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Product and technology innovation
Product and technology innovation are vital elements
of our business culture, strategy, customer relationship
and marketing portfolios. Through innovation, we
are able to develop products that satisfy the needs
of our customers. It is, however, important to continuously
track the performance of products. We therefore
frequently subject our products and services to
rigorous reviews, both internally through think
tanks and review sessions, and externally through
market research, customer focus groups and one-on-one
discussions with our customers.
We continuously monitor our competitors in the
field of innovation, not only in South Africa,
but also globally, to ensure we remain abreast
of an ever-changing banking environment.
Our focus is to increase opportunities to simplify
products, services, agreements and administration,
while simultaneously offering products and services
that satisfy our customers whose individual and
collective needs change constantly. From a Retail
perspective, a key element of this ongoing efficiency
drive is to enable our customers to spend less
time in banks, or to use their time in banks more
productively.
It is important that we pre-empt market trends
and launch innovative products in response to
our understanding of these trends.
Customer complaints and compliments –
Retail
We encourage customers to express their concerns
about unsatisfactory service and also share compliments
concerning service highlights. Experience has shown
that complaints and compliments provide us with
opportunities to better understand our customers
and to refine and improve our service offerings
to them.
During the year, we recorded about 800 verbal
and written complaints per month, about 74% growth
in the complaints recorded for 2003. The significant
increase can be attributed to an internal and
external awareness campaign initiated to encourage
customers to communicate with the bank, and staff
to record and resolve all service issues effectively.
The “Delighted or Disappointed” service
drive has been particularly effective in supporting
this focus.
Standard Bank supports the Ombudsman for Banking
Services as an alternative for customers, to assist
in bringing about final resolution of complaints
that cannot be resolved. We actively support the
guidelines of the Code of Banking Practice to
ensure that we serve customers fairly.
The recent 2004 independent Markinor OBS Pulse
Financial Services Industry Benchmark study in
support of customer satisfaction indicated that:
- Standard Bank resolves more complaints (45%)
within two days compared to the industry’s 40%
average, which confirms the success of our 48
hour turnaround time;
- the overall satisfaction level for the outcome
of complaint resolution for Standard Bank remains
high at 88%;
- primary complaint reasons cited for Standard
Bank were: a lack of communication/feedback,
errors/administration, pricing/charges, time
delays and attitude of staff; and
- in terms of complaint resolution, Standard
Bank exceeded the industry results. 65% of customers
rated Standard Bank as excellent or very good
while the industry average is at 59%.
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