Publication: The Business Times, p 11
Date: 8 April2014
Headline: Local banks get top scores from clients
Local banks get top scores from clients
DBS, UOB and OCBC trump foreign banks Citibank, HSBC, Standard Chartered and Maybank with a slew of services
By TEH SHI NING
[email protected]
li E <Contrast between local and foreign banks
could not have been starker.
DBS, UOB and OCBC's customers were all
happier with their banks in 2013 than they
had been in 2012. rewarding the three local
banks with the top three scores i.o the banks
sub-sector. in the latest Customer Satisfaction. Index of Singapore (CSlSG) report.
With this. they had a lso bucked the trend of Singapore
residents' falling satisfaction with aU the other foreibrn
ba nks assessed. Citibank. HSBC. Standard Chartered.
Maybank and others witnessed dips of 2.6 to 5.8 per com
in their customem· satisfaction le1•els from a year ago. pushing the banking sector's score down to 69.4 in 2013, from
71.8 in 2012.
But tbe Lnstitute of Service Excellence at Singapore
Management University (ISES). which compiles the CSISG
for two industry sectors every quarter, warned against
read ing too muc h into this divergence.
While the local banks have leapfrogged their foreign
counterp;u-ts for a second year now - the first was 201 1 theirs was no outsized jump, but a gradua l improvement
And though the three banks' scores ranged from 71.3 to
71.9- above the banks' sector average of 69.4- it is because of sharpe1· volatility in the foreign banks' satisfaction scores that the banks' rankings have been shuffiing
over the past three years.
JSES director Caroline Um said: "1would interpret it as
a case of competitive dynamics. In the financial industry.
it's cut-throat competition. So this year. th e local banks
are doing better., next year. the foreign banks may catch
up, so on and so forth ."
But the exp lanation for that volatility might well be
more dull: survey methodology. ISES' survey is based on a
random listing of addresses supplied by the Department
of Statistics, which is representative of how residents are
distri.buted across the is land. Therefore, those polled
would best repreS<!nt Singapore's general population the typical Singapo1·e resident.
It could be that the loca l banks' customer mix mirrors
the general popu lation in Singapore more closely. and
thus corresponds to the banks' target customer segments.
But foreign banks, which are more likely to serve expatriates. might also fare more poorly on the s urvey s imply because those polled are not the banks' target profLie of customers, such as high net worth individuals. for instance.
That is not to say that the results have no bearing on
foreign banks, though. "The survey serves a slightly different purpose for foreign banks. Say you are a foreign bank
and you know the survey doesn't match your target profile, but still matches the general population profile in Singapore. "[A foreign bank] can treat it like a public sentiment score for the bank. It's still relevant. it just serves a
sl ightly d ill'eren~ purpose." said ISES academic director
Ma rcus Lee.
Other bank-specilic factors may have come into play
too. For instance, Standard Chartered Bank attributed its
3.41 point drop to 70.1 points. from a score of 73.5 fast
year. to major pr ojects last year that may have inconvenienced some customers.
Sam Subroto .. StanChart's regional bead. retail clients,
Asean. said: "In 2013. the bank carri ed out two big,
bank-wide projects - the cutover of the core banking system and the s ubsidiarisalion of the Bank's retail banking
business." Despite these projects and the dip in satisfaction levels, StanChart's score remained above the sector
average of 69.4.
Local banks' efforts pay off
Steering clear of sample-s kewed comr>arisons to the foreign banks however. DBS. UOB and OCBC co uld still shout
about the improvements in their own scores.
Susan Cheong, head of business operations and quality
at DBS Bank. said: "We believe that in order to difl'e remiate ourse lves in an industry as commoditised as banking,
we must put customers at the cenu·e of all that we do." Of
the three. DBS improved the most (4.4 per cent) to top the
sector with a score of 71.9 points.
Ms Cheong attributed this to several in itiatives roll ed
out last year, such as the remodelling of several branches
to inco rpo rate n ew and more intuitive elements from
Finance & Insurance
I!IM~Ia•I
SUB-SECTOR
-2.4
-4.5
69.4
Banks
66.1
Life Insurance
+1.3
69.1
Health & Medical
Insurance
+0.4
70.2
Motor or Personal
Insurance
UOB's score of7l.4, a slight 0.3 per cent increase from
2012. was the second highest of a ll the banks.
