Becoming a “Customer Centric” Organization

A company’s customer satisfaction is a key driver of its growth. Globally, banks have more detractors than promoters. Women are particularly important to a bank’s engagement levels, as they tend to share more widely than men how they feel about their banks. This panel explored drivers of customer satisfaction for banks, including becoming truly customer centric, a necessary ingredient for having a successful Women’s Market program.

Key Points

• Customer centricity places customers at the center of the decision-making process.
• Mapping the customer journey and rethinking end to end what the customer acquisition process looks like is an important first step.
• It is important to start off with understanding who the customer is, who you are delivering solutions to and what could be done to bring information to different levels.
• Customer transformation includes revamping the customer value proposition, including shifting how staff members are recruited and trained. For instance, having candidates work in branches can be a good way to test their abilities.
• Customer experience is based 70% on experience, 30% on communications.
  • In the physical branches, there is high demand for human contact. Customers tend to go to the branch when they do not have strong financial knowledge. The physical aspect has to be structured in a way that seeks to solve their issues.
  • Digital branches seek to solve more customized solutions and provide easier self-service access. It is important to try to set up more touch-points with customers through different means, such as videos, webinars, etc.
  • Measuring success is very important. Market research should be done whenever a new product or service is launched. “Moment of truth” interactions and triggers should be evaluated.
• Since communication accounts for a solid chunk of customer experience, an emotional bond with the brand is created. The brand should have “brand pillars” that are based on causes. The benefits of being a customer should be continously mentioned.

• Every campaign should be evaluated by customers before it is launched to better understand customers and compare to other brands.
• The creation of a multi-disciplinary team to launch a Women’s Market program is key. This team can include HR, PR, Marketing, Sales and others that work together to design the value proposition.
• Understanding customer needs involves looking at women’s different life stages and phases: individual well-being, family well-being, economic independence and saving time.
• Changing the selling approach is key for implementation — evolving from a “push product” approach to delivering solutions based on customer needs. This approach is based on offering advice and solutions, as opposed to pushing products.
• A transformation of the sales approach can be necessary to implement a program: First, provide staff the knowledge needed to understand customer needs and listen to them; then, build their skills through empowerment and a two-way learning process; and lastly, strengthen the sales model through coaching and leadership business models.
• Measuring internal and external Net Promoter Score is critical. NPS is defined as the propensity for the customers to recommend the bank to others. NPS is broken down for women and men. Westpac found that in all cases women are better advocates than men for the bank. This is a good argument to bring to the business units, as it shows that women are strong customers.
• NPS scores were improved in the last few years through focusing on 6 key areas: 1) Getting the basics right, 2) acknowledging customers, 3) easing their burdens, 4) walking the talk – honoring commitments, 5) understanding the customer’s perspective and what goes on in their businesses, 6) giving expert and valuable advice and taking ownership.
• The challenge may not be the market itself, but internal — changing the mind set of the sales force can be a major hurdle. There needs to be internal buy-in of the value of the program. Establishing Women’s Market Champions at the branch levels and incentivizing performance through targets can be a good way to overcome cultural biases.
• Digital strategies can be a good way to improve customer centricity and deliver on the value proposition: Women are time poor and can use an online platform to network with other women on their own time. However, it is a challenge to make sure that you are close to your client — customers need to talk to a person to know they have a relationship with the bank.