Dubai: Emirates NBD has been consistently investing in digital and mobile service delivery platforms over the last few years. With strong customer migration to these platforms the banks is reaping rich benefits in terms of cost savings and customer loyalty, said Suvo Sarkar, Senior Executive Vice President & Group Head — Retail Banking and Wealth Management told Gulf News in an interview.
“Our investments in digital channels is paying off and we are seeing strong adoption from customers. As much as 42 per cent of our target customers are already active users of our digital channels. While our online and mobile transactions are growing at 30 per cent, for the first time in our history we are seeing a decline in branch transactions,” said Sarkar.
Currently more than 85 per cent of the bank’s retail customer transactions are done outside the branch network. The bank’s mobile banking app has more than 100 functionalities with new features like full biometric login, the first remote cheque deposit feature in the region, mobile queuing ticket for branches, and social banking using Twitter.
“We are beginning to see the financial gains of our digitisation efforts with our multichannel customers holding more products with us and having higher satisfaction scores. As much as 8 per cent to 15 per cent of our new business now comes via digital channels, depending on the product,” said Sarkar.
To make the customer experience simpler hassle free, the bank is in the process of redefining customer journeys — the entire step by step process that you go through to avail of a banking product or service, ordering a chequebook for example. “We are removing the pain points in 50 such most used journeys,” he said
Reliability
The bank is in the process of automating and digitising end to end processes wherever it can improve speed and reliability. The Direct Remit product, for example, is entirely automated end to end without any manual intervention or any need or paper forms.
A proactive servicing model is on cards. Instead of customer calling the bank when there is a problem, the bank anticipates it and calls the customer — for example, when your online banking password is blocked. While the bank’s social media engagement with customers on the rise it was recently ranked at 22 globally in Banking and Financial Services for the effectiveness in using social media.
“With every improvement in digital channels we are also focused on improving branch services. We have invested in a Customer Service Academy to continually train our front-line staff in delivering high standards of service. It is a journey, and while we are seeing results in the form of higher customer satisfaction and net promoter scores, we still have some way to go,” said Sarkar.
