Standard Bank comes out tops in customer service survey

Quick facts

• Ask Afrika Orange Index has announced that Standard Bank was voted best bank for customer service in 2009.
• The Orange Index has been measuring customer service levels in South Africa for seven years and evaluates service in all industries.
• For the past few years, service has been a top priority for Standard Bank and the organisation continues to raise its target for service ratings with a focus on faster and sustainable improvement.
• Standard Bank has opened an additional line of communication by introducing a new section on its blog where the South African public can submit ideas which they think will help improve their overall banking experience.

Press Release

Standard Bank is the best bank for customer service in 2009 according to the Ask Africa Orange Index, an independent survey of South African consumers.

Standard Bank has made a number of major improvements in the organisation’s service levels in recent years and the most important change in the business has been to make service a top priority – above marketing, product sales, retention, etc. To deliver on this, external and internal lines of communication have been improved upon and many of these changes have proved to be successful.

However, the organisation anticipates continued changes in how these new channels of communication are used and part of this change includes the introduction of an Ideas section to the existing Standard Bank blog. Taking the social media campaign one step further, this is a platform where the South African public can submit ideas which they think will help improve their overall banking experience.

The Ideas section of the blog is split into categories such as the Branch Experience, Customer Services, Products, Self-service banking, and Out of the Box. Users are invited to submit ideas, which are voted for or ‘liked’ by other users of the site. The more popular ideas will be evaluated by Standard Bank and will undergo a feasibility study to assess the impact it will have on the business.

Standard Bank continues to raise its target for service ratings with a focus on faster and sustainable improvement in the areas that are below average, while maintaining the pace of improvement where things are going well.

About the Ask Afrika Orange Index

The Ask Afrika Orange Index identifies the best customer service organisations in South Africa and the key drivers of service in the industries it measures. The Orange Index has been measuring customer service levels in South Africa for seven years.

The company evaluates service in all industries on the same criteria to ensure there is a robust national benchmark for service. The service qualities measured by Ask Afrika are assurance, reliability, empathy, responsiveness and tangibles.

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Quotes

• We are pleased that our ranking in the table of all South African companies has improved from 38th to fifth position in just one year. This is very much in line with what we’ve found in our own internal customer research. – Peter Schlebusch, CEO of Personal and Business Banking at Standard Bank.
• We’re proud that customers are prepared to rate us so highly in an independent survey, more so as this has been achieved in a really tough business environment. – Peter Schlebusch, CEO of Personal and Business Banking at Standard Bank.
• We remain realistic in spite of the achievement because an overall service rating is an average score across Standard Bank. An average can hide a lot of sins and we’re acutely aware that there are places that need a lot more work. - Peter Schlebusch, CEO of Personal and Business Banking at Standard Bank.
• We haven’t been very vocal about our internal focus on service, but it has been driven from the leaders within Standard Bank. In these difficult times, retention of customers is important to us. – Bellinda Carreira, Online and Direct Marketing, Standard Bank.
• We have spent the last two years working on improving our service levels and we know there are still some areas that need improvement. It’s a long-term process, and we need to be pragmatic while at the same time keeping our eye on the ball. – Bellinda Carreira, Online and Direct Marketing, Standard Bank.
• The Idea section of the blog opens an additional line of communication with our public and we look forward to hearing some of the innovative suggestions that will improve our service delivery and help Standard Bank move forward. – Bellinda Carreira, Online and Direct Marketing, Standard Bank.

Credits

Social Media Release created and issued by Brandsh on behalf of Standard Bank