April 14, 2005
FastCompany: The residents of northern California got their first taste of Umpqua Bank last July when the ice-cream trucks rolled in. Only days earlier, the little-known Oregon community bank with the weird name had made headlines when it announced the acquisition of a local 27-branch bank. Now, here came Umpqua's advance guard: trucks filled with free ice-cream sandwiches.
Corny? Maybe. But as Ray Davis, Umpqua's CEO says, "It's the corny things that make the difference" when it comes to providing great customer service. Great service is something every bank claims to offer, of course -- and almost never does. Employees helplessly sit on their hands when customers have a simple request, shunting them off to a manager, or worse, the company's 800-number.
The problem, as Davis sees it, is culture. At most banks, a cultural focus on efficiency, process, and controls often stands in the way of doing right by customers. At Umpqua, every element of the culture is focused on serving customers. It's what keeps Umpqua growing in the highly competitive retail banking sector. When Davis, a onetime CPA who spent years as a banking consultant, took the lead job at Umpqua 11 years ago, the Oregon-based bank had just six branches and $140 million in assets. Now it has 92 branches, stretching from Napa to Seattle, and $5 billion in assets.
Cultural Phenomenon [Fast Company]
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