Explore how Huntington Bank adopted a new customer-oriented approach.

What if a bank were like a close friend, with advice and suggestions you could trust? The leaders at Huntington, an Ohio-based regional bank with $56 billion in assets, want to have that kind of close relationship with their customers. That goal is driving them to make Huntington a customer company — to recognize all of the customers’ needs, offer relevant ideas and products, and provide industry-leading service to the company’s commercial, small business, and consumer customers.

The first step was to bring together customer data for 16 business segments. Previously, that information was fragmented in multiple CRM systems, resulting in inconsistent processes and customer experiences, as well as additional licensing, training, and maintenance costs. So management decided to move to Salesforce for safe, secure cloud applications and nimble compliance with constantly changing government regulations.

Huntington’s data is now consolidated on a single platform, and more than 8,000 employees, from branch tellers to wealth managers, can see a unified customer view. “Our colleagues’ view of the customer relationship is better than it ever has been. Having this information available to use in tandem with the sales tools that we’ve built in Salesforce has helped us not only recognize opportunities to help our customers immediately, but also to better plan their life journey,” said Jim Baron, EVP and Director of Retail Sales and Service. Huntington has customized and integrated Salesforce to make it easier to refer a customer between divisions to cross-sell services, such as automobile financing and other personal loans, insurance, or mortgages, and has engaged the campaign’s functionality to more closely manage these efforts.

Sales are also helped by Data.com, which delivers information to 300 business and commercial bankers right in Salesforce to help them find new customers as well as enrich their existing customer records. Highly targeted business data also helps the bank fuel email and direct-mail marketing campaigns.

Employee adoption of Salesforce has been high, bringing together 16 separate banking segments, while significantly reducing IT costs and time to deliver new functionality. Huntington has seen considerable improvements in cross-selling, customer interactions, and acquisition. “Salesforce helps us deepen our customer relationships while giving us a flexible and adaptive environment that can be easily tuned,” said Baron.