Qatar National Bank - Customer Satisfaction Department - Case Study Example

Topic: Qatar National Bank- Satisfaction Department Contents Introduction 3 Analysis of the situation 4 How the management of Qatar National Bank has dealt customer satisfaction 7 Evaluation of how Qatar National Bank dealt with customer satisfaction 11 Conclusion 13 References 15 Introduction Upgrades to financial services seek to transform Doha and the rest of Qatar into a key business center and there has never been a lack of ambition in the country. The country endeavors to create its own specialist niche while remaining undeterred by the competitive challenges that originate from the more established areas such as Bahrain and Dubai. Various aspects of the domestic banking sectors of Qatar are continually being enhanced with the aim of achieving new debit systems and electronic check clearing systems among others in order to make the banking infrastructure in Qatar better than the other systems that operate in the region. These improvements in the financial infrastructure of the nation are important when it comes to keeping pace with the continually increasing needs of the economy that is driven by huge gas exports, rising consumer affluence and the determination of the government to make the country’s capital a key business center. In order to achieve these objectives, the institutions in the banking industry play a very important role in the manner they offer their services, specifically in regards to customer satisfaction and loyalty. The Qatar National Bank was started in 1964 and was the first commercial bank that was Qatari-owned through a split structure between the private sector and Qatar Investment Authority (Bricault, 1993). The Qatar National Bank Group has risen to be among the biggest banks in the Middle East as well as North American region. It commands assets of more than one hundred billion dollars while at the same time being the foremost financial institution in Qatar through its market that is almost forty five percent of all the assets in the banking sector. The total number of employees who work for the bank is more than thirteen thousand and it operated from more than five hundred and fifty locations with an ATM network that is comprised of more than 1200 machines. The groups seeks to provide services in investment banking through subsidiaries like QNB capital to various government, institutional and corporate customers in Qatar and the rest of the globe. The group further provides brokerage services via subsidiaries such as the QNB Financial Services, which is the first licensed brokerage company that is independently regulated and launched by a bank in the country. The bank provides a multi-currency and multi market platform for trading while providing access to various markets. The Qatari-based bank further engages in providing Islamic and commercial banking services through the operation of four segments. The corporate banking section deals with deposits, loans, investments and advisory issues along with other services that are sought by the corporate clients while at the same time undertaking the funding and centralized managing of risk activities through issuance of debt securities, borrowings, usage of derivatives for purpose of managing risks and making investments in liquid assets (Vasudevan, 2003). On the other hand, the consumer banking section deals with deposits, loans and a variety of services and products that target the retail customers, while the Asset and Wealth management section deals with deposits, loans, custodial services, brokerage among other products meant for high net worth clients. The fourth segment that is referred as international banking deals with deposits and loans along with other services and products for its individual and corporate clients in various areas on the globe. Analysis of the situation The banking sector in Qatar has continued to maintain its advancement as a result of the industry’s reliance on businesses associated with the government as well as the domestic economy, nonetheless, Qatar still has a long way to go before it can be considered as formidable competition in the globe. To make this negative profile more complicated, the customers who face problems have been experiencing limited website, call center service options, and have been repeatedly referred to various departments without success. Additionally, most of the bank processes continue to be done manually and involve dealing with numerous documents and various layer and levels of decision-making entities. Re-designed approaches can be used to achieve considerable improvements in efficiency and in some instances may reduce the resources needed by more than a half. Furthermore, offshoring and outsourcing can be used to provide options that will lead to business process being centralized, improve the degree of service and enhance controls, but this are comparatively new concepts for the QNB even though some banks are already efficiently outsourcing less complicated functions to countries such as Egypt and India. Studies have shown that quality of service is a continually being identified as a key factor in the success of businesses as it results in customer loyalty and satisfaction. As far as quality of service of concerned, the banking sector cannot be an exception, as the customers have to be treated in a manner that will make them want to continue doing business with the bank (Pock, 2007). Quality of service has been broadly applied to assess how different banking services perform and banks should make sure that they have are aware that customer loyalty will be achieved if they get better value compared to the competitors. Additionally, banks can easily earn exceptional profits if they can be able to place themselves in better position than their competitors than their competition in the specific market in which they operate. There is an increasing expectation by businesses as well as individual customers that obliges individual banks to increase their investments towards modernization on a persistent basis. Additionally, the existence of prominent global businesses in Qatar requires that the banking institutions in the country, including the Qatar National Bank, have no chance to become complacent in the manner in which they operate and treat customers. For the Qatar National Bank as well as other banks in the country, technology is among the core opportunities for growth and it should realize the significance of technology and the important part it plays in providing exceptional solutions for cash management to its customers. There is a pressing need for the bank to make more investments in these areas in order to make sure that the customers get quality services, which will in turn result in increased satisfaction and loyalty. Currently, robust and advanced delivery channels including electronic banking systems have remained the core strengths for foreign banking therefore assisting them to better satisfy their customers. The Qatar market is under continuous evolution and the banks including the Qatar National Bank have reported significant growth in the recent past. More and more corporate customers have sought the services of the Qatar National Bank after being attracted by the investments the bank has made in various areas of operation. In the past, this was mainly the case for multinational segments but recently, there has been adoption throughout the corporate scale. This