The Pioneer interview with...Kat Robinson
Kat Robinson is Commercial Goal Lead at NatWest, responsible for the delivery of the end to end “start and manage my business relationship” customer journey for all businesses and commercial customers. Until recently, she was Metro Bank’s Customer Experience Director passionate about developing and delivering products and services that make customer’s lives better, she has built a customer experience function from scratch and led the bank’s customer service transformation programme, including the build out of digital servicing capability and robotics and broader automation implementation. She joined Metro Bank in November 2017 from TSB where she was Head of General Insurance. Kat is a commercially minded, customer problem solver who has spent most of her career in banking across product, digital and customer strategy roles
When and how do you know you’re onto a pioneering idea?
Often it feels simple, intuitive, and really obvious when you explain it to others, but the obvious ideas are the hardest to get to! If an idea for a new product for example takes fifteen minutes to explain to a colleague, or if you need a training and comms programme to launch it how on earth can you expect a customer to understand it? These ideas are often easy to come up with, and easier to implement than really pioneering ideas and there is a danger that they undermine or undervalue the importance of “going the extra mile” to pioneer on behalf of the customer.
What is required to make a pioneering idea a reality?
An element of bravery, being open to testing and learning and being willing to fail - lots of organisations say they are open to failure but because of how they incentivise their people and the scarcity of investment budgets they’re not really. Organisations that are truly pioneering have done something really different, not chipped away at an idea until it is no longer different and pioneering. You also have to be willing to face ridicule and the naysayers, especially from others in the industry who will try to convince themselves that your business model or idea is wrong and doomed to failure in order to support their own narrative.
How do you tackle the ‘naysayers’ and the money-first people in an organisation?
Firstly, I think it’s important to remind people internally, those naysayers, that the organisation exists to serve the customer – the customer pays our wages and we only survive and grow as a business because our customers choose to buy and use our products and services and we shouldn’t take that for granted – ever. Secondly, it’s about finding ways to remind people internally that they are likely not our target customer and so their opinion on if they would buy / use something isn’t always valid.
How do you maintain the energy and enthusiasm when things get tough? What are the challenges to remaining pioneering?
I’m all about making a difference to people’s lives by developing, delivering and improving products and services that make customer’s lives better and so I’m still hugely motivated to work in financial services because we are far from done! Banking, and managing money, is so important for people - it’s a huge source of stress and worry and can make such a big difference to their lives, yet it’s a really low engagement category. Finding ways to help people engage, make it simpler and take the friction and stress out of money management is really hard but super rewarding.
Are there groups of customers whom you feel you have yet to pioneer for?
Older customers. There isn’t a segment of ‘retirees’ any more. As people take increasingly different routes through life, what your life looks like and what you need at 60 for example can vary enormously. I also think that then what this baby boomer generation will need when they reach their eighties will be very different from what their parents needed at that age and so there is lots to think about and go after to meet those needs.
What one piece of advice would you give to an aspiring customer pioneer?
Take the time to genuinely get to know and understand your customer and immerse yourself in their lives – not to just look at and try to understand them 3 steps removed through a focus group or from reading an NPS report, and then when you’re clearer on the problems they have, be really expansive and creative in how you might solve them.