Customer Service in European retail banking
Customer service in European retail banking Insight report 2016
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Customer Service in European retail banking
CONTENT
Foreword
Page 3
Customer service in European retail banking
Page 4
Customer satisfaction
Page 5
Service challenges
Page 7
Customer loyalty & technology
Page 10
Conclusion
Page 13
About MyCustomer
Page 14
About SugarCRM
Page 15
Customer Service in European retail banking
Foreword Customers have seized control of how they are ‘sold to’. Partly because of the wide variety of suppliers and partly due to the large number of information sources and communication methods at their disposal. This has the effect that marketing, sales and support techniques that used to work now fall flat. By the time the message reaches the potential customer, a decision has likely already been made, and perhaps for a competitor’s product. In order to position themselves competitively, financial services organisations need to rethink the ‘customer experience’ – in particular when it actually starts and stops. The single most important step in this rethinking is to take the customer’s perspective, that is, to look at one’s business, from the outside in, as one’s customer does. Taking your customer’s perspective is a rigorous exercise that should cover all the phases of an individual’s decision-making process and (at least) acknowledge all the touchpoints – or points of contact, whether directly or indirectly connected to you – that can be used to gather information in pursuit of that decision. But those who make the effort may discover surprising new customer segments and business processes.
In the age of digital communication, it’s crucial to have a foundation for viewing your business from the customer’s perspective, in order to develop effective and modern communication strategies that identify those important touchpoints of choice while at times choreographing them to even more appropriate touchpoints and ways of interacting. What is most important is that this new orientation can help you establish more relevant ways of measuring not only customer experience but customer delight. Know me, know where I have been, know what I want, know how I wish to interact with you - all of these key customeroriented concepts lend themselves to using data from your touchpoints in other ways to not only better measure but to actually predict and, if necessary, guide (and at times pre-empt) what you can do for your customer.
Phil Winters Author, Thought Leader, Father of Customer Intelligence
www.ciagenda.com
And that is especially true in retail banking, where the ways customers want to interact along with their expectations, are forcing a total rethink of how we “do business”. This special report helps to clarify many of the aspects involved in that understanding and it confirms and extends my own research and findings.
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Customer Service in European retail banking
Customer service in European retail banking
Customer service has become the most important factor for European retail banks. Across Europe, customers now expect their financial institutions to offer a personalised service, meet their evolving needs quickly and efficiently, and deliver outstanding customer service. With new players such as fintech companies entering the banking scene, the European financial industry has awoken to the importance of customer service as the key competitive differentiator. Whilst many people still consider it a hassle to uproot their accounts and change financial institutions when faced with poor service, it’s not an insurmountable task. In the UK, for instance, within the first nine days of the Vickers Accounting Switching Legislation coming into force – which provides consumers with a quicker and simpler way to switch their accounts from one bank to another – over 35,000 consumers switched their current account to a different bank (source: Payments Council, Press Release, 26 Sept 2013).
As customers gain control of their banking relationships, multi-banking has become a growing trend. Not only are customers less loyal to their main bank, they are increasing the number of banks they use. Consumer power is strong and choices are varied. The reputation of banks is on the line as social media enables better transparency where customers are able to share experiences with each other on a global scale. Consumers now move freely among channels, often turning to multiple channels throughout the journey. Data gathered from each touchpoint needs to be integrated fully into the bank’s CRM system. This is particularly important for European retail banks, where customers are accessing a mix of financial products across a variety of jurisdictions. For instance, a potential customer may first learn of a banking product through social media, research it on a mobile device, call a call centre representative to get more information, visit a branch to purchase the product, and use a laptop and the internet to conduct transactions.
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Customer Service in European retail banking
As such, understanding the customer journey is essential and banks are increasingly undertaking journey mapping exercises to determine from where customers are sourcing information. Banks who use this information in their CRM systems can radically compress the consideration and evaluation phases – and in some cases even eliminate them – taking the customer straight from the purchase process and catapulting them immediately to the satisfaction and loyalty phases of the relationship.
Customers are least satisfied (37%) with the understanding that banks have of their needs and preferences, and only 43% are satisfied with the intimacy of their bank interactions. Delivery channels also presented room for improvement, with only 43% of customers citing that they were satisfied with their bank’s ability to offer the right products through with the consistency of the multichannel experience.
