Abstract
Customer Delight and Satisfaction
Customer delight refers to foreseeing customers’ needs, providing solutions ahead of time, and presenting unexpected attributes in the best possible way to them. Customer delight occurs when the client’s expectations are exceeded. Expectations are surpassed when a customer is delighted, and that positive experience could help improve brand loyalty. There is a fine difference between customer satisfaction and customer delight. Whilst customer satisfaction is all about the practical procedure of achieving goals and delivering value; on the other hand, customer delight is the ‘Emotional Special Factor,’ which adds to the customer’s overall experience. Sometimes customer delight is more important than just making a customer satisfied with a particular product or service. Such positive experiences could help improve a brand’s loyalty.
In the case of retail-banking customers’ satisfaction events, the necessary factors should be taken care of are as follows:
Speed of response. Shorter turnaround time in resolving customers’ issues. Identification of a problem and clarifying the resolution. Improvise and upgrade infrastructure and technology support to help the customers in receiving their services with promptness. Following a much-organized delivery process as an end-to-end resolution. A transparent and comfortable communication between the customers and the bank staff/employees, who are finally responsible for providing services and resolution to their customers. Involvement of senior management and their frequent initiatives in resolving their customers’ requirements time-to-time basis and bringing up changes and developments in the service delivery process.
In the case of a customer delight event, the important factors should be taken care of are as follows:
Customer delight can be achieved through marketing promotional activities. Like, greeting and sending a surprise gift to the customer on his or her birthday/anniversary/children’s birthday. Mailing out a free promotional product or coupon on the customer’s special days. In retail-banking segment, as it is all about an individual’s financial and transactional needs; therefore, every individual would have an independent goal/ambition. Helping such individuals/customers in achieving their long-term goals may add to a customer’s delight. Listen to the customers, voice of customers, a feedback survey amongst the customers, then select the most interesting feedback and recognize and reward that individual/customer, implementing that feedback in a real-term process and finally acknowledging the customer about that implementation in the system.
The importance of bringing up both customer satisfaction and delight together in the retail-banking sector is as follows: To win over the threats to stay ahead of the competition in the same industry. To build up customer loyalty. To gain customer retention over a longer time. To leave an everlasting brand image to the customers. To increase customer base or add new customers through the reference creation way.
Customer Relationship Management and How Critical Success Factors Help a Service Organization in Bringing Up a Successful CRM Strategy:
Customer relationship management (CRM) came into existence when banking institutions started to become more competitive. CRM for banks consists of two primary tasks.
Acquisition of customers Increased sales from other existing customers
CRM has become inevitable for the growth and profitability of banks in the present scenario marked by rising competition, technological advancement, and empowered/informed customers. The CRM practices are adopted to generate a better understanding of customers for product development, segmentation, appropriate targeting of customers, campaign management, and maintenance of long-term profitable and mutually beneficial relationships with customers.
The CRM strategy of a competitive bank is based on a set of critical success factors (CSFs). This set of CSFs will constitute a guide for companies in the implementation of a successful CRM strategy. CSF is a very important concept for strategists to understand the landscape of the industry to identify the most important competitive success factors. These factors include product attributes, competitive capabilities, resources, competencies, market achievements, and so on.
The CSFs of the banking industry that are advertently working behind implementing a successful CRM strategy for the bank are as follows:
Technology Product innovation Quality (quality in service delivery) Best rates Brand image creation Location and conveniences
Technology: Bringing up a well-advanced technology to reach and connect with retail-banking customers is an important matter of concern for every banking organization.Most of the banks in the present scenario believe in using technology as a competitive advantage and support its adoption. Frequently, private sector banks refurbish their online banking portals for both retail and corporate clients. With the growing volume of digital transactions, banks feel it is indispensable to invest in the right technology, which helps customer transactions, reconciliation, and dispute management through less manual intervention and to intensify customer delight.
