Award-winning service and effective financial advice

Pinnacle associates showed that they are living out the company’s expanded vision to be the best financial services firm in the Southeast. Through independent third-party research and our own client satisfaction surveys, we have statistical proof that we excel in meeting clients’ needs and creating an experience they just can’t get at other financial services firms.

Awards from Greenwich Associates

Pinnacle smashed our own record by earning Greenwich Excellence Awards in 30 categories. Only one bank in the entire country won more, and no bank in the Southeast even came close. The increase over last year’s total of eight is due to the fact that, for the first time, we were eligible in every category. Awards like these validate what we’ve known for years: our distinctive service is among the best in the country.

Greenwich Associates is the foremost provider of market research for commercial banks. Earlier in the year, they honored Pinnacle with four Greenwich Best Brand Awards for Ease of Doing Business and Trust in small business and middle market banking. The awards are evidence of the confidence clients have in our bank and of the competitive distinction we hold over the large regionals with whom we compete in every market.

High Scores on Client Satisfaction Surveys

We view awards from independent third parties as a validating measure of success. But continuous improvement comes from data we collect directly from clients. For our annual survey of clients with high-value relationships, we are thrilled to report that 94.7 percent of respondents agree that “Pinnacle is recognizably better than its competition.” Among clients who opened new accounts, 98.9 percent called us better than our competitors. We relaunched a transaction survey in 2017, and 98.8 percent of the respondents said their experience in our office made them look forward to coming back.

Key Strategies for Engaging Our Clients

The results of our client satisfaction surveys confirm that we’re on the right track with the business strategies we’ve pursued since the firm’s founding:

1. Focus primarily on businesses, their owners and employees, as well as consumers who desire more from their banking relationship than just the best price.
2. Hire and retain highly experienced and qualified financial services professionals.
3. Provide distinctive service, effective advice and extraordinary convenience in exchange for premium pricing.

Making life easier for businesses

Strategy 1: Focus primarily on businesses, their owners and employees, as well as consumers who desire more from their banking relationship than just the best price.

Pinnacle’s pursuit of deep relationships with business owners and their employees has extended its reach into the Carolinas and Virginia, where associates are building their commercial banking capabilities while also integrating the entire line of Pinnacle offerings into their portfolios.

Many of Pinnacle’s business financial advisors have expertise across industry sectors, key business functions and market segments. Specialized teams in areas like merchant services, commercial credit cards and even capital markets ensure broad offerings that are able to meet all of the client’s needs.

Throughout our history, Pinnacle has ranked consistently at or near the top in its markets for “ease of doing business” and “values long-term relationships” in Greenwich Associates’ survey of business owners.

Once again we were far and away the No. 1 small business lender in Middle Tennessee, according to the Nashville Business Journal, with our nearest competitor tallying less than half our total loan amount and a third the number of loans. Pinnacle also strengthened our capabilities in Small Business Administration lending with the addition of a dedicated SBA team in the Carolinas. We earned Preferred Lender Status from the SBA, a designation that streamlines the lending process with more independent controls.

Meeting all needs includes commercial real estate, whether for owner occupied use or investment purposes. Pinnacle continues to be a local leader in CRE lending in Nashville and Memphis and also has built a strong mortgage banking team for selling CRE loans on the permanent market. We expect our CRE lending practice in the Carolinas and Virginia to grow at the rapid pace it experienced under BNC.

Business owners and their employees also have personal financial needs. Our financial advisors work with individuals and families on how best to achieve their goals with the variety of accounts and products we offer.

Ongoing partnerships with the Tennessee Titans and Memphis Grizzlies continue to be big draws in personal finance. Football fans can get branded Titans Banking accounts that come with benefits like invitations to team events, team gear and game tickets. Basketball fans get the same treatment through Grizzlies Banking, with a line of credit card offerings, too.

Our team of mortgage advisors are experts in the market and can guide clients through the process with ease.

For those with more complex financial needs, our team of wealth managers can design solutions to meet their goals. We offer investment management and trust administration through teams like Pinnacle Asset Management, affiliated with Raymond James Financial Services; Pinnacle Wealth Advisors, our wholly-owned registered investment advisory; and Trust, which grew significantly in size with the addition of new team members in North Carolina.

