Regions Bank uses video to focus on outstanding team members

January 12, 2014

tags: 2014 BBA yearlong blogging challenge, award, Better Life Award, branding, customer service, Lee Ann Petty, Regions Bank, values, video, YouTube

by Wade Kwon

Video: Lee Ann Petty wins Regions Bank
Better Life Award for January 2014.

It’s OK to toot your own horn occasionally. It’s even better to show off your best feature, your people.

I recently saw that Birmingham’s Lee Ann Petty won an award from her employer, Regions Bank. The monthly Better Life Award recognizes an associate who contributes to others in the workplace and in the community.

(A few years ago, she and I served on the YP Roundtable, a loose affiliation of nonprofit representatives.)

Often, such recognition is limited to internal gestures: a certificate, an email announcement, a plaque. Regions went a step further by producing videos that interview the honorees and their colleagues. The bank also donates $1,000 to the winner’s designated cause, such as Lee Ann’s favorite, the Red Mountain Theatre Company.

This award puts a high value on customer service, as well as community service. While Lee Ann, a paralegal team lead, doesn’t work with customers at branches, she does assist associates on legal matters that affect them and the corporation.

I learned while working at a publication to treat everyone like customers: associates, supervisors, vendors and so on. Work hard at providing the best customer service to everyone. That means being polite, listening to concerns and solving problems.

(It can also mean setting boundaries. Sometimes, customers can overstep their bounds, but that doesn’t mean each one deserves the royal treatment.)

What Regions has done by sharing these awards through short videos is enhance its story. Many banks recognize employees. But Regions shows its values in action through its people and its rewarding of those standouts.

It becomes less about the bank proper and more about Lee Ann’s excellent works.

Make sure your company both rewards outstanding people and praises them as loudly as possible. It enhances your brand and shows who really is behind it.