Customer satisfaction
“Many banking products are undifferentiated commodities. This means that retail banks are constantly looking for ways to set themselves apart from the competition to help them win and retain customers, and improve the bottom line,” says Vijay Amliwala, a financial markets CRM consultant. “As more customers begin to view all banks as the same and make their product selections based solely on the best price, one method that retail banks can employ to differentiate themselves is to optimise their customer service.”
With customer satisfaction underpinning customer service, banks must look deeply into the drivers of satisfaction and loyalty amongst their customers. Dealing with customer expectations, needs, emotions, perceived value and reactions to the organisation will give the bank a good insight into what it needs to do to generate customer satisfaction. In areas critical to relationship-building such as ‘trust and confidence’, ‘consistent multichannel experience’, ‘intimacy and relationship building’, ‘product-channel fit’, and ‘knowledge of customer’, Efma research has identified that less than 50% of customers say they are satisfied. Trust and confidence is the only criteria that customers ranked above the 50% mark, and they did so only by a slim margin (51%).
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Customer satisfaction is a sore point for the industry.
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“European retail banks are getting better at improving customer service,” adds Julian Rice, head of marketing at DST Systems. “But many are still hindered by legacy platforms and they need to transfer their businesses over to a unified multichannel system that makes the customer
61.4%
Percentage of Czech Republic banking customers reporting high satisfaction Cpercent
Source: Statista 2015
experience simple and which can support the digitalisation and automation of processes. As with most industries, some firms are more ahead of this than others. As consumers are now used to, and expect, digital propositions (from Amazon to Uber), the need for banks to create compelling engagement propositions has become more pressing.” “Customer satisfaction is a sore point for the industry, hence the proliferation of small boutique and medium sized banks who are able to compete on a regional level with the echelon of larger international banking groups,” explains Paul Rowland, senior partner at Invictus Risk Solutions LLP. Across Europe, customer satisfaction statistics vary greatly. German statistics company, Statista found that approximately 61.4% of bank customers in the Czech Republic reported high levels of satisfaction, ranking the country highest among European banking locations in 2015. This was followed by Austria, with 59.9% of bank customers
reporting a positive experience throughout the year. At the other end of the spectrum, only 42.8% of customers of Norwegian retail banks reported having a positive experience last year. Although, in general, European banks have seen their customer satisfaction scores fall, according to research by the Institute of Customer Service (ICS), the UK has the highest customer satisfaction rates in Europe. The Institute’s European Customer Satisfaction Index scores the UK an overall customer satisfaction rating of 76.1 – three points higher than its closest rival, Germany (73.1%). However, another key finding in the ICS Index highlights that whilst banks do ‘get it right first time’ more often than organisations in other sectors, when things do go wrong they are not adept at dealing with the problem - with consumers citing poor complaint handling as the key reason behind their frustration. Just 21% of consumers say their complaints ‘are dealt with immediately’ and only 13% said the member of staff they spoke to ‘took responsibility’ for resolving the issue. This has resulted in satisfaction scores falling by almost half a point in 2016, to 78 (out of 100), after reporting steady increases since 2009.
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Customer Service in European retail banking
The data shows that where frustrations exist, the most common cause for complaint revolves around staff competence and engagement. Just 35% said staff apologised for errors and only 28% believed that staff listened carefully to their problem. “It is increasingly apparent that a clear link exists between engaged employees and customer satisfaction,” comments Jo Causon, CEO of The ICS. “One cannot exist without the other, so to really drive this, a culture of service must be apparent at all levels in an organisation, but it must start at the top. Customers are more concerned today about staff attitudes and behaviour than they were even five years ago. The responsibility of leaders to continually promote, support and develop employees’ service skills is key. But to succeed, they should not limit their attention to the ‘customer service department’. In today’s world, every part of a business has to be customerfacing and unless leaders adopt the mantra that customer service is everyone’s business, they risk dissatisfaction levels growing.” Mike Greatwood, employee engagement expert and founder of The Dream Manager Programme Europe, and former FTSE100 MD, agrees. “It’s important to take a whole life and whole person approach to employee engagement because when a person is engaged in their own life, they become more engaged at work. You can’t get a person engaged
“Just 35% said staff apologised for errors and only 28% believed that staff listened carefully to their problem.” Jo Causon, CEO The Institute of Customer Service
regardless of the different channels they might use and the brand experience they get needs to be consistently good to ensure customers have a positive moment of truth. Lifestyle changes and high branch overheads have made the call centre an important customer touchpoint and one that has historically suffered the most from the impact of poor employee engagement which has had a direct impact on the service delivered to customers,” continues Greatwood.
