Resources Success Story

Dollar Bank’s Service-First Transformation with Financial Services Cloud

For more than 170 years, Dollar Bank has built its reputation on delivering a high-touch, relationship-driven service, powered by its people. But as customer expectations evolved, and increasingly moved beyond the branch, the bank saw an opportunity to extend that same level of care into a more connected, digital model.

Rather than simply introducing new technology, Dollar Bank partnered with Atrium to rethink how service is delivered across the organization, without losing what made them successful in the first place. Grounded in a servant-first mindset, the goal was to equip their teams to deliver the same level of care in a more connected, digital experience, using Salesforce Financial Services Cloud (FSC) as the foundation.

Background

Dollar Bank is one of the largest mutual banks in the United States, with over 170 years of history and more than $12 billion in assets. Known for its community focus and relationship-driven model, the bank has long differentiated through high-touch, in-person service.

Technology

Financial Services Cloud

Start with what makes you different

Early in the journey, Dollar Bank made a deliberate choice: anchor the transformation in its core differentiator: service.

That decision reflected a broader shift in how the bank viewed its competitive landscape. Customers were no longer comparing banks to each other, they were comparing every experience to the best service they encountered anywhere.

“Don’t compare yourself only to other banks. Customer expectations are set by the best service experiences anywhere.”

This reframed the role of Salesforce entirely. Financial Services Cloud became not just a CRM, but the platform through which Dollar Bank could deliver its service model consistently, across channels, teams, and interactions.

“

“Don’t compare yourself only to other banks. Customer expectations are set by the best service experiences anywhere.”

Joseph Toth Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer
The Problem

Make change management the transformation

From the beginning, the leadership team recognized that the biggest challenge wouldn’t be technology, it would be change. With a highly tenured workforce and deeply established ways of working, success depended on how the organization experienced the transformation.

Instead of treating change management as a supporting workstream, Dollar Bank made it central to the program:

  • Bringing executives, line-of-business leaders, and operations teams into alignment early
  • Communicating consistently and transparently across the organization
  • Reinforcing a clear set of expectations: measurable, scalable, transparent, and agile
  • Setting the tone that this would be an ongoing journey… not a one-time project

This approach created clarity around what was changing, why it mattered, and how progress would be measured over time.

The Solution

Design with bankers, not for them

Heather Maples brought a critical perspective to the rollout: if the platform didn’t work for the people using it every day, it wouldn’t work at all.

Rather than designing in isolation, the team embedded directly with frontline employees, from the call center to branch teams, to understand workflows, pain points, and real-world customer interactions.

As part of an early four-branch pilot, the team spent time in the branches alongside bankers, observing how service was being delivered and gathering feedback directly from employees. Those insights were then used to refine and improve the experience ahead of the broader rollout.

User Acceptance Testing also became a defining part of the approach. Instead of scripted testing, it functioned as a live environment where employees could engage with real situations and validate whether the system actually improved their work.

This approach reflected a broader philosophy that carried through the entire transformation: the same care Dollar Bank brings to customer experience should also apply to its employees.

By treating bankers as primary users of the experience, not just operators of a system, the team ensured that improvements in workflow, visibility, and usability would naturally extend to the customer experience as well.

“

We’re not just building Salesforce. We’re building a platform that actually works for our bankers. If we don’t set up our bankers to succeed, then we fail.

Heather Maples Vice President, Salesforce Platform Owner
The Impact

Changing how the bank works

As the platform has gone live and continued to evolve, the impact has been both operational and cultural.

Employees are able to resolve customer needs more efficiently, with greater visibility and fewer handoffs. At the same time, the organization is becoming more comfortable with an iterative way of working… testing, learning, and improving over time.

Key outcomes include:

  • Faster and more informed customer interactions
  • Reduced friction across teams
  • Strong employee adoption driven by early involvement
  • Increased confidence in the platform as part of daily work

Perhaps most importantly, Salesforce is no longer seen as a new system—it is becoming part of how the bank operates.

Don’t automate the past, fix it

A consistent theme throughout the transformation was discipline around process. Rather than simply digitizing existing workflows, Dollar Bank used the implementation as an opportunity to rethink how work should happen.

That focus on fundamentals shaped how the team approached everything from process design to data structure to long-term scalability. In practice, that meant:

  • Simplifying service processes before building them into the system
  • Rethinking handoffs and ownership across teams
  • Aligning on data structures and security decisions early
  • Avoiding the temptation to move faster at the expense of long-term clarity

This focus ensured that Financial Services Cloud became a platform for better operations, not just a digital version of existing complexity.

A foundation built on Financial Services Cloud

Financial Services Cloud now serves as the core platform for how Dollar Bank manages customer interactions.

It brings together service activity, customer context, and workflow into a single system, giving employees the visibility they need to serve customers more effectively.

Just as importantly, it establishes a foundation that can extend across the organization:

  • Supporting a more complete view of the customer
  • Enabling expansion into sales and relationship management
  • Creating consistency across lines of business
What’s Next

Expanding AI and business activation

With a strong service-first foundation in place, Dollar Bank is continuing to expand its use of Salesforce.

The next phase includes extending capabilities into additional areas of the business, introducing sales and relationship management, and continuing to refine the customer experience through automation and self-service.

The approach remains consistent: move thoughtfully, involve the right people, and build on what works.

Ready to build a modern data foundation?

Learn how Atrium helps organizations turn Financial Services Cloud into a platform for visibility, speed, and AI-driven growth.

Learn More