services industry, we often see a critical gap between technological potential and practical implementation. Financial institutions much bridge this divide, moving beyond the excitement of new technology to achieve measurable outcomes that impact both the customer experience and operational efficiency.

Jim Marous (01:47):

Today, we're joined on the Banking Transform podcast by Tara Lacey, Regional Vice President of Customer Success at Backbase. Tara's made her career focusing on what truly matters in financial technology, not just helping to build innovative solutions, but ensuring that they're effectively deployed to create real business value through better experiences and better engagement.

Jim Marous (02:13):

We explore the evolving philosophy of customer success in banking technology, where the emphasis isn't on selling solutions, but on ensuring successful deployment and adaptation. We also discuss why implementation strategy is often more important than the technology itself.

Jim Marous (02:33):

Across the industry, financial institutions and solution providers are struggling to bridge the gap between technology and business outcomes, understanding the importance of organizational alignment throughout the organization, throughout the implementation process, and how to better measure and maximize the return on digital investments.

Jim Marous (02:56):

I see this across the industry that we have amazing solutions, but sometimes they're not implemented the right way.

Jim Marous (03:05):

So, Tara, before we dive into the specifics, could you share a little bit about your professional journey and how it led you to your current role as the RVP of Customer Success at Backbase?

Tara Lacey (03:17):

Sure. Thank you, Jim. So, I started my career at Bank of America many years ago, really in the area of project finance. So, looking at sort of this leasing asset backed financing that was taking place during that time.

Tara Lacey (03:36):

And then because I was in business school and learned a lot about microfinance, I took the opportunity to leave Bank of America and move to Uganda, where I started working with an organization that was doing post-conflict microfinance.

Tara Lacey (03:51):

And so, that's really where I started to get my experience around consumer finance and retail banking, and really enjoyed that experience working and living in Africa for about six years and starting a microfinance institution there.

Tara Lacey (04:07):

And then from there, I just evolved. I really began to look again at home and all of the different things that were happening in the financial inclusion space and the things that weren't happening, and decided to return back to the U.S. and take my experiences from Africa that I had learned in FinTech because as we know, Africa is actually leapfrogging the U.S. in that area, and apply it to the U.S.

Tara Lacey (04:35):

And so, joined a couple of different software organizations covering customer success. And each of those, we were working with a lot of the community financial institutions. And so, that's where I felt like I was still continuing my personal goal and career objectives of having an impact in terms of bringing social change through technology.

Tara Lacey (04:59):

And then landed at Backbase, where I started with supporting them with some implementations and then evolved it to the customer success role.

Jim Marous (05:11):

Well, it's interesting. Before we started on the podcast on a live version, I was talking about what I see in the industry, is that there are amazing solutions out there, and there's some really good companies helping finance institutions provide better services and better solutions to their customers.

Jim Marous (05:30):

The challenge sometimes is our technology has actually gotten ahead of our implementation where we may have great technology solutions, but financial institutions may not know how to best utilize them. They may get in their own way, they may actually not work on the benefits to the end consumer.

Jim Marous (05:51):

And so, you haven't really optimized what can be done across the whole spectrum of the relationship. And you seem to almost be an ombudsman on behalf of Backbase, but also on behalf of the consumer to make it so that financial institutions actually get what they were buying for lack of a better, more technical term.

Jim Marous (06:14):

So, from your vantage point over the last several years, what are the biggest changes you've seen in how financial institutions are buying and how they're implementing on behalf of the consumer?

Tara Lacey (06:27):

Great question. So, I think on behalf of buying, they're really looking at ways that they can get ahead of their competition and really come up with a differentiated experience for their either members as credit unions or customers as banks.

Tara Lacey (06:44):

So, as we heard this being talked about and talked about, I don't think any bank or credit union was really seizing that opportunity to really look at buying software or forging partnerships that really drive home that differentiated experience for their members or their customers.

