Anthony Repanich, Executive Vice President, Peoples Bank

We’re a $1.2 million community bank that’s been around since the mid-'20s. I oversee our retail banking division, which includes everything from our retail branches, mortgage, marketing and training. We’re also supporting the commercial lending function in the bank through the training and sales portions of the business.

Challenges

I think for us the biggest challenge is that we’re needing to be more efficient in how we do business. Margins are compressed, and there are fewer good deals out there on the commercial side of the house. So we have to figure out how to get in front of customers more quickly, get a credit decision to them while keeping our cost down so that we can deliver at a price that’s competitive with the big guys.

Core Solutions

Some of the products we use are the former Baker Hill products. We currently have the Client Advisor solution and One Point. We use Client Advisor enterprise-wide to manage our client relationships and the opportunities that we’re working on with those clients. So it’s our major pipeline tool in the bank for commercial credit and also other opportunities. In addition, we're looking at bringing in some of their other products to help us build out that advisor suite.

Experian's Consultative Approach

Partnering with Experian has been a really positive experience for us. I would say that the Baker Hill team and the Decision Analytics group at Experian really understand our business of financial services. It’s like talking with another banker down the street. They understand what we’re trying to do for our clients. They also understand the regulatory challenges we’re up against. They understand that we’re not technology folks or data analytics folks generally speaking, and so they also bring it down to our level and help us understand how we can use those tools to better our business.

The Results

The results we’ve been able to gain from are really how we build out our client relationships. Client Advisor and Exception Advisor have really helped us to define what the client experience is going to be like at the bank and how we manage that client relationship. So for example, we’ve taken our high-value clients and applied touch strategy so we make sure we’re getting in front of those clients on a consistent basis not only to talk to them about the products and services they’re buying from us, but their financial goals and where they’re trying to get to. The tool is helping us to structure those conversations and to make sure we’re doing it on a consistent basis. That’s probably been the most positive aspect for us from implementing the advisory tools.