Attracting and retaining the best

Strategy 2: Hire and retain highly experienced and qualified financial services professionals.

Our competitive distinction is our people. Pinnacle financial advisors bring a wide variety of backgrounds and areas of expertise. Their connections and key leadership positions in the communities we serve lead to more interactions with clients and prospects and word-of-mouth referrals.

That’s why we set out to find and attract the best, most qualified professionals in our markets. Only highly experienced associates can give the level of service that our clients deserve, the kind that leads to loyalty and referrals. No amount of advertising or mass marketing could replicate the results we get from that investment.

This year, Pinnacle added hundreds of new advisors to its ranks through the acquisition made in the Carolinas and Virginia. Inclusive of those new associates, Pinnacle’s financial advisors have deep roots and a track record of success in the markets they serve. With an average of 22 years of experience, clients know they will never be in the hands of a trainee. And with our retention rate of 91.5 percent, they can expect long-term relationships with their partners.

Pinnacle’s reputation as a world-class financial services firm and great place to work continued to draw new financial advisors into the fold. In 2017, we brought a record 77 new client-facing advisors on board, including 27 in the Carolinas and Virginia. That is nearly unheard of for banks in the process of merging.

In Tennessee, high-profile new hires included the lift-out of the Oakley Group, a six-member investment management team with $700 million under management, and a market president from a competing C&I firm who came to Pinnacle to get back to his roots as a banker.

Our financial advisors are always willing to share their insights with those who are interested in taking their businesses to the next level. As Tennessee-based associates have done for years, our newest financial advisors in the Carolinas and Virginia have begun to host their own Mastermind groups—small groups of business owners who meet in one of our offices once a week for eight consecutive weeks exploring ways to grow their businesses.

A personal experience that’s unparalleled

Strategy 3: Provide distinctive service, effective advice and extraordinary convenience in exchange for premium pricing.

Our brand promise is to deliver distinctive service and effective advice. Add them together with extraordinary convenience, and you have a combination that can’t be beat.

Distinctive Service

The secret to distinctive service isn’t complicated. Giving a personal touch at every opportunity can turn a prospect into a new client and a new client into a lifelong Pinnacle advocate. Our personal touches include answering the phone with a live person, sending customized proposals instead of one-size-fits-all brochures and WOW-ing clients and neighbors with extra kindness when they need it.

As evidence of how personal service leads to loyalty, Pinnacle is No. 1 in all of our legacy Tennessee markets for net promoter score — with zero detractors recorded in any of the four. This score measures our clients’ willingness to recommend Pinnacle to their friends and colleagues, and by any standard our scores are exceptional.

Effective Advice

We feel so strongly about our core value of learning that we provide educational opportunities to anyone who is interested. Associates and outside experts offer insights into a variety of topics at free workshops that take place in Pinnacle’s offices.

Giving clients access to well-known economic, political and financial experts builds on the effective advice our own advisors provide. The 2017 Pinnacle Forum Series brought in leading outside speakers like U.S. Senator Bob Corker, nationally renowned economist Art Laffer, presidential historian Jon Meacham, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam and even musician Ben Folds.

We also enhanced our Pinnacle Pro business learning initiative with Lipscomb University to include interactive, online live events so clients can speak directly with topic experts and thought leaders in specific areas of running their business.

Extraordinary Convenience

Pinnacle is the second-largest bank holding company headquartered in Tennessee with 114 offices in 11 primarily urban markets across four states.

Because it’s not always easy to find time to come to an office, Pinnacle offers mobile banking applications that let clients check their balances, transfer funds and deposit checks on the go. With these digital capabilities and our remote deposit service for businesses, clients can bank with Pinnacle virtually anytime, anywhere.

Sometimes convenience goes beyond banking. At our Wolf River office in Memphis, we were the first bank in the state to lease half of our square footage to Starbucks for a full-service café. Clients now enjoy expanded hours and the opportunity to grab breakfast, lunch or a cup of coffee with their favorite advisor when they come into the bank. And Starbucks customers can see what makes Pinnacle unlike any other bank in the market.