Tara Lacey (07:03):

And then in terms of implementing, I think a lot of financial institutions have been a little hesitant to make that jump into new modern technology, leaving some of the legacy behind because it is a scary area. And also, keeping in mind that a lot of Chief Innovation Officers, Chief Digital Officers are also putting their reputation and their jobs sometimes on the line when they're making these decisions of buying.

Tara Lacey (07:34):

But I think through due diligence and understanding what they're buying, which I think is very important, then they can then sell internally what the impact and the great growth that's going to come from having more stickiness with their members and customers and just an overall better experience for their end users.

Jim Marous (08:00):

So, we often talk about the gap between a solutions technology potential and its actual implementation. What are the most common obstacles you see financial institutions face when they're trying to implement a new digital banking platform or a new digital banking solution?

Tara Lacey (08:21):

A couple of things. First, there has to be alignment between the business side and the tech side. So, I think what I've seen in a lot of institutions is there's not complete alignment on both. And where there could be starting out, they sometimes separate, they go in their opposite directions. Because at the end of the day, let's face it, we're all looking at how it's going to help ourselves.

Tara Lacey (08:46):

So, that's one thing. I think just making that cohesiveness with the business and tech partners, and having it penetrate all the way down through their teams is very important.

Tara Lacey (09:00):

Secondly, I think just the planning, making sure that you're checking all the boxes, that you really have a strong implementation plan. One recent customer that just joined Backbase, one of the things I loved about what they brought to the kickoff call was what success looked like to them for implementation.

Tara Lacey (09:22):

So, they had the work stream, whether that be the core integration or the call center or their data strategy or their security requirements. Then they had the leader who was the overall owner, and then they had the other owners of each work stream. And then they had a defined success criteria with their KPIs associated with that success criteria.

Tara Lacey (09:51):

So, it not only helped internally that sort of understanding between business and tech and that sync, but it also helped us as Backbase understand what they deem as success. For each of those work streams across the implementation and what KPIs we're also shooting for as partners to ensure successful implementation.

Jim Marous (10:15):

So, obviously, any implementation, no matter how small or how big, involves a lot of departments within an organization, a lot of people within the organization. And during that process of buying, there's a lot of things promised to different people at different places, but there's also going to be an owner.

Jim Marous (10:34):

How often do you see that an organization has bought something from Backbase, let's say, and they put roadblocks in the way? It may be a back-office transformation that's not in place yet, it may be thinking about things differently than what you actually are trying to present as being what they were buying.

Jim Marous (10:54):

I mean, I use this as an example in a digital account opening process, some great organizations sell solutions, you can get the new account opening done in three to five minutes. The reality is, one big loophole is that financial institutions may buy the solution without everybody buying into what it takes to get there.

Jim Marous (11:15):

In other words, they may not let the solution provider use something different than the government id, which immediately adds 3, 5, 7 minutes to the process. And that isn't found out until after the purchase is made in implementation.

Jim Marous (11:30):

So, with that in mind, how often do bankers get in their own way trying to do things that they've always done them as you are trying to bring a modernized solution to the table?

Tara Lacey (11:42):

I think that's changing actually, from what I've seen. I think we have seen that in the past happen, but I think with the fast pace of how technology is evolving, I think every leader in a financial institution, whether it be a bank or a credit union understands that they really need to know what's out on the market, and what can really bring sustainable growth for their financial institution.

Tara Lacey (12:07):

So, I am seeing that change. I think in terms of Backbase, what we're doing to facilitate that understanding across the whole organization, and especially during the buying phase, is to make sure that every owner or every stakeholder is involved.

Tara Lacey (12:26):

So, we actually have what we call CX workshops. So, that really helps so that all of the various owners of each unit, whether that's retail banking, the business banking side, the CTO, the CIO, the CEO, that they're all on the same page, they're all aligned at what Backbase is bringing to the table, and that everyone understands the scope.