Initiatives taken by some of the reputed private sector banks in such cases are given later:
Some of the banks introduced cloud technology to ensure need-based dynamic infrastructure allocations per volume. Banks introduce artificial intelligence to facilitate seamless connection on a larger scale. The cyber security system has enabled the growing adoption of digital banking and finance by safeguarding transactions of both retail and corporate clients of the bank. With several technological implementations through such partnerships/collaborations, the banking sector has been able to create a successful digital platform. Some banks have also imbibed the technologies to launch payment services in a faster and more accurate way for their customers.
Product Innovation: To survive in this competitive market, the same line of business is followed and stay ahead of competitors, for example, Yes Bank has taken some initiatives to introduce new product lines, over a span of time. As the banks are focussing more on introducing bespoke items for their customers or we can say banks are presenting their products in a more customized way towards their customers, as per their customers’ specific tastes and preferences. This adds to customers’ satisfaction and retention.
Quality (Quality in Service Delivery): Supply chain improvements and assuring quality in the final delivery process towards customers: Presently, the banks are introducing financing solutions for their customer’s value chain partners as well. A bank’s digital supply chain solution provides holistic financing opportunities and value-added services to improve the operational efficiencies of a corporate’s supply chain management. In such cases, the bank partners with corporate clients to provide liquidity support for their vendors and dealers, thereby providing greater financial control and enhancing value chain relationships.
The bank assures both the vendor payments and dealer payments services complied with sustainable cash flows/liquidity. Most of the banks have adopted such initiatives to provide a delightful experience in the field of service quality for their corporate clients.
Best Rates: Giving the best/industry-highest rates of interest to the savings and fixed deposits of the customers is the most important key success factor of a bank. In this context, some banks always follow their interest rates as their unique selling proposition (USP). Offering higher interest rates always helps the bank to stay ahead of the competition.
Brand Image Creation: Throughout the several phases of ups-and-downs, the banking sector has always tried to hold on to its brand image amongst its customers. Most of the banks have always tried to retain their brand image in their customers, through using online platforms like Twitter and Facebook, commercials, communicating new promotional offers, and various proceedings in the company.
For example, few banks are associated with IPL and hence much popular amongst the cricket-watching crowd and attract other investors because of their presence.
In recent times, banks are also taking part in various ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ activities to support the community and make their brand visible.
Location and Convenience: In the banking industry, for any bank, locational convenience and networking facilities are the most important fact to satisfy and retain its customers.
Increasing the branch network and presence in the vicinity of both residential and commercial places is the most required for connecting with customers.
Every year on average, most private sector banks keep adding 50–70 new branches for better reach to their customers. Simultaneously the banks also keep opening ATMs at most of the locations for better customer access.
Conclusion
Hereby, we can sum it up, keeping in mind the above factors and their relevance and how effectively CSFs work in bringing up both customer satisfaction and delight concepts together in the retail-banking sector. Here, all the CSFs have been derived by going through every necessary and relevant aspect of retail-banking customer satisfaction. Here, we can see how each aspect of a retail-banking strategy is correlated with each other for a customer’s satisfaction, delight, and retention towards that banking organization.
As an example, we can observe that some of the most struggling and crisis-driven banks, which used to perform at their best earlier, have recovered/overcame such crisis within a much short span of time by identifying and implementing CSFs. These banks had assured recovering their income level and net profitability faster after such sluggishness.
Those banks have been able to control their total income from degrowing further. Besides, they have also assured a sharp decrease in the bank’s aspect of provisions and contingencies.
What Are Provision and Contingencies for a Banking Organization/Financial Institution
Provisional liability is measured for a bank as an expenditure required to fill the gap or settle down the bank’s present obligation, which was created during the crisis phases of that bank. On the other hand, contingent liabilities are possible obligations, which can be derived from future uncertain events for the bank.
It depicts that sooner the banks had taken such initiatives we discussed earlier, keeping in mind the end users of the banks, their customers, and the banks had come over by reducing their crucial aspects of provisional and contingent liabilities level within a year. Such provisional and contingent liability levels had been controlled and reduced sooner because of an overall positive response from the banks’ satisfied and delighted customers and due to bringing back their confidence in the banks as a financial measurement.