Customer Services of HSBC Bank - Essay Example

?Report on Services: HSBC Bank In the present day world of cut throat competition, companies try and grab a larger quiche of the market by differentiating their product/service from rival organizations. Given the numerous options available, consumers tend to become pretty demanding. The battle for market share gets fierce and at the end of the day what distinguishes between who survives and who perishes is ‘customer service.’ The Australian banking industry is no exception to this rule. Customer Services in the Banking Sector The well regulated banking sector in Australia has been encouraging new entrants more than ever before. In such a scenario, a robust customer service mechanism becomes imperative for sustained business growth of any bank. Customers remain loyal only if they receive exemplary service across different touch points of the bank. The banking industry, being in the service sector, lends itself to a lot of variability and therefore warrants well documented processes that are adhered to. The advent of ATMs, mobile banking, Internet banking et al has standardized service delivery to quite an extent as human intervention is minimized when a customer uses these modes of banking. Banks have adopted new service paradigms and have set new benchmarks when it comes to customer services. Most banks have set up customer service centers that operate 24 X 7 X 365. These centers provide instantaneous support and help expedite the response to queries and resolution of complaints. Initially the ATMs were conceived as merely a money dispensing machine. However, thanks to technology, these ATMs have transformed into an indefatigable customer service executive. Best Practices in the Industry Banks, the world over, have shown strong resolve and commitment towards making the overall banking experience pleasurable for the customer. Seafirst Bank has introduced a 5-minute guarantee that promises to credit $5 in the customer’s account if the customer has to wait for more than 5 minutes in the queue. The employees of Seafirst Bank are encouraged to achieve the customer satisfaction goals along with the sales targets failing which they are not eligible for the bank’s prestigious “Gold Club” award. The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) uses the acronym WELCOME for complaint handling where W stands for Welcome complaints, E for express regret, L for listen carefully, C for collect facts, O for offer to consider customer’s suggestion, M for make sure the customer understands/agrees and E for enquire to make sure the customer is happy. The bank encourages the employees to resolve customer grievances with speed, courtesy, helpfulness, clarity and then provide a solution to the customer. In order to determine whether the bank has been able to ‘walk the talk,’ RBS sends a simple “you tell us” card to around 60 per cent of complainants after the grievance has been redressed. The card encourages the complainants to rank the bank’s performance on a four-point scale. These rankings are used to develop a complaint-handling index which in turn is used for taking further corrective action. Citicorp meticulously strives to revamp its back-office operations which are prone to moving at a snail’s pace and thereby impede the front office operations as well. The bank aims to streamline and standardize these back-office tasks and has benchmarked these jobs with Chrysler. The objective of this entire exercise is to make the bank’s functional departments work effectively as teams. Philosophy of HSBC Bank Our bank recognizes the importance of customer services and takes every possible step to delight the customer. We, as an organization, realize that prompt and efficient services are a sine qua non for satisfying and retaining existing customers. We appreciate and realize that customer complaints are the voice of our customers. These complaints provide us with an opportunity to satisfy a customer who is aggrieved. From a broader perspective every single customer complaint provides an opportunity to our bank to plug the loophole in our service delivery process and ensure that similar complaints do not recur. To ensure that complains are not buried under the carpet, our bank apprises the customers of avenues wherein they can register and escalate complaints in the event of their remaining unresolved. Our employees have been trained in a manner that they work in good faith and without prejudice. The interest of the customer is of paramount importance to all employees across levels. The customer complaints that our bank receives can be broadly be traced to routine and non-routine tasks. The former embrace all shortfalls in the expected delivery standards either due to inadequacy of facilities or through the lackadaisical attitude of the staff towards the customers. The management is aware that these inefficiencies are present in the system and is taking corrective action, either by way of augmenting the physical infrastructure of the bank or by imparting training to employees. Employees are being trained in the domain of operations as well as soft skills. The complaints related to the non-routine tasks are generally sporadic and invariably require the intervention of the head office for a resolution. Our bank has kept 10 days as TAT (turn around time) within which it responds to any customer complaint filed in writing, orally or telephonically. At each of the branches, Customer Service Executive(s) are available who try to resolve the matter there and then. More often than not, the routine complaints get resolved much faster. Complaints pertaining to fraud or the ones that require legal inputs need more time for investigation. The receipt of such complaints is acknowledged and the TAT is also specifically communicated to the customer in these cases. In general, it can be said that our top management is committed to delivering unparalleled customer services to our clients. The employees are so trained that this philosophy also becomes deep-rooted in them. Problem Recognition As is the case with most organizations and most endeavors, there are weak links in the chain and therefore there is scope for improvement. In line with the current trend, our bank has also outsourced the call centre operations. The decision makes perfect business sense as the organization avoids mammoth expenses that need to be incurred should such a service has to be set up locally. In addition to receiving incoming calls, we have outsourced telemarketing and debt collection calls to call centers in India and Philippines. However, by doing so, we have handed over the responsibility of satisfaction of our customers to people who are not from our own bank. Lot of service delivery gaps occur on account of this. While the ‘helpline numbers’ are toll free, the waiting time that result from automated queuing systems are frustrating for our clients to say the least. Furthermore there are instances wherein the customer has visited the branch and has been advised to speak to the customer service executive at the helpline. The customer dissatisfaction reaches the apex if such a customer is lost in the maze of the IVR (Interactive Voice Response) and is not able to reach a human voice quickly. Last but not the least, there are instances where the English accent of the customer service representative is different from the accent of the customer and therefore thwarts the transaction to consummate with the complete satisfaction of the client. Solution Generation and Evaluation There are a few solutions to the problem on hand. The first alternative is to withdraw the task of outsourcing from these developing countries. These operations can then be conducted by the bank or outsourced to an organization in Australia. This will remove the shortcoming of the language barrier. However this option is likely to increase the cost of conducting operations. The second, more feasible alternative is to negotiate for more skilled man power with the call centers in India and Philippines that are currently doing business for us. Our bank can send in-house trainers every month to further hone the skills of the call centre employees and apprise them of our business philosophy. This exercise will enable them impart customer service which is top notch, much to the delight of our customers. References Calvert, F.H. & Brogan, D.J. 1997, "Measuring customer service", Kentucky Banker Magazine, no. 849, pp. 11-11,17. “Complaints map the Royal Bank of Scotland's “road to service recovery””, 1995, International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, no. 09590552, pp. viii-viii. Leighton, B. & Stumm, T. 2009, “Is the customer always right?” Intheblack, vol. 79, no. 8, pp. 49-49-51. Surry, M. 2002, “Boutique banking”, Asian Business, vol. 38, no. 4, pp. 48-48-49. Read More