Tara Lacey (12:49):

So, that's one thing that we as Backbase are doing to change that narrative to ensure that the owner and the buyer and the champion understands really what this digital transformation is going to look like after the partnership with Backbase or after the implementation with Backbase.

Jim Marous (13:10):

So, you mentioned a recent client that came on board and had some ideas of what they considered to be success. How do you define a successful implementation? What metrics should financial institutions track to measure the true impact of their digital transformation? I would imagine they include both internal metrics as well as external metrics.

Jim Marous (13:33):

But how do you define a successful implementation?

Tara Lacey (13:38):

So, well, definitely we all define it as MVP go live, but it doesn't stop at that. I think in the past, a lot of vendors that are providing these digital transformation softwares really stop at that. And they say, "Okay, you're live. That's our KPI. We got you live."

Tara Lacey (14:00):

I think what a lot of folks forget is, they most of the time are still running on a legacy platform. So, for me, success is when they decommissioned that legacy platform, and a hundred percent of their members or customers are on Backbase. So, for me, that's one of a very important internal KPIs.

Tara Lacey (14:22):

Externally, I know a lot. A Lot of our customers are looking at the app ratings. The abandonment rate on onboarding, how many are successful and onboarding, and how many have abandoned the process. So, those are certain KPIs that our customers are looking at.

Tara Lacey (14:43):

And then internally, driving down cost becoming more operationally efficient, and then just overall, raising their customer CSATs, their customer satisfaction scores, I think are key. And then of course, customer acquisition.

Tara Lacey (15:01):

So, they're coming up with this new application, they're looking at how many additional customers they can acquire and grow, and that's with sustainable growth. And that's what we are looking at, is how can we support our customers to drive sustainable growth by leveraging not only Backbase's platform, but also our business.

Jim Marous (15:23):

So, you've worked with organizations of various sizes. You sometimes are brought in, I would imagine, at the beginning to make sure things go well. But sometimes, I would imagine you come in after implementation or when things have already been put in place to help organizations actually make their utilization work better.

Jim Marous (15:46):

What are some of the most significant performance gaps that you've seen in financial institutions between what they wanted and what they are seeing, and how do you address those challenges? Is there any set of performance gaps you see that boy, over and over again, these seem to get in the way of success?

Tara Lacey (16:06):

I think it's the timing. I think when people set out on this journey, it's really about how quick we can get to market, which is very important. But you want to get to market in a smart way.

Tara Lacey (16:21s):

Keeping customers happy during the transformation, keeping those call centers low. So, in essence, it's really about keeping the momentum of this major transformation that's happening internally and keeping everything business as usual on the outside. So, I think I didn't answer that correctly, but-

Jim Marous (16:47):

No, it's important because I think ... as we mentioned at the very beginning, there's a lot of organizations that have great aspirations, great ideas, great thoughts on how to make things work, but the challenge is that things don't always work as planned. And again, as opposed to protecting a company from not having success, you sometimes have to come in after the fact and put the fires out to a degree.

Tara Lacey (17:22):

Right. I think one of the challenges I've also seen is there's been a lot of changes in management at some of these institutions. So, you'll have a whole set of new managers coming in and they look, and they say, “Who bought this? What are we really using it for?”

Tara Lacey (17:38):

And so, it's almost part of the role of customer success is reeducating those C-level leaders that have come in to take on these digital transformations. If they were either abandoned or sort of going in a different direction that the board did not want. So, it's really about jumping in there, educating them on Backbase, what we've been doing, and really the value of the platform.

Tara Lacey (18:05):

So, I've had to do that several times. I enjoy doing that, I think it's super important because not only are you educating those new managers and those new leaders, but you're also level setting, again, with the entire organization I feel, and giving them sort of an advantage of bringing everyone back together and going through the journey in a positive way and positive momentum.

Jim Marous (18:30):

Well, it's interesting because working with Backbase, it's usually not a small decision or a small implementation. It's a big change. It's a change in the way they've done business in many cases, have a reset to modern technology, modern solutions. But as I talk about many times in the podcast, it's beyond technology.

