When a crisis strikes — be it financial, public health, weather-related, or otherwise — it doesn't take long for people to seek out their nearest bank, either physically or online. This makes sense: During times of financial uncertainty, customers naturally have more questions about everything from simple logistics — "Is my bank open?" "Is it safe to come in for a withdrawal?" — to long-term financial planning. Data bears this out, showing us that customers are now searching more often, and asking more questions related to businesses across verticals.
During a crisis, providing customers with access to the information they need — when things are changing so rapidly and so much is uncertain — is paramount. "Being 'advanced' in customer experience maturity is now a necessity, not an aspiration," explains Christopher Young, Director of Financial Services Industry Strategy at Adobe. "AI plays a critical role in delivering meaningful experiences at scale, not just in the analysis of data but in content creation, automation of site personalization, and delivery of one-to-one communications."
This, however, can be a major challenge for even the most technologically sophisticated organizations — so BBVA USA made a plan.
The U.S. subsidiary of the global financial institution, BBVA, BBVA USA operates 649 bank branches in the United States, stretching throughout the Sunbelt states from Florida to California. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the bank had its work cut out for it.
"We were already working with Yext to manage our listings across third-party search experiences," explains Steve Creel, SVP, Director of Online and Mobile Websites at BBVA USA. "That was to make sure all of our branch information, ATM information, and officer information was correct out on the world wide web. Our relationship with Yext really began after we had gone through a period of growth — there were acquisitions in the mix, and looking at all of the Google and Bing results, it was a mixed bag of accurate and inaccurate information. Yext gave us the ability, in real time, to go out and make changes as needed to those branch and ATM networks."