in work, if they aren’t engaged in their own life first! Until you do that every other engagement initiative is pointless. By genuinely putting employees first or put it another way, by letting your people be people, you unlock so much more. From an organisational perspective, when you do that, you, the employer gets the benefits of improved productivity, increased discretionary effort and reduced levels of attrition.”
“The biggest cost in any contact centre is the staff, and high levels of staff attrition can cost a bank in lost productivity, brain drain, training and recruitment overheads. Yet in many organisations, high attrition and poor engagement are just part of the call centre culture. Research into call centre worker engagement within the financial services industry shows the big impact that high engagement has on overall customer satisfaction.
“With employee engagement starting to become a fundamental part of customer service, banks need to address how they are adopting technology, processes, and culture change to empower staff to deliver a better service to customers. Banks need bigger, local contact centres with staff who are invested in, paid better, and trained well so that they deliver a greater level of customer service,” says Rice.
“For every 1% increase to employee satisfaction, there is a 0.53% increase to customer satisfaction. Banks can learn from this and start to rethink their understanding of what an effective employee engagement programme needs to offer and why. Staff are people and people only get engaged when they believe an organisation genuinely cares about them as individuals and puts them first.”
“Customers using a bank see one organisation,
Rowland agrees. “Customer service teams are
being tasked to create and sustain campaigns singularly focused upon speed of access to data relating to customer buyer habits, quick communication through personal customer and generic social media channels. Recruit and retain the very best digital talent that it can afford.”
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Banks need to talk about the customer more.
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European banks need to address this issue quickly or risk losing market share. “Banks need to talk about the customer more, ” notes Rice. “It is important to put the customer at the heart of everything they do. When there is a problem, the families of staff are the first ones to say ‘why did your bank do that?’ It’s that personal accountability that needs to run through everything.”
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Customer Service in European retail banking
Fig 1 - A snapshot of Customer satisfaction across Europe Source: The Institute of Customer Service
Customer Satisfaction by country
Best performing sectors across Europe
Scores out of 100
Scores out of 100
80 76.1 73.1
73.0
72.4
71.4
71.3 69.0
70
75.6
74.3
Retail (food)
68.2
72.7
Insurance
Banking
Service challenges
68.0
Utilities
TV & Media
in
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en
nd
ly
a Sp
Fr
a It
la Po
ed Sw s nd
y an
a rl he
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Customer Satisfaction by unemployment Rates
High levels of customer satisfaction relate to higher GDP
120
Less satisfied
131
124
123
109
96 68
60
10
11.7 5.0
4.3
6.5
7.0
10.2
6.8
0 in
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a Sp
Fr
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er
K
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er
“It comes down to basic CRM. Banks may have good CRM practices within each silo or area, but what they don’t have is CRM overlapping holistically across the firm, ” explains Amliwala. “As the bank’s IT department struggles to overcome the problem of legacy systems they are trying to emulate a good customer experience through brick wall IT solutions by dropping customer journey experience into their CRM platform – but it is disjointed and uncontrolled.”
20.4
20
et N
91
Less satisfied
G
90
107
More satisfied
U
GDP / head
More satisfied
Unemployment rates
High levels of customer satisfaction lower unemployment
G
These two factors are inevitably leading to some erosion in customer satisfaction. “Customers are left feeling that the banking service is available everywhere but that it’s not very good when there’s a real problem. It’s fine for every day requirements but when trouble really strikes and senior input is required, the service falls down,” says Findlay-Wilson.