Jim Marous (18:52):

And often, I say, it doesn't matter how much you spend, if the culture, if leadership, and if change management isn't in place correctly, it still won't work. You can't buy yourself out of organizational challenges.

Jim Marous (19:08):

So, how do you work with organizations to maybe redefine or refine their organizational culture, their change management, to make it so they can actually successfully implement what you sold? And what strategies have you seen work effectively to get there?

Jim Marous (19:27):

Because we talk about leadership and culture, like it's something you just flip a switch, you go, "Oh, there we go. We'll buy that." Well, you can't really do that. How do you work with organizations to actually build strategies that help it work better?

Tara Lacey (19:41):

So, we've done that in a couple of ways. One way is we recently worked with a customer that actually has an interesting model. So, they're an alternative SME online lender. And so, they use internal sales and external sales folks as part of their channel strategy.

Tara Lacey (20:02):

And so, what they were finding is a lot of those sales folks, internal and external, were hesitant to use Backbase. They were so comfortable with the legacy platform and all these new changes, and really, a little bit hesitant to try sort of this new UI/UX that was coming with the Backbase implementation.

Tara Lacey (20:25):

So, what we did was we put together a change management document to really help educate what the changes were going to be, the visuals of what it was going to be. So, almost like screenshots of what's coming.

Tara Lacey (20:37):

And did that in advance of the upgrade that was going to bring a lot of these changes, particularly to the user design and the user interface that these sales folks were going to use to just get them comfortable with the flow. This new business flow, this new way of how it was going to work.

Tara Lacey (20:56s):

A second way was we worked with a customer that was very proactive. So, they had a lot of internal documentation to support their members and their employees with what was the change that was coming and what that meant.

Tara Lacey (21:12):

And just reinforcing and driving home that change is good and everyone's still going to have their jobs, and just what was coming. And making sure they're proactive and doing this in advance. It was really working together to bring more education and not only through these presentations, but also videos.

Tara Lacey (21:33):

I think the videos are pretty powerful when you're sharing them internally and also externally, preparing customers and members, but also your staff with what's coming down the road, and making them feel involved and a part of the change.

Jim Marous (21:48):

A lot of what we've discussed today has been around how you help your clients in their success journey. But I would imagine that some of your role is also working internally to your organization at Backbase to actually say, "I'm seeing this out in the field. We're either missing a mark or we don't have implementation processes that the customer understands," whatever it may be. But I would imagine you're the sounding board on both sides to say, to make success work, it takes both sides of the equation to make it so the end customer actually benefits.

Jim Marous (22:24):

Do you have an example of maybe something you brought back to your team at Backbase and said, "We really have to help our customers, our clients solve for this, and we need to come closer to what they're doing to bridge that gap?" Do you have an example of something like that.

Tara Lacey (22:41):

I do. So, really in most of our engagements with our customers … I mean, well, first of all, my main role as customer success is the orchestrator. I'm here to kind of orchestrate and bring all things Backbase together to support the customer.

Tara Lacey (22:59):

But in terms of problem-solving, I feel like we're doing that almost every day. So, as we're going from Backbase, getting all of our customers live, we're now moving into the growth phase. So, it's becoming more strategic. So, how do we do that? And it takes a team of people, not just myself to do so.

Tara Lacey (23:19):

So, really bringing in, as you're saying, the problems and how we can support our customers to solve for that. So, one example is one of the customers came to us and said, "Our competition is killing us. They're very niche in what they're providing, and this is what we want to do, can you help us do that?"

Tara Lacey (23:37):

We know it might involve some customization. That's another reason we went with Backbase is, we know we can take what's there, but the flexibility of it allows us to customize, to be able to be nimble and quick and compete against this other provider.

Tara Lacey (23:56):

So, we had product involved. So, that takes a lot of orchestration to get the right product folks, to get our solution architect and our business analyst and all of our team aligned, and solutioning, and I love it.

