Customers Bank was selected as the winner of the highly coveted 2020 Best Example of Making an Impact on Business Award presented by Everbridge, an organization focused on life-saving efforts through its global Critical Event Management (CEM) platform. The largest global emergency of 2020 was the outbreak and ensuing pandemic created by the novel coronavirus.
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David Meredith, Chief Executive Officer of Everbridge stated “We are honored to recognize the individuals and teams taking an innovative approach to critical event management in a year rocked by an unprecedented series of crises. Customers Bank stood out this year through their commitment to life safety, operational resilience and business continuity.”
The judges reviewed hundreds of nominations from around the world to select the winners of 17 awards, consisting of individual and organizational categories. Customers Bank was selected as the winner of the award because the judges recognized the efforts of the Corporate Security Group and the organization’s culture of preparedness that included tabletop business continuity exercises, something many companies neglect.
In the fall of 2019, the executive leadership team conducted a business continuity scenario focused on an Ebola outbreak and what would happen if the senior leadership team was impacted. This exercise empowered Customers Bank to rapidly implement a program at the onset of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) enabling the bank and its security infrastructure to avoid any interruption in services resulting from the pandemic. As part of the program, the bank quickly communicated directly with clients and team members to ensure everyone’s health and safety were protected while informing them of the switch in operations to appointment-only services in all the branches.
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This forward-thinking, strategic planning enabled Customers Bank to have the policies and procedures in place to conduct emergency communications through voice, email and social media channels to keep customers and team members informed about any changes to protect everyone’s health and ensure that customers did not experience any interruption in service or access to their finances. As part of this initiative, the regional managers made direct voice contact with clients that had scheduled appointments in the near future.
“In times of unease and uncertainty, there is no such thing as over-communicating with customers and team members,” stated Richard Ehst, President and Chief Executive Officer of Customers Bank. “This level of planning may seem excessive to other organizations, but the senior leadership team takes our responsibility to protect our customers, their finances and the health of everyone involved very seriously. I cannot express how proud the management team is of our team members’ ability to adapt to the constant changes and their capability to continue to go above and beyond client expectations.”
Previous winners of the Best Example of Making an Impact on Business Award have been organizations focused on natural disasters including forest fires, mudslides, earthquakes and more.
