In November 2010, the Accenture’s CRM Service Line has conducted a Customer Experience Survey in the Netherlands marketplace. The goal of this survey was to gain insight as to how customers are experiencing key industries and to identify new developments & trends in the market.  A grand total of 4000 end customers (minimum of 1000 per industry) were interviewed via an online questionnaire across the four key industries of: Banking, Telecommunications, Insurance, and Utilities.  In this weeks’ blog I would like to discuss and highlight the key findings from the industries of Banking and Telecommunications.

Banking:

A key finding of the survey shows that in the aftermath of the financial crisis customers have remained loyal to their bank and the majority of customers have a lifetime of more than 10 years.  Are customers remaining loyal as a result of their high customer satisfaction…? Or are customers feeling a lack of an attractive alternative…?  While churn rates in the banking industry are relatively low (expected average churn rate is coming 6 months is 6%) banks should not be fooled into thinking that customers are happy.  While customers may not display an intention to leave there is evidence to suggest that a negative ‘word of mouth’ is increasing.

Other key findings are:

• The results shows that next to prices & rates the demand for clear and easily accessible information and personal advice is growing;
• The results indicate an increasing demand to do more self-serve banking transactions online in particular for sales and after-sales activities while the branch remains popular for personal advice;
• With an increase in self-service channels comes an increase in usage of the internet channel by customers.  This usage is not limted to the execution of banking transactions, but also as an outlet to voice concerns and/or disaapointments in the products & services of the bank.  Specifically social media is upcoming as dissatisfied customers share their bad experiences via social media platforms.

Telecommunications:

In contrast to the Banking industry, the Telecommunications industry has a clear need to address customer dissatisfaction in order to increase retention.  The Netherland telecommunications market is saturated; in order to ‘win the war’ telecommunications companies need to be friendly and keep the customer happy.  An unhappy customer is likely to not exit quietly; but rather kicking and screaming and convincing others to follow suit.

Other interesting findings are:

• The results indicates that apart from prices, rates and easily accessible information are of increasing importance to the customer;
• The results show an increasing demand for personalized customer service as a decision factor in the decision to purchase or not;
• The results indicate that the internet is the preferred channel for general activities ranging from pre to post sales; however, for sales activities customers also have a considerable preference for the retail shop;
• Almost half of the customers communicate their disappointment directly to the telecom provider while a quarter of the customers communicate their disappointment indirectly.

While the level of customer loyalty differs between the Banking and Telecommunication industry; the customers are desiring similar things from the two industries.  There is a noticable trend to be seen in the need for easily accessible information as well as more access points for self-service (mainly via digital channels).  Lastly, with an increasing trend seen in the usage of social media platforms it is of utmost importance that these two industries create and execute social media strategies to monitor and infuence what is communicate over their products and brand.

Watch this space for highlights from Insurance and Utilities industries!