Lender says it will act fast in addressing complaints, and will keep providing clients with timely updates on the status of their queries.
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
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Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
