Independent Banker - August 2019 - 50

NEW TECH
Nicolet National Bank * Green Bay, Wis.
Assets: $3 billion
Investing in customercentric
innovation
D
esigning products and services that put customer
needs first is a community bank imperative.
But many community bankers feel like they're
dependent on their core processor to provide them with
digital banking services and other new technologies, only
to hear from customers that they're looking for even more.
Such was the feedback that Mike Daniels, president and
CEO of the $3 billion-asset Nicolet National Bank in Green
Bay, Wis., got about the community bank's mobile app,
which was provided by its core processor.
" We've always been a very progressive organization,
but when we listened to people talk about what the big
banks are doing, we realized that while we don't need to be
bleeding-edge, we do need to be better than just a followalong
community bank, " Daniels says.
Nicolet's management decided it could do better by
promoting Ryan Eardley, a tech-smart intern and recent
college graduate, to a new position: director of innovation.
They paired him with Seth Ollila, a banking technology
expert who led the project management area and furnished
Eardley with a cross-functional team and a mission to find
ways to develop even better products and services, so the
bank didn't have to rely on its core processor.
" I told the innovation team to start from the customer
experience and work backward, " Daniels says.
Customer needs come first
Typically, innovation at community banks is driven by
the IT or operations departments, but the new products
and services they develop tend to serve their departments'
needs more than those of the customer, Daniels says.
" The product or service may be secure, but the customer
has to sign on five times, or it may be designed to make
it easier for the operations team to process, but it's too
cumbersome for customers, " he explains. " I want products
and services designed to meet customer needs first. "
Early on, the new innovation team found a vendor
that could provide a better mobile banking app: Alkami
Technology in Plano, Texas. Daniels says he believes
the company's app is superior to that of the bank's core
processor, and its flexibility allows the community bank to
50 Q ICBA Independent Banker Q August 2019
build in additional functionality.
The innovation team is doing
just that by turning the bank's
Salesforce solution into much
more than a customer relationship
management (CRM) tool, says Eric
Witczak, Nicolet National Bank's
executive vice president.
" We made the decision to utilize
Salesforce as a CRM, but then we
realized we could do a whole lot
more with it and not completely
rely on our core, " he adds.
" Through the use of open APIs
[application platform interfaces],
we're able to specialize the platform
and put the customer first in
everything we do. "
One step at a time
Phase one was developing and
acquiring open APIs that enabled
the community bank to buy
solutions like Salesforce that can
get into the core, Witczak says.
Phase two is beta testing new digital
banking applications, and then
implementing a " financial services
cloud " that will enable customers
to apply for and open multiple
types of accounts via the mobile
app, such as deposit accounts,
mortgages, credit cards- " you name
it, " Daniels says.
" We then plan to personalize solutions for customers
with a 'marketing cloud,' " Witczak says. " In phase three,
there will be additional artificial intelligence functionality
built into the Salesforce.com platform, so that it can
automatically detect when customers might need
something and then automatically suggest solutions. "
Nicolet National Bank has partnered with other fintechs,
http://www.Salesforce.com
Independent Banker - August 2019

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