Many a time the banking public has had to endure the frustration of being shunted from pillar to post to get their bank to resolve simple queries. But SA's fourth biggest lender Nedbank is bucking the trend.
Last year Nedbank launched an initiative dubbed Ask Once to improve the banking experience of its more than 4m customers by dealing with their requests more effectively.
Nedbank Retail MD Rob Shuter says the idea of the initiative is to raise the bar on the quality and standard of service delivery by galvanising all staff in the bank around a specific promise to clients.
And as the name suggests, a Nedbank client only has to "ask once" and every time the bank breaks the Ask Once promise it donates R50 to a Nedbank approved charity.
WHAT IT MEANS
 Shrugging off the perception that it is a bank for the elite
Operational processes altered
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"Many organisations have generic service charters, but we are putting our money where our mouth is by providing a financial guarantee to support the Ask Once promise. This initiative demonstrates our commitment to world-class service and the value we place on building long-term client relationships," Shuter says.
And as part of its client promise, Nedbank has also changed its operational processes, including the turnaround time in the processing of loans, booking itself first position in the 2007 Orange Index, a survey which benchmarks service performance in SA. A total of 70 companies across 12 sectors were surveyed and Nedbank came first in the banking sector.
"We are very encouraged by the fact that Nedbank is leading the banking sector when it comes to delighting clients," says Shuter.
"With banking becoming increasingly commoditised, service becomes an obvious differentiator. Consumers are likely to be the real winners as competition in this cate-gory intensifies," he says.
"Though we are delighted with the recent award we know that we have a lot of work ahead to achieve our aspiration to differentiate on client service."
The banking industry's image has been under the spotlight in the last couple of years, with the Competition Commission enquiry highlighting the perception that bank charges in SA are high.
But for the past three to four years Nedbank has been substantially reducing its retail banking fees, helping it shrug off the perception that it is a bank for the elite and affluent South Africans.
The price reduction strategy had helped Nedbank change the demographic composition of its client base, bringing it more in line with the demographics of the country.
Out of the bank's 4m individual clients, only 100 000 are in the affluent and high net-worth segment and of the 3,9m that fall in the middle and mass market segments, only 700 000 are in the middle market segment.
"We have done a lot of work to grow our mass market client base over the past four years as part of a strategy called A Bank for All," Shuter says.
But the challenge for Nedbank is to retain and grow this client profile while at the same time building its relevance across all the major market segments.
Shuter concurs, saying Nedbank is making sure that it has enough focus, not just on the historical high net-worth markets, but on mass and middle markets, which holds the key to the growth of the SA economy.
Nedbank retail boss underscores the need to ensure "we have the right product set, the right distribution channels and the right pricing for all of these segments, underpinned by a differentiated service experience".
Help at hand - Inside a mobile bank
In recent years, Nedbank has been developing products aimed at the mass market and has increased the functionality of its Mzansi accounts as well as reviewing its pricing structure, making it the fastest growing retail bank in this segment.
In line with this thrust, Nedbank has launched a number of new savings and investment products and bolstered its lending to the mass market segment through its personal lending operations.
This has resulted in Nedbank's market share in personal lending increasing from 8% to more than 14% in just three years. The bank has also seen a similar shift in its Mzansi market share, which currently sits at about 16%.
"It has been a lot of hard work, focusing on what clients need, what is the right product for them, how it should be priced and we also had to tackle distribution. Because we have a smaller footprint than the other banks, we try to find smart and innovative ways of reaching clients," Shuter says.
Meeting them halfway - Services are being taken to where the people are
"We have rolled out a lot of nontraditional distribution channels, as we call them. An example would be our Branch-in-a-Box. We also have a number of mobile sales teams, with almost 400 sales people now in the field, who can move from area to area. They set up a gazebo, a generator, printer and fax machine, almost anywhere - a taxi rank, a social function, wherever there is a need and an opportunity. That's been good for us," Shuter says.
Nedbank has also been working with leading retailers such as Pick n Pay, Score and Boxer to bring banking services close to the banking public. It has been rolling out mini-branches into these environments, giving it quicker time to market and a cost effective way of marketing its products and creating convenience for its clients who are able to bank while they shop.
Nedbank's philosophy is to be competitive in its product profile and in pricing, particularly in the mass market, where it goes for what it calls "best in market pricing".
Though Nedbank's bigger peers are also focusing on improving client service and differentiation, Shuter says for his bank the focus lies in effectively and efficiently executing the service strategy.
"It's how you do it and we have done a couple of things in this regard that have worked very well for us," he says.
One such initiative is the World Class Service (WCS) programme, introduced in 2005 to help Nedbank Retail achieve its vision of delivering the best client experience in the market. The initiative is founded on an extensive consultative process to determine client needs.
"As part of the programme, we adopted a UK-based framework called CMAT, which stands for Customer Management Assessment Tool."
The CMAT framework is used by more than 700 organisations globally. It has a measurement component as part of its methodology and allows Nedbank to benchmark itself against all CMAT users, among them world-class service organisations like Westpac, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Ame-rican Express, Cathay Pacific, Daimler Chrysler, Nissan and Woolworths.
"They come out and they measure how well the bank is equipped to manage clients.
"So whereas other surveys ask your clients how they experience your service, CMAT has a different approach. It enables you to compare how well you are equipped to manage clients against companies all over the world who have adopted the CMAT framework. That has been really helpful for us and we have been executing projects that address the weaknesses identified in the CMAT framework," he says.
Shuter says the results of the CMAT assessment, concluded recently, provided further validation that Nedbank is on the right track, with the bank now ranked in the top 25% of participants, a clear improvement on the initial assessment, conducted in November 2006.
Though the WCS programme is providing many of the tools required for the delivery of world-class service, successful implementation depends on getting the basics right.
This includes restructuring the business for increased client focus, enhancing the product and service offering and making a substantial investment in banking infrastructure, Shuter says.
Shuter says there is a lot of work still to be done across all the major channels. "We are making really good progress in the branch environment. There are some critical processes we still need to work on, particularly around the opening of current accounts, which is a key process for us. As such we continue to embed a service culture in the business, right from frontline people all the way to the support areas and head office environment.
"We've also made some changes to our structure, to increase the focus on the client. We now have Nedbank Private Bank, Consumer Banking (which includes our mass and middle market segments) and Small Business Services, which is our SME business, all reporting directly to me," Shuter says.
Nedbank's retail business structure now reflects a good mix of products, segments and channels, a major shift from the past when the bank was perhaps a little product-heavy, he says.
The abundance of talented people makes the Nedbank focus on delivering exceptional service that much easier.
"Nedbank has always been blessed with great people. A lot of skill, talent and knowledge has always been in the business.
"What Nedbank has struggled with historically is in actually executing strategies. We have put a lot of focus on getting things done using our existing talent.
"What we've managed to do though is to make the strategy a lot clearer, get people focused in a common direction and ensure that things are properly planned."
