One of the bright spots in this year’s Investment Executive Account Managers’ Report Card is client service. The rating for that category took a big jump this year — up an average of 0.5 points.
Only one institution fell back in its rating from last year. Laurentian Bank of Canada slipped 0.3 points, while the rating for Royal Bank of Canada was unchanged. But across the board, most survey participants indicated that the bank’s ability to deliver client service is improving. The credit unions showed the smallest increase, at 0.3 points, while TD Canada Trust showed the biggest jump, with 0.9. CIBC, whose score of 7.1 puts it in a tie at the bottom of the pack with Laurentian, experienced a 0.7 increase from last year.
Are customers actually getting better service or are the survey participants reporting what they hope to be the case?
There are signs the banking industry may be responding to a call for improved customer interaction and advice at the branch level. A survey conducted by Market Facts of Canada put Bank of Nova Scotia‘s customer service at No. 1 for the third year in a row.
In Investment Executive‘s 2003 survey, Scotiabank’s rating jumped 0.6 points to 8.6. Bob Chisholm, vice chairman of Scotiabank and president and CEO of domestic banking and wealth management, offers a pragmatic view of customer service: “In the financial industry, the one true differentiating factor that we have is our ability to deliver customer service. Essentially the products are very similar, if not the same.”
Chisholm’s bank surveys more than 100,000 of its customers each year to ensure that service levels are being met. He says employee compensation levels are based on the service level provided in the branches. In that vein, the bank’s plan is “to continue to remove unnecessary administrative workload from the branch level and either automate it or at least transfer it to a central processing unit so that the branches — which are still our primary focal point for customers to purchase products — are free to focus on providing the best possible customer service,” Chisholm says.
“If there’s a problem, we bend over backward to fix it,” one Scotiabank account manager from the West told IE researchers.
“We don’t treat clients as just another number,” says a Maritimer.
But Joan Huzar, president of the Toronto-based Consumers Council of Canada, does not necessarily share that view. She is critical of an apparent push to move services — and customers — out of the branches and onto the ATMs. The banks “are teaching us not to use [the branches],” she says. Meanwhile, she alleges, individual banks are not providing extensive enough machine networks. And she is angry that they all charge $1.50 per ATM transaction involving accounts at other institutions.
Responsiveness to client needs was covered in one of the questions asked in a 2001 Consumers Council of Canada survey on financial services. Participants were asked if they believed advice they got from financial institutions was tailored to meeting the institution’s needs instead of the client’s.
Only 39% of respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed, while 34% neither agreed nor disagreed.
“Even 36% of the industry respondents thought that advice given to consumers primarily reflected the needs of the financial institutions, while a whopping 60% of government/regulator respondents thought the same thing,” says the council’s survey summary.
But the Consumers Council of Canada survey also showed a high overall satisfaction rating. Only 16% were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with everyday financial services.
Demographics could also be a factor as younger Canadians happily adopt technology. In its October 2002 issue, Canadian Banker reported that one-third of Canadians continue to bank in person at a branch; for people over age 55, that jumps to 47%. Among people between 18 and 34, 45% bank online — and that percentage is expected to grow.
Rob Pierce, president and CEO of Bank of Montreal‘s personal and commercial banking, says his institution has been making concerted efforts to improve customer service by making it easier for tellers to connect with clients.
In January of this year, BMO finished installing a new computer system that provides tellers “with a more complete view of the customer” standing in front of them.
For example, says Pierce, the software may show that the client’s mortgage will soon be up for renewal. “The teller can refer the customer to someone who can help,” says Pierce. “They can begin the conversation and not have to wait for the customer to take the lead. So they do know the customer better.”