The I&M Bank building on Kenyatta Avenue in Nairobi. FILE PHOTO | NMG
Commercial bank, I&M Bank Kenya last week sent its clients a
customer service charter in which it promised to always provide them
excellent services.
The bank outlined the standards in
which they can expect the services. It says it is always committed to
resolving any customer complaints fast. This move, research shows, can
improve service delivery and customer satisfaction.
“We
are committed to providing excellent service experiences to our
clients. The Service Charter was communicated to our customers to enable
them to know the minimum service standards they should expect from
I&M Bank and the manner in which their complaints and queries will
be handled,” said Maina Kihara, I&M Bank Kenya CEO.
The
bank promises to resolve any complaint at the first point of contact.
In cases that may require further investigation, customers will be kept
informed of the status within two working days, providing regular
updates on the outcome of the investigations and proposed actions. It
also promises to respond to all their social media posts within 30
minutes and to emails within one working day.
By adopting a customer service charter, I&M Bank is seeking
to improve its customer service, a factor that can make it the bank of
choice as excellent customer service plays a key role in influencing
consumers’ preferences on where to bank.
According to a
recent survey on the state of retail banking in Africa by GeoPoll,
respondents from South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya were asked which
features do they like the most about their primary bank.
A
majority picked customer service over other features namely;
convenience, products and services, branding, stability, efficiency and
transaction fees.
“Customer service as a winning
feature in banking was picked by 68 per cent of respondents in South
Africa and 51 per cent in Nigeria. However, most Kenyans chose
convenience over customer service with the latter only being picked by
61 per cent of the respondents,” reported GeoPoll.
“The
respondents were then asked what they would rate as the most important
feature when choosing a bank. In South Africa, 74 per cent said that
they would rate customer service as the most important feature, 61 per
cent from Kenya and 55 per cent in Nigeria had a similar opinion.”
I&M
Bank’s implementation of a customer service charter is a show of
commitment to offering quality service and makingthe lender more
transparent in its dealings with customers.
In
a case study on the Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company conducted
by Karen Ndunge Mwania from the University of Nairobi, she found that
implementing a customer service charter improves service delivery
quality and customer satisfaction.
This study carried
out in 2012 investigated influence of customer service charter on
service delivery in Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company, which at
the time had approximately 2,700 employees and serviced around 284,845
customers within Nairobi.
“From the findings 37 per
cent of the respondents strongly agreed that adoption of customer
service charter improves timeliness of services, 43.6 per cent agreed,
12.9 per cent were not sure, 3.4 per cent disagreed while 3.1 per cent
strongly disagreed that adoption of a customer service charter leads to
improved service timeliness,” reported Mwania.
Service
delivery at the organisation was improved due to the existence of
procedures and management information systems in which employees were
made aware of the customer service charter.
“The
customers agreed that the company adhered to their commitments but to a
small extent. That was a wakeup call to the company to ensure that it
lived up to its promises to the customers,” reported Mwania.
“If
the service users get the picture that the organisation does not live
up to its standards, and does nothing about it, cynicism among service
users and staff will only increase.”
On customer
satisfaction, 30.1 per cent of the respondents strongly agreed that
adoption of customer service charter led to customer satisfaction, 52.4
per cent agreed, 12.5 per cent were not sure, while 4.7 per cent
disagreed that adoption of a customer service charter led to customer
satisfaction.
- African Laughter
No comments :
Post a Comment