Technology in Banking-Insight and Foresight for BTA_2011 ... - IDRBT

Technology in Banking – Insight & Foresight 34
3.4.1. Customer Education
Banks have understood that educating the customer makes good business sense. There are two
levels of education — products and practices. Product education is targeted toward increasing usage
and the practices education is targeted at gaining customer confidence around systems and
processes employed at banks. We have seen a high degree of education linked around securityrelated
features at the banks, which is their way of emboldening customers to access the bank
through lower-cost alternate channels. Banks have also started viewing customer education as a
means of building an image of leadership. Banks that view themselves as leaders are spending more
on customer education in non-product-related features. This is positively viewed by customers as
there is no hard-sell involved.
Currently, banks are using various channels such as email, SMS, online platform, IVR and unutilized
space on the reverse of the statement of accounts and customer awareness screens in ATMs and the
print media to reach out to customers. Leading banks are using their analytic capabilities to target
the right level and relevant communication to the right customers.
Most public sector banks organize customer meets with their leading customers. A few of them also
educate customers about new products and interest rates through SMS and mailers. However, their
ability to educate a large portion of customers is hampered by their customer data quality in terms of
contactability. A few of these banks have now embarked on a data cleansing exercise to address this
problem. Private sector banks have taken the lead here in educating customers regularly on topics
such as safe banking, phishing and responsible debt. One particular example is of a bank
implementing enhanced ATMs with “ATM Next” application, which provides extra services, including
educating customers on bank products.
3.4.2. Grievance Handling
With the increased activism of customers and media, banks will have to take a particular focus on
their grievance-handling mechanisms. Banks manage billions of transactions annually. But even with
great processes, there will still be a few thousand transactions that do not deliver in sync with the
customer’s expectations. These service failures may be viewed as opportunities — opportunities to
convert these customers into the bank’s promoters post prompt redressal. In our survey, we have
seen that most banks have taken steps to make it easy for customers to lodge their complaint
through 24x7 call centers, email ids published on the website and branch walk-ins. Some banks have
also set up segment-wise grievance redressal desks. But the true opportunity lies post this. All banks
will have to pay closer attention to this area and build better systems to track and resolve customer
complaints.
3.4.3. Customer Service Delivery Channels
CRM initiatives, being the forefront of customer touch-points, play a major role in creating a positive
perception of the bank by providing the best possible customer experience. All banks have taken
steps from better and faster grievance handling to providing new channels to educating.
Institute for Development & Research
in Banking Technology