Case Study: Five Star Bank achieves 2.5x higher NPS than industry average with Reward Gateway

Financial services company embraces strategic recognition and new values to drive 2.5x higher NPS than industry average

Five Star Bank, a publicly owned financial services provider in Upstate New York with about 650 associates across 54 offices, was struggling to grow the business, hire the right people and lacked clearly defined values, which led to inconsistent behaviors and difficulty measuring impact. To tackle this, Five Star Bank partnered with Reward Gateway to refine its values and deploy engagement tools, including a strategic recognition program and biannual employee and customer surveys.

Reward Gateway helped the bank translate values into measurable behaviors, implement strategic recognition and run regular surveys supported by leadership coaching; the initiative drove strong adoption (83% of managers and 79% of non-managers active), generated over 11,700 recognition stories and 4,000 published success examples in three years, and improved customer satisfaction (8.40/10) and Net Promoter Score to 46 — 2.5x the industry average — alongside record financial results (net interest income $24.6M, loans +12.3%, deposits +9.7%).

Five Star Bank