Tara Lacey (24:12):

We'll get on a call and we bring the problem and we're all solutioning as a team, and it's not just the technical folks, it's bringing the business folks and the value consulting folks, saying, "Okay, this is what we need to do. How can we do that the most cost-effective and the most efficient way in the quickest way so that they can go to market with, say, a new product or a new angle for having a leg up on their competition?"

Jim Marous (24:41):

It's interesting because we talk to organizations every day, and it used to be that solution providers could bring the solution to the client, the client bought it, and that was pretty much the end of the game. They had to do that.

Jim Marous (24:54):

Now more than ever, financial institutions, as you mentioned earlier, are kind of catching up to what's going on. And in many cases, making their solution providers, their Backbases of the world better by the question they ask, the challenges they have and everything else.

Jim Marous (25:10):

And it really makes it so, as you said, you're the orchestra, you're on both sides of the equation. You're sometimes both sides of the equations friend and sometimes both times the enemy, but it puts you in a very important role to be the sounding board, to bring the teams together, to make the overall implementation more successful.

Jim Marous (25:31):

As we look to the future of banking, what should financial institutions be doing today to ensure that their investments in technology are both relevant and valuable?

Tara Lacey (25:44):

Definitely, they have to keep their pulse on the market. And I think seeing all the changes – we see AI coming and we see, and we hear about all the different digital transformation that other financial institutions have gone through.

Tara Lacey (25:59):

So, I really think having a pulse on the market, I think being vulnerable and learning and taking that vulnerability and applying it to trust and courage, and really understanding what is happening with other financial institutions. So, speaking with other leaders.

Tara Lacey (26:19):

We've recently redesigned our customer advisory board, and we're taking that approach of being really strategic and really having intake calls with each executive before our customer advisory board meeting, and understanding what keeps them up at night, and how can Backbase support them.

Tara Lacey (26:38):

So, I think for any leader, it's sort of like us as persons as we're developing our own careers, and leading companies on ourselves, is you have to have your own board.

Tara Lacey (26:49):

So, who's your board of directors? And that might be the real board and a financial institution, but also as a Chief Digital Officer or a Chief Technical Officer, who's your board? And who are you leaning on to give you this advice to be able to be vulnerable with, to understand sort of some of these tough decisions that you might need to make as one of these leaders.

Jim Marous (27:14):

It's interesting because you need to know your audience. And as we often say, you also have to know your destination. If you haven't defined where you're trying to get, and specifically, where you're trying to get, you kind of never know if you got there because it can become a moving target without wanting it to be.

Jim Marous (27:35):

You referenced AI. There's no conversation I have nowadays that I don't touch upon that in some way. How does AI change not only what you are delivering at Backbase, but what the customer should be demanding from a financial institution standpoint, but also, what the consumer's now going to be demanding? How does AI change the rules of the game from your perspective?

Tara Lacey (27:58):

Well, it's a big change, and I think there's a lot of things to consider as we're all embracing AI, I mean, as Backbasers, but also from our customers and our customers’ customers. So, I would say first and foremost, some of the financial institutions that we're partnering with, some are actually hesitant to adopt it because of some of the risks, the compliance issues.

Tara Lacey (28:24):

So, I see them starting smaller with some of these chat bots. There's posh AI out there that a lot of our customers are working with, which is just facilitating the call center, with some AI messaging. And we all have that, I think, with some of the major banks that we may be banking with.

Tara Lacey (28:44):

So, I think really it depends on the customer segment as well. I think the millennials and some of the younger consumers are probably embracing it a lot more quickly than sort of some of the other populations that are less hesitant and skeptical of technology.

Tara Lacey (29:04):

So, I also think financial institutions need to be careful with that. In terms of Backbase, we're really digging deep into AI. We're looking at how it can support our software development lifecycle. We're piloting ask.ai, so our customers can go into Backbase auto instead of searching for step up authentication, they can just ask, “Show me where I can find how to configure step up.” So, that's one big change I think that we're definitely seeing.