68.9
Transport
Customer Satisfaction by GDP/head
K
Customers also expect the services to feel joined up. All of this is incredibly difficult for banks to deliver, and it isn’t cheap to do either. As a result, the customer service personnel available answering phones at, say, midnight will obviously have limited authority and discretion. To make such delivery affordable, the ‘in branch’ experience is changing too, with branches closing or operating with fewer staff.”
er
Louise Findlay-Wilson, digital marketing strategist and managing director of Energy PR adds: “Customers now need to be served across so many channels – online, on social media, on the phone and in branch. The internet has bred a customer expectation that service is available 24/7 and that no matter how the customer chooses to interact with the bank, the customer expects the experience to be equally good.
et N
G
”
At the moment, this is being cobbled together from a range of silos which have been stitched together to try to emulate a customer experience. The side effect is that these silos are not talking to each other. So you are going to get experiences of dissatisfaction. For example, I got a mortgage and the customer experience was great. But then
71.0
U
“
The challenge for European retail banks lies in providing holistic customer satisfaction.
60 K
Already they are detaching customer segments from incumbents, hindering banks’ ability to cross-sell, stranding loss-leader businesses like basic lending, and transferring the ownership of vital customer data with its vast potential for new businesses. Even where they do not succeed in poaching customers, across Europe non-banks are forcing banks to lower their prices, reducing already thin margins.
I wanted home insurance and the experience was awful, ” says Vijay Amliwala.
U
The challenges facing the European banking sector as a whole are significant. The issues of regulatory intensity, cost excesses and troubled assets are serious – and the required restructuring path for the industry remains a complex one. Fintechs pose a particularly strong threat – they are highly focused companies that continually improve their technology to deliver a more appealing and lowercost experience to customers.
As barriers to integration erode, large pan-European banks are expected to compete with medium-sized and local banks, as well as niche specialists. Over the past few years, retail banks have expanded across borders, established subsidiaries and branches abroad, acquired foreign banks and pursued merger and acquisition deals. This has all had an impact on customer service.
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Customer Service in European retail banking
with their products via a channel of their choice whether it is in the bank branch, on their computer or on their smartphone – which means they also want access at any time of the day regardless of branch opening hours or location, ” explains Rice.
Charles Purdy, CEO at Smart Currency Group, explains: “Retail banks and many financial services companies generally are struggling with financial regulation from multiple jurisdictions, along with the constant battle with data to get a clear view of their customers, what they want and need. This makes up a series of challenges, across personnel, IT, marketing and communications, in order to provide customer service teams – front of house and on the phones – that are fit for purpose.” “Customers are no longer content to have separate access to all the different products they might hold with a bank. Instead, they want a single view across the products they hold across jurisdictions, which might include current accounts, savings accounts, investments, mortgages, insurance policies, etc. In addition, customers also want to interact
“For retail banks to provide this service they will need to create an all channel, 24/7 service that offers an integrated service/customer experience – with customers being able to move seamlessly between service channels. To do this, banks need to transform their business processes to become channel agnostic; so that all processes can operate across all different services.” “How quickly the retail bank can implement and bring to maturity their digital offering to meet the demands of their increasingly techno skilled customers is a challenge. It is clear that the availability and engagement of branded apps for smartphones as the core gateway to a wide suite of online banking services has secured for the banks a secure starting position from which to develop further,” says Rowland. “If this challenge is not met, the use of secure online methods of payment such as PayPal will continue to eat away at the retail bank’s ability to control the daily transactions of their customers.” “A key challenge is being able to service customers’ ever-evolving needs effectively: responding to queries
in a timely manner; being open and available to help at the right times; and being able to take action - for example, transferring money, whenever the customer wants. Many consumers are moving away from the traditional banking model and choosing online providers or alternative financial services, such as currency brokers or online payment systems like PayPal/ApplePay. Customers are looking for specialist and niche providers that meet their specific needs, rather than the traditional set up of doing everything through the local bank. ” adds Purdy. “It is about putting the customer journey into a bank’s customer experience business strategy. ” says Amliwala. “Someone needs to be put in charge to drive this forward within the organisation, rather than it haphazardly going on in each division, but not giving that holistic service to clients from a firm and brand perspective. These are the challenges that all banks face.”
