Associated Bank is counting on customer tools added in recent months and a shift in its approach to sales conversations to rev up the amount of business the bank handles for its clients.

The Green Bay, Wisconsin-based lender rolled out a product this year that allows checking account customers to access their direct deposit pay two days earlier, in addition to a credit monitoring feature for some of its checking customer accounts, said Steven Zandpour, the bank’s director of consumer and business banking. Those follow a service launched last year that doesn’t charge customers if they overdraw their checking accounts up to $50.

“What we've tried to develop, from a consumer standpoint, is this holistic view of helping and shaping transaction flows for the customer,” said Zandpour, who joined the bank in January after working at BMO and Fifth Third Bank.

The $42 billion-asset Associated – which serves about 100 communities across Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota – aims to lean into “that advice and guidance” aspect to deepen its relationships with customers, he added.

Nearly a year ago, Associated announced it was cutting jobs and closing more than a dozen branches, in addition to selling about $2 billion in mortgages and investment securities and hiring relationship managers to bolster deposit-gathering and lending.

As Associated has sought to deepen its customer relationships, the bank’s sales team has been retrained to have “more holistic conversations,” uncovering opportunities through needs-based questioning, to nudge customers toward thinking about retirement or what’s next for their family, Zandpour said. 

The bank settled on the early pay and credit monitoring products after taking note of current offerings in the market that appeal to consumers, as well as input from and testing with its own customers, Zandpour said. Early access to wages, in particular, has become an increasingly popular service offered by fintechs and lenders alike. 

“We kind of iterated with clients along the way,” Zandpour said. Some of the feedback on the bank’s credit monitoring feature is opening the door to more opportunities for the bank, as customers have wondered how they can interpret the data, he said. 

That’s led Associated to consider how bankers can “follow up and be able to connect the dots for clients,” Zandpour said. A customer checking their credit score might be thinking about a mortgage, for example. 

Employees are trying to approach those customer conversations with less of a product focus, and more consideration around what matters to the client and how the bank can help them get there, Zandpour said.

“These products help people see and start to self-discover that as well,” leading to more client-prompted conversations with bankers, he said. 

Although it’s early, the bank is beginning to see the fruits of those efforts, he said. “As you have these product enhancements, that helps the cross-sell,” he said. The bank didn’t immediately respond to a request for figures on customer adoption of the credit monitoring or early pay products.

Now, Zandpour seeks to increase customer awareness of the tools that have been introduced, to spark more customer adoption, he said. “You roll out credit monitoring, but your whole customer base doesn’t use it the first day,” he noted.

Looking ahead to next year, Associated plans to digitize more experiences on the business banking side that will provide faster access into visibility of funds and money movement, Zandpour said. 

The lender launched a new digital banking platform in 2022 and continues to make enhancements with an eye toward user-friendliness and access to more banking services online. Zandpour said Associated’s just-right size enables it to maintain small-bank relationships with clients and communities while offering tools and services akin to big banks.  

With greater adoption of online banking and less foot traffic at branches, Associated has been pruning its branch network in recent years as it rethinks that strategy, similar to other lenders. The bank is set to open its first Missouri branch next spring, but it will have a smaller footprint than older branches and be less driven by teller transactions, Zandpour said.

The bank doesn’t have set plans for additional branches in the St. Louis market – where it already has a presence on the Illinois side – but it’s always evaluating potential opportunities, Zandpour said.

Zandpour declined to comment on whether the bank is considering expanding its branch network into other Midwest states. 

“What we want to continue to do is have growth in our existing footprint, in our existing locations,” he said. 

Associated also has loan production offices in Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio and Texas.