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Ala’a Eraiqat.

The region's banking leaders talk about how the financial markets will develop in the future and what direction the industry needs to take.

Ala'a Eraiqat
Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB)

Quality customer service is paramount; giving back to the community is important; risk can be minimised through diversification.

What sets you apart from other banks?

Many different things. Firstly, everyone likes to be distinguished from a service perspective but for us the true difference is what we call the "customer experience". This is what we build all our processes around. It starts from marketing material that you read and see - whether it is in a newspaper, on the radio or on a billboard and then channeled through our highly-trained sales force. We have one of the largest direct sales forces on the market; we have approximately 600 employees in the UAE alone. Then comes the aftersale process and experience, which is supported by our great network of 43 branches.

We also have a great focus and emphasis on alternative channels, so we have a call centre which receives in excess of 500,000 calls every month and we have internet banking with almost 50,000 active users and state of the art SMS banking. It is not only alert services, it is actually proactive and reactive - what you call ‘push sms' - and we have in excess of 45,000 users there.

We benchmark by monitoring the customer experience. We monitor and strictly adhere to timelines, turn around times from receiving the debit card, receiving the cheque book, getting all the services done. Literally you can have all the services done without going to a branch, but if you do choose to go you will receive the same level of service in all of them.

The customer experience is what we truly believe sets ADCB apart from the competition today and this has been achieved through ongoing investment in high quality staff training and development. ADCB was awarded Best Bank in the UAE 2007 by Euromoney.

What is your strategy to get the brand embedded in the public awareness?

The brand strategy is implemented at many levels across various touch points, from the advertising one sees in the media, to the direct marketing communication we do to our existing customers, to the way in which our staff serve customers and prospective customers - it is all part of the brand experience which is part of the overall customer experience I had mentioned earlier. In terms of public awareness, our strategy is to deliver the best products through a compelling message in a consistent fashion. We target our messages to appropriate segments and then measure the effectiveness of that message through our own response models.

Put simply, we ‘plan, do and then review', which means we continually learn and improve over time. We are all very proud of the ADCB brand and this has not gone unnoticed. Our achievements include numerous industry awards including the coveted and well respected Banker Middle East (Best Marketing and Advertising 2007), and Gulf Marketing Review (Best New Product Launch) awards. The ADCB brand was also recognized through an independent market study as being the most valuable bank brand in the UAE, and the fourth across all brand names in the UAE; the first was Emirates Airline, second Emaar, third Etisalat and then ADCB; which is a significant achievement for a brand that is just 3 years old.

How do you choose your sponsorship? How important is CSR?

We have a very active sponsorship committee with a dedicated strategy and our sponsorship comes from different angles. We have sports activities sponsorship, for instance we were the sponsors for Al Ain club for three years. We also have event sponsorship, so conferences and specialized professional forums, whatever fits in our exposure needs and where we want to be.

For example, we do not advertise or market corporate and treasury businesses, those come through the direct sponsorship of relevant events. We also recognize the need to be a contributor to the community and have been one of the biggest in terms of donations. We were a Diamond Sponsor to the Emirates Foundation, which is an education trust.

Only last month we sponsored INSEAD university, they opened their international branch in Abu Dhabi and we sponsored a faculty chair for life. Plus other smaller contributions towards charities and specific needs organizations.

What are your plans for expansion?

We do have plans on the international stage although maybe not necessarily through establishing branches. We do have two branches in India and we are looking at what would be the best strategy for expansion there. We are looking at alternative areas through joint ventures or acquisitions.

We are very active in looking at the market through segments. We started on the very basic segments which every bank goes to; which is corporate, small to medium sized enterprises, retail and Excellency, the mass affluent segment. Then, within retail and within Excellency and within corporate, we started to look at microsegmentation. It might not be very visible but this is the way we go toward providing the right service to the customer.

The last thing you would want is to spend a lot of money on propositions that are not really appreciated by the customer. That would achieve nothing. So we do a lot of customer feedback through independent organizations. In order to achieve that we researched for a full three years then restructured the bank, so we have data and consumer feedback for three consecutive years. Now we are trying to address every single gap or requirement that customers told us they would value.

The Asian Banker Award for Excellence in Retail Banking Strategy and Execution in Asia Pacific & Gulf clearly demonstrates our policy in following strategy review systems in order actively measure our customer requirements and satisfaction.

We look at criticism and we look at positive points and we match it from a capability, priority and cost perspective. At the end of the day we have shareholders to look after too. This is the biggest challenge; striking the balance between what your customers would want and what you can give them. The customer might want everything but in reality they really appreciate what you can give them that nobody else can.

That brings us to Excellency Wealth Management. Excellency targets a very niche kind of customer. We define them as successful individuals with balances that they can keep with the bank; either invested or savings accounts. We know from experience that this segment can be very profitable to the business but demands certain requirements. We built a fully comprehensive value proposition on these requirements. It varies from banking requirements which they expect - service, efficiency, a good distribution network and competent people to deal with them - and there are also what you call ‘lifestyle benefits'. These are what you would associate with a first class airline cabin or similar. Today we have a international concierge service and a dedicated ‘800' number. Every customer has a relationship manager, which we feel is the biggest advantage. We recruit and train and retain relationship managers of the highest caliber. Usually you need to be a customer of a private banking platform of an international bank to get that level of competency.

How do you guard against market risks?

We need to guard our customers against all risk. Markets will always go up or down, so risk is a fact of life and has to be understood, there is no such thing as a risk free investment.

This risk could be liquidity risk (I could be investing in a great investment but I cannot liquidate it when I want to), there are also currency risks, and of course the underlying investment risk itself. We try very hard to avoid that in the "old-fashioned" mathematical way through diversification. This has proven to be the only consistent strategy that will work for anyone.

We also have a very detailed questionnaire to understand the customer requirement. You can do all the diversification you want but if you put the investment on a five-year time rise and the customer needs his money in two years time, it does not work. So it all is driven by the customer. We are not brokers so we do not advise the customer to go through this investment instead of that.

We help them make the decision and make sure that at the end of the day they understand the recommendation that they need to diversify into funds. Funds, by nature, being less risky than direct equity. We also look at capital guarantee for the customer depending on their risk tolerance and we tell them what sectors and what group of funds they need to be in. The actual selection of the individual fund or product will be the customer's choice, we'll just guide them to that.

That is why we follow an ‘open architecture' strategy. For every fund we offer, we have to have at least one or two alternatives. That is including our funds. So, for example, ADCB, have a proprietary fund for local equities. We offer this to our clients, but we also offer at least one other fund that is not managed by us - so our relationship managers are truly on the side of the customer.

That is how we gain the respect of our customers. In the same way, our fund is being offered by other banks who follow the open architect strategy to their customers. We feel this is the right way, to get the customer to feel that the ultimate decision is to be made by him.

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