Attrition – to have and to hold The link between positive service and customer retention runs deep. New apps and online services are beginning to break the heavy gravitational pull banks exert on their customers. Fintechs and challenger banks are not asking customers to transfer all their financial business at once; rather, they are asking for just a slice at a time. With customer service so important to retention, banks must strive to
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Customer Service in European retail banking
Increases customer satisfaction
+
Mobility
Accessing products and services easily
Personal pitch
Personal banker understands customer needs and gives advice
Accessable info Account information and history easily available
Convenience Multiple options available to find help/support
Relationship
Opening new account is fast and simple based on excisting relationship
Speed & gratitude Feedback is collected, gratitude expressed and request quickly processed
make those experiences as positive as possible. Surveys across Europe vary greatly but, on average, approximately a third of respondents attributed their decision to change banks to service levels, while just over a quarter blamed the price of products. Most worryingly, perhaps, a quarter of those customers planning to change their main bank say that they were doing so because of a lack of trust. Unfortunately for the banking industry, this still seems a continuing pattern, and European banks must work hard to meet the challenges of restoring public confidence and retaining customers.
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As older customers become more comfortable using their smartphones, they will gravitate toward functional, elegant, easy-touse apps and web services.
”
The move from offline to online contact impacts on personal contact right across the financial services spectrum. Customers expect to be able to manage their accounts, investments and policies online and yet still expect fast and immediate answers to questions. If the only option is to switch channels and pick up the phone or send an email, customers will get frustrated. “Banks that continue to make customers go
Learn
Decreases customer satisfaction
Web channel Website is difficult to navigate and language used complex/confusing
Open account/ service
User tools
Prospect cannot determine best account given the needs/circumstances
Use account/ service
Forms
Forms are complicated and long, leading to lag time in processing
Get issues resolved
Transactions Processing is long/ cumbersome , processes require manual intervention
through multiple systems simultaneously are seeing satisfaction levels drop. ” says Rice. “We have started to see an increase in customers moving accounts to providers that do offer the experience and service engagement they want.”
“at risk” customers or not having the capabilities to do anything to recover them. Using CRM-driven techniques helps banks to retain customers who can be migrated from mere “account holders” into loyal, long-term, profitable customers.”
Once customers are dissatisfied with their banks, they are more inclined to shop around. “Banks that only pay attention to satisfaction may overestimate a customer’s likelihood to stay, ” explains Amliwala. “Only by zeroing in on customer experience can they gain greater insight into customer intentions. The ability to identify an “at-risk” customer represents a major opportunity for additional revenue. However, the greatest danger for banks is either not identifying
At the moment, the industry faces a double-barrelled demographic challenge. Millennials, the children of the digital age, are the next wave of banking customers. Older customers, the industry’s bread and butter, are becoming more comfortable with digital. People aged 45 to 65 are the fastest growing group of smartphone users. As older customers become more comfortable using their smartphones, they will gravitate toward functional, elegant, easy-touse apps and web services.
Add account/ service
Communication
Customers are contacted by multiple resources
Close acccount
Data capture Communication is generic and reactive
Illustrative end to end experience in banking Source: Deloittes
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Customer Service in European retail banking
Customer loyalty
Technology
The power of customer satisfaction is clear and compelling: it leads to more profitable growth. ICS research reveals that European countries demonstrate generally lower satisfaction and loyalty levels than clients of banks in Western Europe. Although it seems that the UK leads the way when it comes to how satisfied its banking customers are, the data highlights building customer trust as an area for improvement. At first glance, with 89% of the most satisfied customers scoring organisations a 9 or 10 out of 10 for trust, the signs are positive. However, the UK average is lower than that across the EU (95%) meaning that UK banks have to work harder to secure customer trust – and with trust, comes loyalty.
Loyal customers stay longer with banks that treat them well. Customers who experience good customer service are more than twice as likely to refer a bank’s services, which can make a big impact on newcustomer recruitment. In research, positive word of mouth from a friend, colleague or family member is often cited as the principal reason why a particular bank was selected. This shows that while the big retail banks invested heavily in their branch footprint and in marketing to bring in new customers, the loyalty leaders have their customers selling for them.
“Innovations in technology, challenger banks and industry disrupters are having a remarkable effect on customer behaviour, ” says Purdy. “The need to be able to cater for millennials – who will shop around for the right service to suit their needs, at the right price, rather than just do everything in one place, and are vocal about their opinions and experiences on social media – represents a multitude of communication, customer service and business challenges.”
