Wells Fargo CMO Tells SEBA that Personal Touch is Key to Winning Customers

Despite the fact the businesses are pressured to keep pace with new mobile technologies and a more rapid demand for services, nothing can compete with the human touch, according to Wells Fargo Chief Marketing Officer Jamie Moldafsky.

Moldafsky came to SEBA in February as part of the Executive Speaker Series, and the central theme of her speech—titled “How to Win Customers in 2020”—was the need for corporations to not only keep up with their customers, but to maintain a warm, personal touch.

“At the end of the day,” Moldafsky said, “people want to do business with a company that has a personality and people behind it—not just a logo or a design, but actual people.”

One of the ways that companies can do that, said Moldfasky, is by understanding their customers through surveying and leveraging data to provide exactly what consumers want at precisely the right times.

One of the key shifts in the Wells Fargo marketing plan has been a direct result of rapidly shifting demographics among the U.S. population. The rise of majority-minority cities (ones where one or more ethnic or racial minorities make up the majority of a population) has elicited a pivot so that mass multicultural advertising now represents the new reality.

“America is now fundamentally multicultural,” said Moldafsky. “We are taking our cues from different cultures now and changing things like our music or settings in commercials to show that multicultural flair.”

Moldafsky explained how in the past, the marketing department would come up with a general campaign and then break it into different targeted segments to be distributed in specific communities. With the shift to a multi-cultural perspective though, the model is now to create marketing materials that appeal to the total market.

Looking forward to the next generation of customers was also a point of emphasis. When marketing to millennials, Wells Fargo did extensive research to learn how to anticipate their needs.

“What we found,” Moldafsky said, “is that millennials mostly want a bank to fit into their lives seamlessly. They don’t want to think about it or try to work around it.”

Philanthropic efforts are another way for companies to demonstrate their human sides. 

“After hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast in 2012, we gave our customers the opportunity to donate money to the relief effort from their ATMs,” Moldafsky said. “We got tremendous feedback from that. Our customers wanted to help, and we provided them with a platform to do that.”

Moldafsky also explained how corporate giving can strengthen whole communities, and also how the simple act of owning mistakes can improve the relationship between a company and their customers.

Ultimately, the core of Moldafsky’s “How to win customers in 2020” talk was that companies are going to need to continue to demonstrate that they are there for their customers. The best way to do that, according to Moldafsky, is to try to maintain a warm, human element in their business practices.

“It’s not so much about selling them something,” Moldafsky said, “it’s about trying to help them.”