What 200+ Community Banks Have Taught PrintMail’s Gretchen Renaud
If there’s one thing you learn from working with hundreds of community banks over two decades, it’s that the challenges most banks think are unique to their situation… usually aren’t.
That’s one of the biggest takeaways from our latest episode of Bound by Banking, where we sat down with Gretchen Renaud, VP of Customer Success and Strategic Partnerships at PrintMail. Gretchen has spent nearly 20 years with PrintMail doing everything from running operations, to more recently managing strategic partnerships with core providers and leading customer success across a portfolio of 200+ community banks (600+ over the life of her career).
That kind of vantage point gives her a rare view into what separates banks that thrive during change from those that struggle, and what actually makes a bank-vendor relationship work. Here’s what she shared.
The Digital Opportunity Hiding in Plain Sight
We kicked things off by asking Gretchen what digital banking opportunities banks are leaving on the table. Her answer might surprise you: it’s not some flashy new fintech feature. It’s something much more basic. Like making all customer documents available electronically.
Gretchen pointed out that many banks only present checking account statements electronically through online banking. Loan documents, mortgage paperwork, notices, and tax documents often still exist only on paper. She shared a personal example: after closing on a HELOC, she received a mailed document referencing “additional information needed” and when she called her loan officer, they had no idea what she was talking about because they didn’t have access to the same document.
That’s a frustrating, inconsistent experience for customers and it’s one that’s completely avoidable. Beyond the customer experience piece, there’s a real financial incentive too. With postage pushing toward 70 cents per piece, banks that move eligible documents to electronic delivery can see meaningful cost savings, all while giving customers (especially younger ones who expect self-service) the instant, digital-first experience they’ve come to expect everywhere else.
If your bank hasn’t recently revisited what’s available electronically versus paper-only, it’s worth a look. It might be a legacy decision from 10-15 years ago that nobody’s questioned since.
What Separates Banks That Handle Big Change Well
Next, we asked Gretchen about the major changes at banks. Things like M&A activity, vendor switches, core conversions and other various software updates. What she’s observed separates the banks that navigate it successfully from the ones that struggle.
Her answer centered on core conversions, which she and her team see constantly. PrintMail works with plenty of core providers (especially the big 3) and Gretchen noted that the sheer volume of conversions they help navigate in a single year likely exceeds what any individual banker will experience across an entire career.
The lesson from all that experience is communication. Specifically, communication with every vendor involved, not just the obvious ones. Gretchen emphasized involving vendors early, even ones that don’t seem directly impacted.
When banks treat vendors as true partners instead of “just a compliance checkbox to move past,” those vendors can act as consultants. They can help flag the blind spots that come from having done this dozens of times before. She also pointed out that customer-facing communication about the conversion often gets pushed too close to the go-live date, when it should start much earlier and focus on building excitement about what’s improving for the customer, not just managing the disruption.
Your vendors have likely seen this exact transition many times over. Ask them questions, lean on their experience, and loop them in early. Even the ones you don’t think have a direct stake in the outcome can help you along the way.
What 200+ Banks Have in Common
We asked Gretchen what she’s learned from working with such a large and varied group of banks, and her answer was refreshingly honest: most banks think their challenges are unique, when in reality, another bank or credit union has probably faced the exact same issue and already worked through it with a vendor.
One specific example she shared was about return mail. It’s a persistent operational headache for banks, but PrintMail offers a “secure destruction” service where undeliverable mail is destroyed by the postal service and logged digitally, rather than shipped back to the bank. Compliance concerns often hold banks back from adopting it, but Gretchen can connect hesitant banks with others who’ve already navigated that exact compliance conversation successfully.
That’s the broader point: banks tend to build peer networks within their core provider’s ecosystem (Jack Henry banks talking to other Jack Henry banks, for example), but there’s real value in branching out. Vendors like PrintMail and BankBound work across many different institutions and can make introductions to peer banks facing similar challenges. The type of connections you might not make otherwise.
Gretchen also noted something worth sitting with: technology matters less than communication and customer focus. And culture is a bigger differentiator than most banks realize. She’s seen firsthand how banks with a collaborative, caring culture treat their vendors differently than banks with a “win at all costs” mentality. That culture inevitably shows up in how customers are treated too which can hurt relationships in the long run.
Don’t limit your peer network to your core provider’s user groups. Ask your vendors about challenges they’ve seen elsewhere, because the chances are, they’ve got useful insight.
What Strong Bank-Vendor Relationships Actually Have in Common
Finally, we asked Gretchen the big question: what do banks with genuinely strong vendor relationships have in common?
Her first point was executive-level communication. Most bank-vendor interactions are tactical tickets, quick calls, day-to-day requests and things like that. Gretchen encouraged banks to also carve out time for strategic conversations, ideally with C-level involvement, even if it’s just twice a year. PrintMail calls this an executive business review, where they look 6-12 months ahead at what’s coming for the bank. Sometimes that means the vendor doesn’t need to act immediately, but it lets them plan ahead and start planting ideas now. She mentioned a bank that flagged a potential online banking vendor switch two years in advance, which let PrintMail slot the eventual transition into their roadmap well before it happened.
Her second point was transparency, especially when things go wrong. Mistakes happen on both sides of any vendor relationship. Gretchen’s take: when both sides can be upfront about it, it builds trust instead of resentment and turns a mistake into something you solve together rather than a mark against the relationship.
She closed with a line worth remembering: any great partnership is built on relationship and results. The results have to be there but the relationship is just as important, and it’s often the thing that gets neglected.
Watch the Full Conversation
This only scratches the surface of what Gretchen shared. Watch the full episode of Bound by Banking on our website for the complete conversation, including more detail on secure destruction, peer benchmarking, and building executive-level vendor relationships.