Holding on

zoom

David Martin.

Follow-up rates from websites appear to have improved, however. Of the 300 enquiries made through websites, 93 received follow-up telephone calls, a 50% improvement on 2007. At branch level, 93% of researchers thought the waiting time to get to a teller was acceptable, and 94% considered the teller to be "quick and efficient".

But in the four years the study has been carried out, Keay believes that not much has changed overall in terms of the quality of customer service on offer.

"Banks have grown exponentially and there is no talent pool to recruit from, so banks are forever recruiting people from all over the world. Different people from different parts of the world have different perceptions of what customer service is. Therefore if the bank doesn't actually train them the bank's way, unfortunately they will then deliver what they think is good," says Keay.

Von Pock believes that in the boom era staff retention was as much of a problem as customer retention, as he claims there was a staff fluctuation rate among banks of as much as 30%.

With the current freeze on recruitment levels this problem may actually decline and staff training levels within banks may actually increase as a result. This will result in staff remaining with the same bank for longer; however whether this leads to better customer service remains to be seen.

Staff training, motivation, support, moral and monitoring are key factors in achieving world class customer service, believes David Martin, a business consultant at RAKBank, which is currently regarded as the best bank in the Middle East for customer satisfaction.

In 2000, RAKBank, which up until then was predominantly a commercial bank, began a major push into the retail sector. From the start, its corporate emphasis was on customer satisfaction and one of the first appointments was to hire a manager for service quality.

"We laid down a series of service standards that our staff had to meet, whether that was answering the phone, talking to a customer over a cash counter, opening an account or opening a credit card," says Martin.

"Those service standards are all measured by our staff internally, by mystery shoppers and by third parties and our staff are sent on refresher courses twice a year."

Martin points out that through RAKBank's monitoring systems, it can then know at any given time what customer satisfaction levels are, and if there are any areas that need attention.

"Different systems and bodies, both external and internal, are constantly measuring us and we have always found that if you tend to measure something it tends to improve," he believes.

This focus on customer satisfaction has paid off, as Martin reports that the bank's retail customer base has risen 6,000%, from 5,000 to 330,000, in eight years. At the same, he claims the bank's profitability has also risen by 2000%.

Word of mouth has been the bank's main method of customer acquisition. "If you get a recommendation from somebody else, it costs me nothing to advertise for it but it costs me a lot to maintain that service," says Graham Honeybill, RAKBank's general manager.

"We are not perfect," says Honeybill modestly, "[but] one of the things we do - that is unique in this part of the world - is that we apologise if we are wrong. You don't often see us in the newspapers, as if the newspaper sends us a letter of complaint it gets answered within 24 hours. If we are wrong we admit it." The bank has a policy of sending disgruntled customers a bunch of flowers and Honeybill reports that its flowers bill for last year was for 15 bunches.

Satisfied staff lead to satisfied customers, and Honeybill reports that the bank has a range of staff moral measures in place that are aimed to keep staff motivated and content. It recently held an ‘Oscars' night where staff were awarded with statuettes and also regularly award staff who perform well.

"Most competitors have a tiny department with one or two people involved in service quality; we have 40 people on service quality and training," says Martin.

Print | Email | Discuss this article

| Share |

READERS' COMMENTS

Click here to post a comment

Add your Comment All posts are sent to the administrator for review and are published only after approval. ArabianBusiness.com reserves the right to remove any comment at any time for any reason. Please keep your responses appropriate and on topic. Arabian Business would like to point out that only comments relevant to the story will be published. Any containing personal insults or inappropriate language will not be approved.
Name *
Remember me on this computer
Email *	(Your email address will not be published)
City
Country
Subject *
Comment *
Notify me of further comments
Enter the words above *
Please click post only once - your comment will not be published immediately.

MORE FROM ARABIANBUSINESS.COM