Historically, banks across Europe have relied largely on customer inertia to protect their customer base from being eroded by competitors. But with customers becoming increasingly demanding, better informed, less loyal and more willing to use remote and electronic channels, the protection afforded by inertia is being eroded.
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“Historically, banks across Europe have relied largely on customer inertia to protect their customer base from being eroded by competitors.”
UK banks have to work harder to secure customer trust.
”
Rowland says: “Money is king and customer loyalty is determined by the volatile trading environment and the speed of modern life in which customers operate. There are significant commercial pressures being brought to bear upon customer loyalty by the nature of the client base which is increasingly young, upwardly mobile, intolerant of dullness, cash rich and acutely desirous of service accessibility and
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Customer Service in European retail banking
product attractiveness. If any of these issues are not constantly met, banks will find their client bases shifting away.”
is integral to improved customer insight, better targeting, increased customer satisfaction, and improved customer service.
“With customers spreading their loyalties, the industry is facing both opportunities and threats, ” adds Amliwala. “It is important for the banks to not only develop new strategies to target dissatisfied customers, but also to focus on strong relationships and loyalty as a long-term source of income. There is an opportunity to identify the most loyal members of a bank’s customer base and to act on that information so as to develop and adapt the products and services offered to them in order to achieve greater loyalty. There is also room for banks to capitalise on the stable of brands which are often owned by single institutions, and even develop new ones to appeal to different customer bases and to counter negative connotations linked to damaged business units.”
Rice explains: “Banks will need solutions that aggregate customers over multiple legacy and new world platforms. These platforms need to support multichannel strategies and be capable of delivering a holistic servicing proposition to the customer and to the bank’s frontline staff. The single customer view needs to be more than just a view – it needs to integrate with the operational side of the bank – otherwise the proposition is just the proverbial ‘lipstick on the pig’.
For financial institutions, there is a lesson to be learnt: despite the increasing demand from customers for multichannel services, these should not be developed at the expense of personal relationships.
“Banks need to use data effectively from all the different products they hold so that they can use the insights it gives them to proactively engage with the customer. The system needs to support appropriate two-way communication and engagement with the customer, but it needs to go deeper still. For instance, if a customer keeps looking at a loan offering, then the system should be able to pick up on this and make a proactive outreach by the bank to the customer.”
To optimise customer relationships and loyalty, banks need to integrate processes and technologies that enable them to build − and then act upon − a detailed view of what each customer wants. Achieving a single view of the customer
Social aggregator tools that leverage external unstructured data can help banks build trust, and gain insights into customer attitudes and preferences as expressed freely on social media or during voice, chat, and email conversations.
According to ICS, there has been a marginal decline in satisfaction when online communications have been used, suggesting that banks need to improve the customer experience in the digital world.
9.4%
Digital is so fundamental to BNP Paribas that its entire client-facing staff is trained accordingly, marking a departure from the mobility Central Europe gain on mobile strategy of its competitors. banking usage between 2012-2103 All personnel connected to the bank’s digital strategy Source: Efma - including social media experts, mobile application specialists, digital marketers, The mobile channel, in particular, is emerging designers and IT coders - work collectively in the as a primary competitive differentiator in customer same location to drive the bank’s digital strategy. service that banks can use to attract new customers and retain existing ones. According to Efma, whilst In the Netherlands, ABN AMRO currently has the the ‘importance’ of mobile increased between highest-rated mobile app among its peer banks, 2012 and 2013 by 10% in Central Europe, 9% in Asia and has simplified its product portfolio in order Pacific, and 6% in Western Europe, it was Central both to help customers choose among products Europe who saw the greatest gains on mobile more easily and to help staff advise customers. For banking usage (9.4%). example, the bank now offers just three types of savings products, as opposed to 21 previously. “Internet and mobile are not mere channels. They are the new way of banking, ” says Virginie Fauvel, ABN AMRO has also made a strong commitment head of BNP Paribas Online Banking for Europe. to make all communications, both external and “We have developed a comprehensive mobile internal, clearer and easier to understand. In a banking service that lets users manage and view recent speech, the bank’s CEO, Gerrit Zalm, noted: accounts, conduct mobile person-to-person and “The language used should be simpler, such that contactless payments, contact advisers online, 90% of the population understands it … the overall and get the latest news. In addition, we use social goal is transparency, clarity, easy interactions, no media platforms to gather feedback, which is used misunderstandings, and ultimately better service to continually improve our mobile applications.” and higher levels of customer satisfaction.” Cperc
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Customer Service in European retail banking
Fig 3: The customer of tomorrow Source: Deloittes
Regardless of the channel, it is important for banks to have integrated CRM platforms across the whole business. “Unfortunately, the classic mistake is that those in silos are often uninterested in what is happening across the organisation as a whole, ” warns Amliwala. “Many European banks will go to great expense installing systems that don’t talk to each other. People get fixated on their own individual requirements that they don’t see the bigger picture. The result is cobbled together customer satisfaction that does little for customer service. It is the bank that conquers the requirement to see the customer holistically and reward the customer for the depth and duration of their relationship with the bank, who will be the one that prospers going forward.”
