As customer expectations are fast evolving and pandemic-induced uncertainty persists, establishing a robust digital infrastructure has become a business imperative. Greg Sullins, Executive Vice President at Wilson Bank & Trust, takes us through how the bank digitally transformed their operations to automate the account opening process to enable a seamless customer experience.

About Wilson Bank & Trust

Wilson Bank & Trust is an independent and locally-owned bank, established in 1987 by a group of local business leaders to provide personal and professional services in a hometown setting. From the first office located in Tennessee, today, WB&T has 29 offices in nine countries. WB&T is a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation member and an Equal Housing Lender. One of the top banks in the South in stability, products, technology, growth, and earnings, WB&T offers a full range of financial products that include secondary market mortgage loans and mobile and online banking services.

Bottlenecks That Drove Us to Undertake Strategic Process Modernization

Delivering superior customer experience has always remained a priority for us, but we were facing several bottlenecks due to existing legacy and outdated processes.

• Firstly, we were unable to seamlessly serve our customers across online and branch delivery channels. We were facing numerous challenges in delivering a comprehensive suite of products and services to our customers
• Secondly, we were grappling with inefficient processes, and there were numerous process integration challenges. There were manual hands-off at numerous stages and lots of re-keying of data which made our processes prone to errors, increased cycle durations, and reduced productivity of our employees

All of these challenges put us in an introspective mode, and we decided to modernize our processes by implementing robust digital solutions. Our immediate need of the hour was to transform our deposit account opening process.

What Made Us Choose Newgen as Our Digital Transformation Partner?

First and foremost, what struck us the hardest about Newgen was their “can do, will do” attitude towards complex business challenges. Newgen demonstrated practical ways of integrating processes, bridging silos, and streamlining key operations. Newgen also showed how leveraging their omnichannel platform and capability would help us build upon other products, be it on the deposit side or loan side.

While proceeding with our due diligence, we also contacted other peer banks who had prior experience of partnering with Newgen. We were amazed to find that they had an excellent experience working with Newgen in terms of delivery, execution, focus, and flexibility.

The Digital Transformation Impact We Experienced with Newgen

After partnering with Newgen and implementing their digital account opening solution, we realized a number of benefits in a very short time frame:

• Faster account opening: Currently, we open about 2,000 new accounts a month. We are continuing to see a strong lift and customer interest in opening new accounts. We have recently launched the new account opening solution, and we are confident that we would be able to do a 300% volume increase through the online channel, with the same staff. This means better and faster access for customers to their accounts. Earlier, we had a limited set of products available online, and it took us days to set up a new account and fund the account. With Newgen’s online account opening solution, our customers have a comprehensive menu of products and services and can open accounts in a matter of minutes. They can complete/submit an application with multiple accounts within that application. They can also digitally sign and fund the account from a menu of options. In short, our customers can now set up and fund their accounts in 10-15 minutes that would have earlier taken days to complete.
• Enhanced productivity: Newgen’s digital account opening solution has helped us significantly improve our operational efficiency and productivity. In just 30 days of being live, we have opened every product in our full menu of personal and business products. We have been able to reach beyond our footprint to customers and are acquiring customers. Those are all things that give us confidence as we continue to go forward. By leveraging digital capabilities, our employees can focus more on customer experience instead of handling recurring tasks. We are already witnessing a 300 percent productivity improvement of our staff that supports online channels.
• Error-free, quick processing: Newgen’s solution has helped us integrate our front and back offices, resulting in fewer processing errors, reduced re-keying of information, and quick account setup.
• Contactless operations: Our customers can now digitally sign and fund the account seamlessly through multiple online options. In many cases, it seems like a no-touch process from the bank’s perspective. Our employees are increasingly utilizing digital tools to increase efficiency while making their jobs easier.
• Competitive advantage: Partnering with Newgen has helped us gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace as we head towards strengthening our position by delivering faster, better, and more affordable services. This allowed us to create a strong presence in physical and digital spaces.

The Overall Experience of Working with Newgen

Despite working remotely due to the pandemic, our partnership went through exceptionally well. In a short time frame, we delivered a comprehensive set of offerings such as personal products, including checking, savings, CDs, IRAs, and HSAs accounts, and business products including checking, savings, and CDs —all of which are now available online and across our branches. I would say this is a remarkable feat that we achieved as we were able to get the services up and running in a matter of months compared to other banks of our size and complexities, despite working in a remote setting. We are very proud of specifically getting to market real fast, learning from that environment, and what we want to do further to take it to the next level.

The Road Ahead

We recognize how digital capabilities can be critical for strengthening a bank’s positioning in physical and digital marketplaces. Modernizing our operations through digitization will put us at par with many large banks that already possess digital capabilities. We will continue to provide our customers and prospects with a friendly, community-centric environment. So we shall strive to leverage our overall capabilities to exceed customers’ expectations, provide a better experience for our employees and ensure reasonable returns for our shareholders. Our combination of human touch with digital capabilities will become our secret sauce of success and help us move forward as an organization.

As for our partnership with Newgen, we have been working closely for the past year, and we are using Newgen’s platform for paycheck protection program loans (PPP). We have now got this digital account opening solution up and running online, and we are in the midst of launching the solution across our 29 branch offices in the coming weeks. We are also looking forward to launching the account maintenance functionality, which is the next logical extension of the digital account opening solution. This will enable us to handle many other traditional account maintenance activities through the digital platform. We are also focused heavily on our small business and commercial loan origination system, and we intend to deploy that here in the middle of 2022.

This is an exciting time for us as we continue to move forward in this transformation journey, and we are happy to have Newgen as a partner in this journey. Together we are bringing new ideas and thoughts, collaborating to execute them right, and continuing to leverage the overall platform capabilities to deliver an exceptional customer experience.