Etisalat does it again! It’s the number one customer service oriented company in two consecutive years in the Gulf News Customer Service Honours List. The newspaper highlights and recognises the outstanding customer service of the companies for processing our reader complaints every year.
Readers appreciate us for providing this community service for over a decade now. But, it won’t be possible without the support of the companies involved.
In recognition of these companies’ cooperation with us to satisfy their customers, we generate this annual list. We have ranked companies based on our reader complaints that we have processed in 2016. Our criteria for ranking are: speed to reply to our reader issues, transparency or clarity of resolution and customer satisfaction.
The top companies: Etisalat, FAB, Du, NBAD, ENBD, Mashreq and ADCB share their best practices in customer service and how they value the feedback of their customers.
GN: What are your best practices in customer service?
Hassan Hussain, Vice President, Projects and Platforms, Etisalat: Etisalat Customer Care is constantly trying to benchmark customer service incorporating best practices from across other markets. ‘Customer Centricity’ is one of our core values with the customer at the centre of all our activities. Our main objective is to focus on quality and setting international benchmarks on multiple levels of performance. Etisalat Customer Service also recognises that the best customer experience needs to be embedded in the culture at the workplace. Hence the staff are constantly motivated and recognised for their efforts to go the extra mile in delivering a world-class experience.
First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB): We continuously challenge ourselves to deliver a quicker and more efficient service standard at all times. As such, we have a robust internal review system, which allows us to continuously improve our processes, thereby positively impacting our customers’ experiences with us.
Fahad AlHassawi, Chief Commercial Officer, Du: In an ongoing effort to engage customers and meet their changing needs, we continue to update the retail experience across store locations around the region. These updates will eventually encompass all of du’s customer interactions leading to consistency; at our online shop, social media channels, as well as face-to-face. We have 64 retail outlets in the UAE, and we are expanding constantly to meet the needs of our valued customers.
Varsha Chandnani, Senior Group Customer Response Manager, NBAD: We at NBAD offer our customers multiple channels to engage with us. We empower our employees with knowledge and train them to deliver excellent customer service on all touch points. We also believe in complete transparency in every aspect of our operations and take all the necessary steps to keep our customers informed about terms and conditions of all our products and services.
Kuldeep Chouhan, Vice President, Head of Group Customer Experience, Emirates NBD: Delivering an enhanced Customer Experience is at the core of Emirates NBD’s banking strategy. We have consciously tried to be available to our customers at all times, across any preferred channel. We ensure that corrective action is taken immediately in case we fail to deliver on the promise we have made. In addition, we try to identify the underlying reason that caused the issue to take place and implement the improvements immediately. This helps us in ensuring that other customers are not impacted by the same issue. We look at every complaint as an opportunity for us to improve so that we can meet if not exceed our customers’ expectations. With every interaction, we strive to build Trust with our customers by taking Ownership of their issues, providing resolutions to them with a Personal touch, thereby delivering TOP experiences to our customers.
Basker Rangachari, Head – Marketing and Customer Experience, Mashreq: The emphasis we lay on constant customer feedback through our various listening posts cannot be exaggerated. We at Mashreq consider the voice of the customer as a significant component of our overall Customer Experience strategy.
All Customer Complaints are analysed promptly and thoroughly to identify the root cause or any significant learning to avoid recurrence, which then is used to improve our Customer Experience.
We also believe in building and growing customer relationships. We want to provide them comprehensive financial solutions that meet their needs, not just push products or services to them. Being transparent is one of Mashreq’s core values, and this has helped us build trust with our customers.
Afolayan Taylor, Head of Group Service and Customer Experience Management, ADCB: ADCB has a comprehensive and systematic approach to customer service and customer experience management. We are in the service delivery business, thus, service and customer experience is priority number one in the bank and this is evidenced by having a customer experience committee, who meet on regular basis to discuss and decide on everything about service. Service and customer experience is everybody’s job at ADCB. We are disciplined in our service delivery. We measure, monitor and manage what matters - Customer Key Performance Indicators. Every customer interaction with ADCB employees, channels, systems, and products is measured and managed to ensure best delivery of business services.
GN: How do you value the feedback of your customers conveyed through Gulf News?
Etisalat: Etisalat Customer Care respects customer feedback received from all channels, especially a reputed and established media outlet like Gulf News. Etisalat Customer Care respects all feedback received through Gulf News and acknowledges that the customers trust and reach out to the media outlet to get their issues addressed and resolved. Etisalat Customer Care also appreciates that the receipt of such information helps in enhancing and upgrading internal processes. It also gives an opportunity for Etisalat Customer Care to engage and resolve issues for customers.
FAB: We are proud that we have made it to the Gulf News honours list for the third consecutive year. This recognition emphasises the importance we give to customer feedback through all channels, including Gulf News, and the commitment we place towards improving our service standards and overall customer experience.
Du: Our relationship with Gulf News is an extremely important factor for us; it is yet another avenue that brings us closer to our customers and enables us to engage with them. We value feedback from across all our brand touchpoints, we survey our customers whenever they are inclined to provide feedback so we can proactively improve customer experience in an ongoing manner.
When newspapers pass on customer feedback we always take it on-board and endeavour to work on a seamless customer journey wherever possible. We are continuously monitoring our service levels and this is another way we can track and improve.
NBAD: We keep the service culture at the core of our business. Feedback received from customers offers an opportunity for improvement and is therefore of utmost importance to us. We try not only to quickly resolve the complaint but also investigate the root causes of each complaint and implement the remedial actions accordingly to avoid recurrence of similar complaints in future.
Emirates NBD: Emirates NBD is a customer-centric organisation and we value our customers’ feedback – positive and negative. Gulf News is considered to be our partner in improvements. They help our customers reach out to us to resolve their issues. We look at complaints received from Gulf News as an opportunity to recover where we failed to deliver superior service to our customers.
Mashreq: We are delighted to have Gulf News as a partner, and for being a channel to receive our customers’ feedback. We appreciate Gulf News’ efforts in bringing to us their concerns and giving us the opportunity to further enhance our Customer Experience.
We also appreciate the opportunity provided to us to articulate our stance on the customer’s claims prior to publication. The joint effort with Gulf News in delivering transparent and fair resolution to our customers, is a testimony of our efforts towards delivering a superior Customer Experience.
ADCB: Feedback from our customers is the greatest gift that we can ask for. With this feedback we learn and strive to continuously enhance the experience for our customers constantly. We accept when we have made a mistake. We fix it, learn from it, and put processes in place to ensure it does not happen again.
Gulf News Honours List
RANK Name of company
1 Etisalat
2 FGB (now FAB)
2 du
3 NBAD (now FAB)
3 Emirates NBD
3 Mashreq
3 ADCB
4 DIB
4 ADIB
4 Emirates Islamic
4 Standard Chartered
4 RAK Bank
4 Dubai First
4 Noor Bank
5 Dunia Finance
5 FlyDubai
5 RTA
5 United Arab Bank
5 Ajman Bank
6 Citibank
6 HSBC
6 Najm
6 CBI
6 Emirates airline
6 CBD
7 American Express
7 SpiceJet
7 Zurich Insurance
8 Bank Misr
8 Samba Bank
9 Air Arabia
9 Gulf Air
9 Etihad Airways
10 Air Blue
10 Al Masraf Bank
10 Dewa
10 Sewa
