CUSTOMER Q&A: T-Mobile

How T-Mobile thinks about loyalty in financial services

For T-Mobile, financial services is an opportunity to deepen customer relationships by meeting people in the moments that matter. That starts with understanding unmet customer needs, then designing products that are simple, transparent, and connected to the broader T-Mobile experience.

In this conversation from Plaid Effects, Mitch Cook, Head of Credit Go-to-Market at Plaid, sat down with Tony Joseph, VP of Financial Services at T-Mobile, to discuss how brands can build loyalty through better pricing, stronger value propositions, more intuitive experiences, and a responsible use of AI.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Cook: You’ve built financial products across some of the most recognizable brands in the country. What patterns have proven most durable?

Joseph: For any product you launch, the single most important thing is to identify unmet customer needs. Once you do, you can figure out how to solve them using the company’s assets. Financial services is no different. Customers care about three things: pricing, benefits or rewards, and experience. If any of those are not at par with their expectations, the product will most likely fail.

So begin with customers. Offer the best services, rewards, and experiences by understanding what the company has to offer. And never hide pricing or important terms in fine print. Always be transparent and upfront.

Cook: T-Mobile already has a relationship with tens of millions of customers. How do you turn that into an advantage in financial services?

Joseph: The biggest benefit is distribution. Customers are already interacting with T-Mobile. They trust us with wireless and broadband services, which are integral parts of everyday life.

So the question is: How do you introduce financial services products within the customer’s existing journey with us? That’s where data and AI help. 

No two customers are alike. We know how customers pay, their general credit profile, and what services they buy from us. That helps us understand which product makes sense at which touchpoint. If a customer is buying a phone and has a big down payment, a financial product that reduces out-of-pocket expense and gives incremental rewards makes sense. But an offer for something outside what they’re trying to do can create drop-off. AI helps us harness the power of data and put the right product in front of the customer at the most opportune moment.

Cook: That “opportune moment” is key. How does T-Mobile know when something is actually relevant?

Joseph: At T-Mobile, we built a unique asset called T-Life, our digital app where customers interact with us. As more customer interactions happen digitally, it gives us that opportune moment. If we know a customer lives somewhere our broadband works well, we can think about how to provide a service they want at a cheaper cost. It comes back to pricing, value proposition, and experience. T-Life, along with data and AI, enables us to do that.

Cook: Where does AI actually matter for financial products?

Joseph: The biggest place AI can help is eliminating high-friction moments. Any business has data to see where the maximum drop-offs happen and where the friction points are in the customer journey. AI should help us predict those friction points and offer services and experiences that help customers navigate them.

But financial services are highly regulated. We have to be transparent, use customer data well, and make sure customers understand how we’re using it. A good example is a high-basket purchase. At that moment, a customer may need to split payments across multiple months or get rewarded. AI can help us understand what the customer wants, get a snapshot of their credit profile, and offer the right product at the right moment.

Cook: Across credit, banking, lending, and rewards, what separates products that work from products that don’t?

Joseph: Two things are very important: customer simplicity and financial sustainability.

Customers need to understand what you’re offering and what they’re getting. But the product also has to work financially over the long term. I’ve seen products whose value proposition customers love, but whose economics aren’t sustainable. Eventually the provider has to change the value proposition or increase pricing. That creates a headwind, and customers naturally explore other products. It has to be a win-win. It has to be a win for customers, but it can’t be a loss for the company, because that doesn’t work long term.

Cook: How are you using AI to improve the customer experience before someone even needs help?

Joseph: T-Mobile has millions of customers who interact with and use our services. With a base that wide, there are naturally moments where customers want more, have a question, or have a negative experience we need to solve. We’ve publicly spoken about investing in an AI-enabled customer experience capability. The idea is to understand the problem a customer has and use data to preemptively understand when they may need help—either solving it through a human interaction or using chatbot services to proactively tell the customer.

Cook: Every financial product has a moment where the customer has to commit—move money, fund an account, make a payment. What builds confidence in that moment?

Joseph: That moment is extremely important because financial services are emotional, personal, and often stressful. Three things matter: tell the customer what’s happening, let customers control their experience, and deliver value transparently and instantaneously. Products fail when customers reach the final step and you introduce friction, ambiguous terms, or fine print with hidden costs and fees. Those moments erode trust. And if you create the best value proposition but customers don’t take the final step, then it doesn’t work.

Cook: Customers expect things to happen faster than they used to. What changed?

Joseph: Customers expect the best experience today. AI is a big part of it. Technology is a big part of it. COVID made it so that the experience of financial evolved. Take applying for a credit card. Five years ago, you might have had to wait seven to ten business days for the card to come in the mail, then call a number to activate it. Today, successful credit card products can approve a customer within seconds and instantly provision a digital card at the point of sale. Customers can get value right there.

That’s the power of technology. That’s the power of AI.

Cook: Everyone talks about personalization. What do companies get wrong about it?

Joseph: Personalization is not one solution fits all. No two customers are alike. For one customer, personalization might mean broadband and wireless service. For another, it could be something completely different. AI helps us process high volumes of data and understand the patterns of one customer versus another. As AI becomes more powerful and customers become more digitally active, the number of interaction points may naturally diminish. That makes personalization critical—to be top of mind, meet customers where they are, and add value to the journey.

Cook: How do you build a financial product portfolio without just chasing growth?

Joseph: Each financial services product has different unit economics, so each product has to be designed to be profitable long term on its own. From the customer perspective, it’s all about need. If I only launch a co-branded credit card that requires a FICO score greater than 700, that’s not going to solve the problem for all the customers I have. You have to identify where customers are in their lifecycle and what product works for them at that time. As they improve their credit or become more financially savvy, they may need other products. Graduating customers from one product to another creates that flywheel effect, builds long-term customer lifetime value, and gives value to customers.

Cook: The industry talks about loyalty all the time. What doesn’t it understand?

Joseph: The industry often equates loyalty to churn rate. If you manage churn down, you assume loyalty is good. Actually, it’s the opposite. Churn rate is an output. What you control is the experience, the value, and the service you provide.

Rewards, benefits, service, experience, value—there are multiple vectors that influence customer perception, and that’s loyalty. Loyalty is not whether the customer stays. It’s whether the customer will choose you again.