How CIBC morphed into a modern, relationship-oriented bank
It was a gap in CIBC’s customer experience (CX), and Melanie Au was aware it can an issue. Only recently did it become crystal-clear the time had come to close it.
Speaking at Forrester’s CX North America event in Nashville late last month, the bank’s vice-president of digital marketing admitted that its online banking customers had been able to request void cheques for a long time. Those using its mobile app, however, were out of luck.
“We even have this one tenacious person on our team who would say, ‘This is a gap!’” Au recalled. “We just didn’t prioritize it.”
Last fall, however, CIBC launched an internal search engine that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to gather insights about customer intent. The desire to request a voided cheque through the app was at the top of the list, Au said. Around the same time, CIBC ran a survey asking its frontline employees what would make their lives easier. Void cheque requests via the app came up again, ranking high.
In January, CIBC added this capability to its app and has since seen it used by more than a million customers.
“The data spoke, the client spoke, and we actioned it,” Au said.
That kind of responsiveness to customer feedback helped CIBC – which is a big five bank in Canada and a leader in private wealth management and commercial banking in the U.S. – win Forrester’s 2025 Customer-Obsessed Enterprise Award. That said, it’s just one example of how far the financial services firm has come in just a few years.
According to Jennifer Davidson, CIBC’s VP of client experience, the bank recognized by 2018 that its branches were outdated, its brand consideration was weaker than its rivals and that its Net Promoter Score (NPS) was “in the negative territory.”
Its CEO set what she described as a bold ambition to become a modern, relationship-oriented institution within a three-year period. Here are some of the pillars that got it there:
Reclaiming a sense of purpose
Angela Sarino, CIBC’s VP of business partner marketing, said the bank got back to its “Why” by settling on a brand promise grounded in the phrase “Making client ambitions real.” This informed everything from an updated logo design to a wide range of advertising and marketing activities.
Beyond the catchphrase are three client experience principals, Sarino added:
“Always professional” – This comes down to doing what’s right for the client, regardless of internal or external factors that might otherwise get in the way.
“Radically simple” – Like many organizations, Sarino said CIBC had many teams and entire departments working in silos, which could make getting things done more difficult than they needed to be. Cross-functional collaboration is now the imperative.
“Genuinely caring” – CIBC recognized its needed to spend more time actively listening to clients Sarino said, and that has become the foundation of what Davidson’s team is now focused on.
Setting up a dashboard of CX performance and issues
CIBC not only operates online and through its app but via more than 1,000 banking centers, serving more than 14 million clients and managing 48,000 employees. Davidson said the organization needed to get a big-picture view of what’s working and what’s not. This led to the creation of what she called its Client Experience Index, an enterprise-level dashboard.
Davidson said she and her 50-person CX team regularly synthesize more than 20 million client feedback data points, using text analytics and AI to uncover actionable insights at scale.
“We see our role in the bank to amplify the voice of the client,” she said. “We operate under a listen, learn and act model.”
To keep everyone engaged on client needs, Davidson said use of its Client Experience Index is also directly tied to compensation at all levels of CIBC.
Combining local observations with focused strategic planning
Sarino said CIBC’s global leadership team stays in touch with what’s happening on the ground through its Adopt A Banking Center Program, which pairs them with a branch to learn in-person or virtually about everyday CX.
While the program provides senior leaders a lot of information, Sarino said it also allows those banking centers to get highly experienced advice on how to address their challenges.
To look at CX on a broader level, CIBC has also set up an ongoing Client Experience Leadership forum where executives talk about emerging trends, celebrate successes and review key takeaways from its Client Experience Index.
“NPS is now considered a business metric and gets talked about in analysts meetings and (executive) meetings,” Davidson said, adding that CIBC’s ongoing CX efforts also incorporate metrics such as referrals, brand consideration and market share – and making changes as a result. “If you’re just chasing a number, you’re going to have bad behaviors, and it’s not fulsome enough.”
Selected sessions from Forrester’s CX North America event are available on demand for registered attendees.