Different strokes
1 would interpret it as a case of competitive dynamics.
In the financial industry, it's cut ..throat competation.
So this year, the local banks are doing better, next year,
the foreign banks may catch up, so on and so forth'
6
- ISES clirect01· CaToline Lirn
DBS's flagship branch at Marina Bay Financial Centre
Tower 3.
Where previously. DBS branches had a reception
counter for enquiries and simple transactions. the new
branches now have Welcome Pods to hand le enquiries
and direct customers to the service points. and a separate Quick Serve Counter for non-cash u·ansactions that
can be completed in 15 minutes.
Th is has helped reduce transaction time by two min·
utes a customer. she said.
Over at OCBC. which managed a 3.3 per cent jump to
a score of 71.3 points. changes have a lso been made.
not in a vacuum, but with data-driven customer insights
and design-led thinking. said head of group operations
and techno logy and group customer experience. Lim
Khiang Tong.
"Our goal is to be the most customer-focused bank
possible. More th<~n ever. we've been talking to our cus-
tamers, getting feedback and testing ideas." said Mr
Lim.
Among other changes. OCBC bas sought to make online and mobile banking easier to use. simplified products. transformed branches and created a new system
that makes it really easy to open accounts.
As for UOB, its approach has been to make banking
more convenient and relevant to its customers. by focusing on its own people, said Magdalene Boey, head. Service Transfonnation. Group Channels. Last year. th e
bank introduced an experiential training programme.
which trained branch employees to pick up on non-verbal cues from cus tomers so that tbey can empathise
with and respond better to customers' needs.
"We believe that relationships and trust are fundamental to banking. and we have invested in training to
instil in ou r employees the righ t mindset. s kills and
knowledge when serving customers." sa id Ms Boey.
One finding from JSES analysis of the banking and
life-insurance sectors was that for any given company,
custom ers' responses spanned a wider range of satisfac·
tion levels. The impact of quality. value and expecta tions on customer satisfaction varied greatly across the
customers of the same bank, suggesting that the re was
less consistency in U1e experience customers of a bank
were receiving in 2013, compared to 2012.
OCBC's Mr Lim thi nks that there is truth in this finding. "We have seen a sim ilar trend through our internal
surveys. This a!Itrms our commitment to interact regularly with our custo mers and understand them better as
thei r needs and expectations evolve," he said.
DBS, wh ich considers itself the "universal bank" in
Singapore. also tllin.ks it is important to have a clear understanding of customers' diverse needs and preferences. said Ms Cheong. "We apply different strategies to engage our customers. to enable us to deliver a coosistent
experience for each segment," she added.
ISES academic director Marcus Lee thinks that increased variability is not s urprising, particularly if a specific company is serving varied segmen ts. For instance,
for a bank very focused on high net-worth individuals, it
would not be s urprising if a customer who does not fit
into this segment does not experience the same level of
satisfaction as one whom the bank is actively wooing.
But this higher 1•ariability in responses, cou.ld also be
due to changes in customer requi rements. "It may be
worthwhile for companies to in vestigate the relevance
of their product and service offerings," said Dr Lee.
At OCBC. one new product, launched in January last
year. is OCBC Money Insights. a persomll financi<llmanagement tool that enables customers to track expenses.
set budgets. set saving goals and manage th eir cash
flow. Together with the ban k's improved online banking
platform. this tool hel ped to grow OCBC's number of online baoking customers by 12 per cent last year. Mr Lim
said.
Ms Cheong said examples of product.~ rolled out to
target specific groups of customers last year. include the
POSB HDB Loan and the DBS Home Co nnect mobile
app. for homebuyers . and the POSB Invest-Saver, which
is a combination of a regular savings plan and an exchange-traded fund and is targeted at the banks' young
adult cu~tomers who are looking to start saving for retirement.
Banks may be able to do much to lift their customers'
satisfaction, but extemal factors. sucb as regulatory decisions. co uld have a non-trivial impact on satisfaction levels too.
ISES's Ms Lim said: "In the financial services industry. the Fai r Dealing gu idelines se1·ve to enhan ce rigour
and robustness in financial advisory services. This may
in turn positively affect customer satisfaction and even
trust."
Source: The Business Times @ Singapore Press Holdings Limited. Permission required for reproduction.