Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360

Leaders in Customer Loyalty: Brand Stories | How PNC Is Rethinking Loyalty in Banking

·33 min·3 clips

How is PNC Bank, a 150-year-old institution, intentionally working to meet the high bar of personal, earned loyalty in financial services?

The episode is an interview with Victoria Dravnik, the Head of Loyalty Strategy and Platforms at PNC Bank, hosted by Mark. It focuses on PNC's journey to create and launch the PNC Total Rewards loyalty program. Dravnik begins by describing PNC as a national bank with a local feel, emphasizing its culture of hospitality where employees genuinely engage with clients. She explains that when she joined PNC two and a half years ago, her mission was to bring loyalty to the bank at scale. Her initial discovery involved interviewing over 100 leaders, many with decades of tenure, and finding that valuing clients was already embedded in the company's DNA. The core challenge was achieving organizational alignment to think horizontally about the customer across product silos. The program's development was guided by four principles: being client-centric (not product-centric), delivering 'one PNC' by consolidating smaller programs, empowering employees (who were given gold tier status), and engaging digitally. Operationalizing the program required setting up a new line of business, including a case management system and transaction monitoring to ensure promises were kept. Dravnik highlights that PNC conducted extensive research, speaking to over 15,000 clients and prospects to test concepts like benefits and language. A unique benefit emerged: cash back for auto loan clients based on loan principal. The program is tiered (silver, gold, platinum) based on relationship value, with everyone receiving some rewards. Success is measured through NPS (where PNC ranks highly), retention, and relationship deepening. Future plans include expanding to small business, building a partnerships and experiences center of excellence, and a five-year roadmap. Dravnik shares a tangible success story where a client and her mother moved over $525,000 in investments to qualify for higher tiers after a branch conversation. She also notes the program's comprehensive benefits for military members. The episode concludes with Dravnik discussing the future of loyalty, emphasizing the need to anticipate client needs beyond personalization, and thanking Loyalty360 for providing industry camaraderie and insights.

As heard by us

PNC's loyalty strategy uses hospitality and customer testing to make a banking relationship harder to copy.

PNC's loyalty strategy is framed as a practical answer to a banking market where products, capabilities, and technology can blur together. Victoria Dravnik, head of loyalty strategy and platforms at PNC, makes the case for hospitality and loyalty as a harder-to-copy advantage,…

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Want to hear how PNC is trying to turn hospitality, research, and partnerships into a loyalty strategy?

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