Era Ziroe, KeyBank’s Senior Vice President of Client & Employee Experience, stepped onto the main stage to close out the first day of the Customer Response Summit (CRS) in Clearwater Beach, FL, with a fantastic keynote. She wasn’t here to talk about theories, abstract KPIs, or overused platitudes about the future of banking. She was here to talk about something much more important: empathy-driven action.
Her message? Client insights alone don’t create impact; action does. And in a financial landscape increasingly defined by digital transformation, evolving client expectations, and the unforgiving speed of technological change, experience-focused action isn’t just a competitive advantage. It’s survival.
The Business of Banking is the Business of Trust
KeyBank is a financial institution with $190 billion in assets, over 1,000 branches, and 17,000 employees. It’s an institution built on trust. In an era where the banking industry faces growing skepticism from consumers, trust can’t be bought; it must be earned, reinforced, and, most importantly, lived out in every client interaction.
That’s where Ziroe’s work begins. She and her team at KeyBank don’t just deliver Voice of the Client (VoC) insights; they transform them into human-centered solutions that bridge the gap between client needs and business strategy to drive growth.
But as she pointed out in her keynote, simply producing insights isn’t enough. It’s critical to closely align the CX team’s efforts with the business. She pointed out that “earning a seat at the table” to infuse experience insights in business strategy planning is critical for success.
“Timing is critical,” she told the audience. “Understanding the business is even more important.”
Her words hung in the air. How many CX leaders in the room had spent years battling the frustration of producing invaluable insights only to see them ignored or deprioritized by business stakeholders? How many had been caught in the cycle of delivering ideas without a roadmap for execution?
If your CX team isn’t “in the room where it happens,” as Ziroe put it, you’re not leading change. You’re hoping for it.
Bridging the Gap Between Client and Business Empathy
One of the most striking moments of Ziroe’s presentation was when she dissected the tension between a client-led approach and a business-led approach, a battle that often plays out within organizations, sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes in outright conflict. Client-led strategies are rooted in the question: What can we do for the experience?
Business-led strategies ask: What can the experience do for the business?
The challenge, as Ziroe explained, is that both are necessary. It’s not enough to simply listen to clients and improve experiences. CX teams have to find ways to organically integrate CX into the operations of the business to drive outcomes—loyalty and profitability.
A real-world example? KeyBank’s treasury clients. When analyzing top opportunities in their commercial digital platform, Ziroe’s team discovered that less than half of clients were satisfied with one of its top-used capabilities. The problem wasn’t just about missing features; it was about how information was presented, the difficulty of navigating reports, and the overall user experience. The easy solution? Enhancing reports. The right solution? Reimagining the experience by creating a simplified and intuitive consumer-like one-stop shop user experience in a complex commercial landscape.
The result? A 57 percent reduction in task completion time and a 92nd percentile ranking in overall satisfaction in prototype testing. One client in a treasury role summed it up: “This exceeded my expectations. On average, it usually takes me an hour to research. Not having to use external sources like Excel and Ctrl+F—this will cut my time in half.”
It was a moment of validation, not just for the work Ziroe’s team had done, but for the philosophy that underpins it: client experience isn’t just about acting on client feedback; it’s reimagining the experience through a human-centered lens. And doing so in close partnership with the business.
The CX Leadership Challenge: Are You Creating Real Change?
As she wrapped up her keynote, Ziroe left the room with a challenge. Are we, as CX leaders, truly embedding client experience into our business strategy, or are we just gathering data for data’s sake? Are we creating actionable insights, or are we simply reporting them? Are we advocating for clients in a way that executives can translate into revenue and long-term loyalty?
Because here’s the truth: if CX isn’t shaping business decisions, it’s just another department. And if we’re not advocating for clients in ways that resonate with business stakeholders, we’re not leading change. As she wrapped up, Ziroe articulated something many in the CX space feel but don’t always have the words for: that empathy-driven action is the only kind that moves the needle.
A special thank you to Era and the entire KeyBank team for sharing their insights and leadership with us at the Customer Response Summit. Your dedication to innovation, service, and human connection continues to set the standard for the banking and CX industry. We appreciate your time, expertise, and the inspiration you brought to the stage!
