FSA report on customer complaints handling

This week UK banks found themselves in a league table that none of them wanted to lead. The UK Financial Services Authority revealed the banks with the most customer complaints with Barclays perched in top place.

So, more proof that customer service and financial services are like oil and water? Of course it is unfair to suggest banks don’t or can’t take customer service seriously. There are huge efforts to improve and learn but this latest regulatory broadside reminds us that something isn’t working despite the investment in systems, people and processes.

As a technology company, you might assume we have a vested interest in saying throw technology at the problem and it will go away.  Actually technology solutions can only do what they say on tin if there is a radical overhaul of what banks mean by customer service.

Quite simply there is a need to pause and re-align organisations around customer empowerment. What’s this mean? Well it cannot be lip service to some marketing tagline. What it  is about is how your systems and processes for interacting with customers have these principles hardwired, namely:

-  Recognize Me: Make Me Feel Valued

-  Make an Emotional Connection: Be Genuine

-  Empower Your People: Resolve My Request on the First Try

-  Change Perceptions: Treat me as a person, not a number

And, this isn’t easy with the multiple, fractured and fragmented systems that pre-dominate today. But, the banks, as businesses, must ask themselves – am I limited by my systems, or limited by the continued investment in systems which are not designed from their customer’s perspective? Only when all technology investments are governed by the simple question “will this delight my customer”, can this change.