Establishing a customer experience function at a $785M bank
Midwest Heritage had no dedicated customer experience function. I established one while the bank was absorbing a merger and converting its core systems, which is the moment customers notice everything.
- Midwest Heritage Bank
- Director of Customer Experience
- April to July 2026
$785M
in assets, the bank the function was built for
3
business lines unified under one service framework
3
survey programs rebuilt: new-account, loan, and exit-interview
Context
Midwest Heritage Bank is a $785M-asset community bank serving customers across banking, insurance, and investment lines. When I joined as Director of Customer Experience, the bank was in the middle of a merger and a core systems conversion. There was no existing CX function.
Problem
A merger and a core conversion change how customers are served at every touchpoint at once. Without a function that owns the customer's experience, three business lines each define good service their own way, and feedback arrives unstructured or not at all.
Constraints
- The function had to be established while the merger and conversion were underway, not after.
- Three business lines with different customers, products, and habits.
- A new role, so the scope, standards, and measurement all had to be defined from scratch.
Approach
Set the standard first, then the measurement. I unified customer service strategy across banking, insurance, and investment lines into one framework, so every line was working from the same definition of good service. Then I rebuilt the customer feedback pipeline so the bank could hear from customers at the moments that matter most: when they open an account, when they take a loan, and when they leave.
Systems built
- Unified customer service framework
- One service strategy across banking, insurance, and investment lines.
- Customer feedback pipeline
- Rebuilt from the ground up, with three survey programs at the moments that matter.
- New-account survey
- Feedback at the start of the relationship.
- Loan survey
- Feedback on the bank's highest-stakes interaction.
- Exit-interview survey
- Feedback from customers who leave, so the bank learns why.
Results
The bank went from no CX function to an established one, with a single service framework across all three business lines and a feedback pipeline covering onboarding, lending, and attrition. All of it was built while the merger and conversion were still in progress.
What I took from it
The training work that followed only worked because the service framework came first. You cannot train people to a standard that does not exist yet.
Midwest Heritage Bank is a $785M-asset community bank serving customers across banking, insurance, and investment lines. When I joined as Director of Customer Experience, the bank was in the middle of a merger and a core systems conversion. There was no existing CX function.
The bank went from no CX function to an established one, with a single service framework across all three business lines and a feedback pipeline covering onboarding, lending, and attrition. All of it was built while the merger and conversion were still in progress.