Customer Experience and Customer Loyalty (CLIX) The retail banks response

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1 Customer Experience and Customer Loyalty (CLIX) The retail banks response

2 CLIX Performance: Positive Over the past two years Grant Thornton s Insight and Peer Analysis practice, in collaboration with InsightNow, has produced an annual customer experience and customer loyalty index which shows, for the 21 largest players, how they are performing in the eyes of their customers. From a customer perspective, the sector has improved in both delivering improved customer experience and customer loyalty. The expectation is that good customer experience leads the way and earns a firm customer loyalty. The results suggest that strong performers in delivering 2012 customer experience subsequently delivered an uptick in loyalty this year. The rising bar creates additional challenges, since all the firms need to improve relative to each other to attain additional advantage. To make this step change banks have sought to: heavily promote their wider brand image develop other, more customer friendly, methods of engagement for example digital and mobile channels provide unique product features to help deliver this step change. For some this approach has worked well, when viewed in conjunction with other market information (such as the results of the seven day switching requirements), and innovative products that combine financial flexibility with wider non financial benefits. The latter has proved very popular and contributed to improved customer experience and loyalty scores. What singles out the best performers is the concept of tangibly caring for their customers backing the customer driven rhetoric. The four top performers are considered to project this, but the largest players still do not yet, in the eyes of their customers, seem able to deliver this capability. This suggests gaps in their customer facing processes and staff training.

3 CLIX Performance: Negative Three of the large high street banks have yet to make their mark and move ahead. This is down to a combination of factors including: their continuing focus on resolving historical regulatory matters and their cost base before focusing on the customer experience the scale and complexity of delivering an end to end customer experience across a broad range of products and touch points, and therefore the time it takes to get semi-autonomous functions and departments to work together cohesively to achieve this recent and/or consistently negative press for each of these brands. Brand perspective continues to support or detract from the Bank. This is best highlighted by well publicised difficulties brands have endured due to their Banking, Leadership and Financial Performance over the last year. The results clearly indicate when a firm s brand suffers substantial and consistent damage the customer perception is similarly weakened.

4 Where next? All banks must capture customer feedback in a format that enables them to demonstrate conduct performance and mobilise all parts of their business models to deliver better customer interaction. The compelling drivers to do this will be regulation compliance and commercial necessity. There are signs of improvement when looking at the feedback in specific areas of customer interaction. Areas such as complaint handling, on boarding and switching have all shown marked increases in customer satisfaction, trust and advocacy since The goal must be to join up local areas of excellence to deliver a more complete and consistent end to end experience, which in turn fosters loyalty. The 2014 results indicate that those banks who improved their customer experience markedly now must seek to seize the prize of greater loyalty. For others there is a longer rebuilding process which starts with doing the basics right through ensuring customer experience is consistently managed. This becomes more important for those Banks suffering repeated brand damage, where customers are continually having to rethink their affinity with the brand. The industry will see the development of greater, more immediate customer feedback loops, leveraged through the greater use of digital channels. This will identify areas of both poor and strong customer experience and will help build customer relationships. It is an area of development expected by the regulators and customers alike who desire the immediacy of feedback already offered by other sectors. Pillar Banks Challenger Banks Building Societies Positive trend Steady trend Negative trend R 2 = Our index measurement is based on 4,120 survey responses across 21 brands in Q4 2013, capturing perception of experience and loyalty by asking customers to rate the following aspects: Customer experience index: ease of contacting the bank ease of getting what you wanted how you felt afterwards Customer loyalty index: likelihood to recommend likelihood to continue as a customer willingness to purchase new products Increase customer experience Increase loyalty You ve got to start with the customer experience and work backward - not the other way around Steve Jobs Former CEO of Apple

5 The UK Retail Banks have focused heavily on delivering an improved and more consistent customer experience to their customers, in order to help rebuild confidence in the sector and increase loyalty to their brands. With the advent of the FCA, Conduct and Conduct Risk have become common terminology. Underpinning this has been the need to ensure the customer is placed at the very heart of the business ensuring greater fairness, trust, empathy and understanding between the parties. Whilst the Retail Banks work to improve their customers experience, the world does not stand still. In particular new technology and new competitors change customer perception and expectation around their banking experience. The Retail Sector continues to provide a clear point of reference by which customers assess the service provided by Financial Services.

6 Why Grant Thornton? We have worked with all the UK pillar and challenger banking brands in developing their fairness and conduct agendas. We have a strong customer insight and peer analysis practice which: supports you to understand how your customers perceive your service at each point of the relationship and the lasting outcome of these interactions draws on our current data sets to show how you are performing in different aspects of customer sales and service against your peers runs an established benchmark service into several Retail Banking firms. Our consultants have a deep knowledge of the industry, how each function within a Retail bank operates, and what leading customer experience practices look like. We have worked closely with clients and the regulators in ensuring that firms remain compliant, meet their customer conduct obligations and provide the necessary evidence to support this. We have significant data underpinning these high level findings which relate to your Bank s performance in relation to others and how this has changed over the past year. We would be delighted to share these findings with you and discuss how you are planning to take the conduct agenda forward. Contact us Ewen Fleming Partner, Banking Financial Services Business Consulting T M E ewen.a.fleming@uk.gt.com 2014 Grant Thornton UK LLP. All rights reserved. Grant Thornton refers to the brand under which the Grant Thornton member firms provide assurance, tax and advisory services to their clients and/or refers to one or more member firms, as the context requires. Grant Thornton UK LLP is a member firm of Grant Thornton International Ltd (GTIL). GTIL and the member firms are not a worldwide partnership. GTIL and each member firm is a separate legal entity. Services are delivered by the member firms. GTIL does not provide services to clients. GTIL and its member firms are not agents of, and do not obligate, one another and are not liable for one another s acts or omissions. This publication has been prepared only as a guide. No responsibility can be accepted by us for loss occasioned to any person acting or refraining from acting as a result of any material in this publication. grant-thornton.co.uk V24118