Tara Lacey (29:43):

And then what I'm most excited about is we have what's called customer lifetime orchestrator. So, that's really taking the data. I think that's the big play here for AI, at least for a lot of software vendors. But also, customer success, is how can we leverage this data to support our customers.

Tara Lacey (30:02):

So, the customer lifetime orchestrator is really taking the data that we can find across our customer's customer base, and be able to offer even more tailored offerings to the various segments, and really pinpointing risk, pinpointing opportunities. So, that's something that we as Backbase are also starting to pilot with some of our customers.

Jim Marous (30:29):

And finally, it is kind of a strange structure of a question, but let's say you were put back into a finance institution. You have all this history on how to make it so that an implementation is successful from your client's perspective, but also your client's customer's perspective.

Jim Marous (30:51):

What is the secret sauce? What's the secret to success that you'd make sure you did to avoid some of the problems that financial institutions have? What would you do differently than many financial institutions do as they're embarking upon a digital transformation journey?

Tara Lacey (31:08):

It's all about the culture. So, I would first probably hold a brown bag or something a little more casual to talk through what's coming, and really keep it open. So, that you create this culture where people can express their excitement, their concerns, their ideas. I would really focus on the culture first, and then the technology.

Jim Marous (31:35):

It's interesting, you mentioned about that brown bag and leaving it open for conversation. We're hearing more and more about how successful organizations are if they have the communication channels open.

Jim Marous (31:45):

And I think maybe some of that comes about because people, while they may not always express this, are scared to death about digital transformation. They see it from a very personal perspective that they may lose their job, or they may be displaced, or they may not be able to keep up, whatever it may be.

Jim Marous (32:04):

And if you don't keep that dialogue open, I think to your point, it's very key that you have to keep the dialogue open because anything that involves change and certainly, Backbase's solution from a very good perspective involves change – it requires a new way of thinking and a new way of doing things. It means that some jobs may not be the same as they were in the past.

Jim Marous (32:25):

Some may be bigger and better. Some may be refined and changed completely, but the only way you can make it so people buy in is to communicate. And I think you're right, that if you don't communicate in an honest way, an empathetic way in trying to look for the questions that are unasked.

Jim Marous (32:43):

I mean, we see this almost daily in our daily lives around it's those surprises that can ruin almost everything. That success really is built around communication between the solution provider and their clients, between the clients and their customers, and sometimes, leapfrogged from the solution providers to the consumer. If you understand that, and if you keep the waves of communication open, it will lead to a better final outcome.

[Music Playing]

Jim Marous (33:14):

Tara, I really appreciate your time today because it's something we haven't really covered, which is, how do you make the success journey smoother? How do you make it so that organizations can actually benefit from what they buy from a technology standpoint without just thinking it's like turning on or off the light in a room. It's using the dimmer switches, find out ahead of time how much light do you want, that type of thing.

Jim Marous (33:41):

So, really appreciate you being on the show, and it is clear that your background very varied in many ways, really built this path to where you are today, and as the regional vice president of customer success. So, thank you very much for being on the show.

Tara Lacey (33:57):

Thank you, Jim. I enjoyed it.

Jim Marous (34:00):

Thanks for listening to Banking Transformed, the winner of three international awards for podcast excellence. If you enjoy our work, please give us a positive review. Finally, check out my recent articles on The Financial Brand and our fantastic research for the Digital Banking Report.

Jim Marous (34:16):

This has been a production of Evergreen Podcasts. A special thank you to our senior producer, Leah Haslage; audio engineer, Chris Fafalios, and video producer, Will Pritts.

Jim Marous (34:25):

If you've not already done so, remember to subscribe to Banking Transformed on your favorite podcast app and on YouTube for more thought provoking discussions on the intersection between finance, technology, and leadership.