Having been called a "plague" and accused of "screwing its customers around the world for years," among other things, by disgruntled customers, is it any wonder that global banking juggernaut Santander has committed itself to a customer service makeover?
In some cases, simply making that commitment to a better customer experience would prove dramatically effective in actually transforming the customer experience. The mere belief that a company cares about its customers can often elicit customer delight, even if the company has not actually resolved every shortcoming.
The challenge for banking institutions, however, is more daunting. Thanks to the unpleasant merger of dealing with customer transactions that are both immensely important (and quite personal) and often complex (subject to regulations and policies that are unclear or confusing to many customers), banks are effectively dart boards for customer frustration.
So while Santander--and presumably most other banks--might believe wholeheartedly in acting on the voice of the customer and making legitimate improvements to the overall banking experience, planning and acting have never been separated by a finer line.
Thanks to that fine line, complaints against banks, even amid countless reports, and social media posts, on the need for improvements in the banking experience have actually increased.
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Major UK financial institutions, including RBS and NatWest, reported significantly more complaints in the first six months of 2011 than they did in the last half of 2010. Even if one removes the abnormal spike related to payment protection insurance issues, the banks saw their complaint stockpiles rise by 11% and 10%, respectively.
The banking wings of the financial juggernauts, in particular, have been targets for customer complaints.
Santander, however, proudly boasted that its level of complaints dropped by 14% over the same period (and 36% compared to the same period last year). And, in a noteworthy contrast, its banking wing has contributed notably to the improvement--banking complaints fell by 31% year-over-year.
While the data for Santander is also somewhat skewed by the PPI issue (whereas some organizations held up on addressing PPI cases as part of a late-2010 challenge, Santander continued to process them), the news clearly shows that Santander, which has been torched over customer service, is seeing results from its customer satisfaction initiatives.
Numerous media sources quoted Steve Williams, Santander's director of service quality, on the company's intent to improve its customer experience. But as noted--intent is not everything--and action appears to have been the difference-maker.
According to Citywire, Santander created 1100 new customer service roles in its branches and call centres, thereby putting actual resources behind its endeavor. It also introduced new customer complaint mechanisms to more appropriately handle concerns.
Since banks do not have to report complaints that were resolved in the same day, if enhanced processes are responsible for achieving faster resolutions, they will directly contribute to more favorable semi-annual complaint reports.
Going forward, Williams says Santander plans to return "our overseas retail banking call centres to the UK." The anti-outsourcing stance speaks to an opinion that customers want localized service, even--or perhaps especially--from multi-national corporations.
RBS, which has previously been fined for its complaint handling, has apparently taken note of the role action played in Santander's success. The company says it has already seen declines in complaintssince it reported findings through June.
Initiatives to achieve those declines include training and re-training 8000 customer support staff to better handle potential complaints and using "stricter criteria" to measure complaints, both of which it believes will continue to allow for the resolution of complaints before they reach the Financial Ombudsmen Service.
And, even when the complaints cannot be resolved in that way, the renewed focus will at least assure that RBS addresses the complaints correctly, in turn minimizing the number of disputes the ombudsmen overturns.
The regulations of banking, such as those faced by the aforementioned UK institutions, provide a tangible framework for how organizations in all industries need to approach customer complaints.
First and foremost, companies need to evaluate, measure and rapidly-resolve the problems that are driving customer dissatisfaction. Customers like knowing organizations are on their side, but at the end of the day, they want to see results.
As companies better utilize the voice of the customer to resolve ongoing problems and prevent future ones, they should be using the insight to simultaneously improve their complaint handling processes to assure hasty, satisfactory resolutions.
Thinking only about how to reduce the overall number of complaints is short-sighted--complaints will happen, no matter how well-liked the organization.
And, at that point, the customer will not care what the company did to "prevent" those complaints--it will only care how well and quickly that complaint gets rectified.
Can your organization solve the problem before it reaches the government--or the pages of Twitter and Facebook?
Learn how elite financial institutions are acting on the voice of the customer and driving call center success at the 3rd Call Center Summit for Financial Services.