I manage the customer retention pathway at Capital One.
I don't set the rates. I manage the migration architecture between them. There are two savings accounts. One pays 0.30%. One pays 4.35%. Same bank. Same dashboard. Same login screen. Different products. We named the difference.
The 0.30% account is called 360 Savings. The 4.35% account is called 360 Performance Savings. The difference between the names is the word "Performance." The difference in yield is fourteen times.
We advertised Performance Savings to new customers. We did not mention it to the 17 million customers already earning 0.30%. Internally, we call them the Passive Portfolio. The name was mine.
That's segmentation.
The migration was one click. One screen. No fee. No paperwork. The pathway existed the entire time. We designed a system where finding it required the customer to already know it existed. The notification system would have cost $2.4 million to build. We spent $3.1 million on the holiday retention campaign. The campaign targeted new customers.
I reported the Passive Retention Rate quarterly. The metric measures how many customers stayed in the 0.30% tier without being told there was another tier. The slide was green every quarter. Green means the customer stayed. Stayed means chose. Chose means informed. Informed means we didn't hide it. We just never mentioned it. Nobody asked what "mentioned" means.
That's product architecture.
A woman called in February. Twenty-two years as a customer. Her granddaughter showed her the 4.35% account on a Saturday. She'd kept $87,000 at 0.30% for six years. The difference was $3,500 a year. She was quiet for eleven seconds. I know because the system logs call silence. She asked me if we knew.
I said we appreciate her loyalty and have updated our product options.
That's segmentation.
The settlement is $425 million. There are 17 million affected customers. That is $25 per customer. The rate difference was roughly $4,200 per year. We kept them at 0.30% for years. We settled for $25. The $25 does not cover what they lost. It covers what we calculated they would accept without filing a complaint. The regulator called it substantial. We called it Reserves. The line item is under Customer Goodwill.
We have updated our notification protocols. The 0.30% account still exists. The 4.35% account is still separate. The migration pathway is now disclosed in the footer of the quarterly statement. Font size 6. Gray on white. The disclosure team tested readability. It is technically readable. The test was whether the text could be read. Not whether anyone would read it.
The customer can find it now.
The customer could always have found it.
That is what the slide will say at the next quarterly review. The slide will be green.
@hxxntrr can i do this with federal and bank student loans? in both cases they traded hands (one wells fargo to firstmark, the other fed govt to aidvantage)
ps. the sauce i get from your twitter is priceless.
my sincere thank you