Characteristics Influenced by peers • 90% of customers trust peer references • Peer references trusted 7x more than advertisements
Impact on retail banks
a client’s experience is less than perfect, the client may never return and • Ifencourage peers not to return as well
Demanding • 44% of adults use social media to complain
customers demands are not met, other options exist: number of financial • Ifinstitutions with mobile apps expected to hit 1,500 in 2016
Informed • 55% of retailers say that clients are often better connected to
know products well and must be treated as “brand • Consumers ambassadors” as supposed to just clients
Skeptical • Only 44% of customers trust their financial service provider
and brand loyalty is low banks must provide desired “experiences” • Ifto trust consistently satisfy and retain customers
experience is the main reason people open/close • Customer accounts with an FSP
information than store associates
Connected • 84% of consumers keep mobile phones with them all times
• Between ‘06 and ‘12 social media use doubled
• An intuitive mobile platform is essential • Clients have access to price comparison tools
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Customer Service in European retail banking
Conclusion
The European retail banking industry faces a period of transformation. Central to this is placing the customer at the heart of the business. The key is delivering a more personalised, relevant and meaningful experience in an environment of the customers’ choosing. Banks now have to put ‘greater emphasis on how they relate to people’. “Communication needs to happen when the customer wants it and in the form the customer wants – not how the bank wants to deliver it, ” says Rice. “We are seeing banks partnering with groups to provide added value services such as the ability to make deposits using a mobile. A good example is Lunar Way in Denmark which is partnering with Københavns Andelskasse (Copenhagen Cooperative Bank). This demonstrates that some groups are adopting partner strategies to help deliver enhanced services to customers. Banks will need to deploy multiple strategies based on differing audiences such as for millennials who will need a more mobile focused strategy.”
“For the most part, European banks typically are still operating legacy front-end infrastructures that have been in place for 20 and sometimes even 30 years that were never designed to accommodate multichannel,” explains Amliwala. “To achieve true customer service, these banks need a major makeover that requires significant changes in their strategies, processes and underlying technologies. Customers want seamless service on their tablets and smartphones, in real-time at low or no cost. Fewer people are visiting branches – and when they do, it is not for basic transactions. Technology breaks down silos and allows for a more holistic approach to customer service.” Across Europe, customer behaviour and technology is driving change in the banking arena. Banks need to move away from the old-fashioned linear model and morph into an agile operation that is uniquely customer-driven. European banks have a great opportunity in customer service but need partners who understand the industry and the technology, and who can help them define a winning business strategy.
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Customer Service in European retail banking
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Customer Service in European retail banking
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What makes Sugar unique Empowers individuals
• CRM in the palm of your hand - mobile and desktop • Intuitive UX - fully customisable, consumer-grade user experience • Powerful collaboration - automates complex workflows across departments • Full engagement - customer intel across the complete customer journey Most adaptable platform
• Runs anywhere - public cloud, private cloud, on premise or hybrid deployments flexible - most customisable platform there is, based on • Infinitely open technologies • Easy integration - with global enterprise applications and data sources • Code included - full source code access, single code base across all environments
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Greatest business value
NOTE: SugarCRM and the SugarCRM logo are registered trademarks of SugarCRM Inc. Third-party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.
• Predictable pricing - no hidden fees or forced upgrades • Less expensive - to customise and integrate, using common tools and skills • Most complete - with sales, service and marketing capabilities all in one price • Lowest TCO - most affordable solution there is to buy, customise and manage