“An SLA is great for tactical and day-to-day management,” Perpetua says, “but it does not speak to the sustainability or the amount of continuous improvement that occurs. If your SLA reaches 96% achievement, what does that leave you? Four percentage points equals perfection, and you’re done?” Kyndryl takes a broader view. In addition to traditional SLAs, it uses a set of parameters to understand employee productivity within a continuous improvement model. To this end, the company has introduced experience-level agreements (XLAs). “The XLA takes a more holistic and long-term view and makes sure we’re truly focused on improving business outcomes over time,” Perpetua says.
For example, key experience performance indicators (XPIs) might include telemetry data from devices, IT tickets submitted, and employee use of different channels, along with sentiment analysis and surveys correlated with their business process. Analysis of this data can pinpoint service breakdowns and employee adoption of services to help make course corrections or find opportunities for improvements.
Sometimes, improving the employee and customer experiences starts with having the right resources on hand. That was the case for a large U.S. commercial bank that provides personal, private, and business banking as well as wealth management, brokerage, and leasing solutions.
The bank sought to address several issues that many financial institutions are facing:
It had already made progress in its aggressive modernization strategy by moving critical applications, including many that are customer-facing, to the cloud. However, the bank needed much-sought-after technical talent, including cloud and network architects and site reliability engineers.
Working with Kyndryl, the bank gained access to the tech talent it needed for its modernization efforts. As a result, the institution has achieved its goals faster and has been able to close security and resilience gaps. In addition, the bank improved its customer experience and increased trust by reducing the potential impact of any outage.
Finally, by leaning on Kyndryl for tech support, the bank could focus its internal resources on strategic initiatives to drive its growth initiatives.
“Traditionally, the employee experience and the customer experience are two separate conversations,” Perpetua says. “However, there is an opportunity to address both in a similar way.”
In other words, ensuring that employees are equipped based on their attributes and roles means that they will be more engaged, productive, and innovative. It also gives them the fluidity and space to anticipate customer needs and proactively address those expectations.
Both outcomes help meet business objectives and have a positive impact on the institution’s bottom line. Also consider this: If your bank doesn’t provide a good employee experience, it will risk losing not only talent but also customers.