can be attributed to the increased interest and keenness in the new generation of domestic businesspersons as this category of customers is playing a bigger role in the economy and this has elicited a paradigm shift in the attitudes of banks, which has an effect on the overall perception of the company. Expectations of corporate and individual clients in regards to banking continue to increase at the same rate as international expectations and demands. It is important to note that even though the bank may be offering service that are exceptional, there remains some level of customer dissatisfaction in various aspects of its operation including customer service and delivery of some services. However, the customers seek quality service as well as faster services that provide ways of reducing their costs. Thus, the Qatar National Bank should concentrate in the quality of service as the key competitive strategy as there are numerous banks all over the globe that provide the same services while attempting to be as innovative as their competitors. It should be noted that customers have been seeing the difference in terms of quality of service between those offered by the Qatar National Bank and other banks since the clients assess the performance of the bank based on the personal contact and interactions with the clients. How the management of Qatar National Bank has dealt customer satisfaction Customer loyalty is an extremely important aspect for the banks that operate in a progressively competitive industry and the largest bank in the North Africa and Middle East region, The Qatar National Bank had been seeking for ways of ensuring customers remain loyal and satisfied with its services and products. Therefore, the bank developed several products and initiatives that would appeal to the customers with the aim of making them more satisfied and in the process enhancing their loyalty. QNB Life Rewards The Qatar National Bank endeavored to get a loyalty program that was easily personalized for its broad variety of customer segment, and chose to employ the PayFlex Loyalty program by Innova, which has been evidently successful in numerous cases in the past. The bank’s loyalty program has been in use since December 2012 and as known as “Life Rewards”, assisting to raise expectations and standards in Qatar as well as the rest of the region where the Qatar National Bank operates (Qnb.com, 2015). Through the Life Rewards, the customers of the bank are supposed to amass points based on the number of times they use their bank cards while shopping and the manner they use other products and services offered by the bank. The points that are accumulated from continuous and frequent use of the services and products of the bank can then be redeemed through various methods. Among the reasons why the Qatar National Bank favored the PayFlex Loyalty are the competencies that Innova has in provision of loyalty solutions and its effective expertise in retail, banking and telecommunication industries in various areas across the Middle East. The Qatar National Bank seeks to motivate its clients to participate more actively in its loyalty program that offers flexible solutions. The Qatar National Bank presently operates in more than twenty-five nations and remains the leader in the region in terms of brand value and equity capital while commanding a forty percent market share in the nation. Therefore, a loyalty program targeting the customers was necessary in order to increase their level of loyalty and satisfaction with the bank through strengthening relationships with the clients and demonstrate its dominance in the industry. Qatar National Bank is the oldest and pioneer commercial bank in Qatar and through its Life Rewards program; it provides better content when compared to the loyalty programs of other banks. The program that was created using the PayFlex loyalty framework is able to offer Customers Life Rewards for utilizing numerous bank services such as accessing property and car loans, applications for new credit cards as well as salary transfers. Through the loyalty program, the Qatar National Bank allows as an alternative to spending the points a customer has accumulated, to transfer the points as Otel Nojoom points and Qatar Airmiles, through cross loyalty integrations. Various terminals and places can be used for these tasks including ATMs, online banking, point of sale terminals as well as bank branches and call centers with customers checking the number of points they have accumulated through short message services. Qatar National Bank clients with at least one credit or debit card enrolled for the Life Rewards program will automatically become eligible for the Life Rewards loyalty program and immediately start earning points. Customers are not obligated to pay anything in order to become members as the bank seeks to increase customer loyalty and satisfaction while at the same time giving it a competitive edge in its industry. The bank further seeks to improve its image among the customers through offering attractive and exceptional services and continues to offer opportunities that will increase the number of loyal customers as well as sales in the shops that take part in the program, which will strengthen the bank’s links to businesses that are part of the program. mPOS The Qatar National Bank also established a point-of sale solution that was mobile known as mPOS, which was intended to support the growth of merchants in the country. The mPOS card reader used for this solution’s operations works through connecting to a tablet or smartphone owned by the merchant to turn it into a Chip & PIN terminal for mobile payments. This solution can be tailor-made to the needs of individual merchants and has compatibility with various mobile platforms in smartphones and tablets including Android and iOS. This solution is intended to enable the merchants to accept payments from their customers in secure environment through working with card readers that are Bluetooth enabled. The mPOS system that has been developed by the Qatar National Bank will give small merchants an opportunity to accept cards for business transactions as well as an integration of complicated back end systems of bigger retailers to create a robust mobile point-of-sale solution. The mPOS solution developed by Qatar National Bank has demonstrated potential in the global markets where merchants of different sizes are able to accept payments through their mobile devices thereby enriching the experience of the customers though ease of making payments at various location stores leading to enhanced customer loyalty (Qnb.com, 2015). This solution will give retailers payment methods that are easy to install while ensuring more customers use the bank so that they can get a chance to use the services it provides thereby increasing satisfaction and loyalty. The APTRA Activate platform The Qatar National Bank also collaborated with NCR Corporation in the acquisition of software that will lead to enhanced consumer banking experiences. the NCR Corporation is among the best companies that deal with consumer transactional technologies and the software it developed for Qatar National Bank featured software for consumer experience banking referred to as APTRA Activate. This adoption of the latest software technology will assist in enhancing the efficiency of different banking services since it is customer oriented and better designed to meet the evolving demands of clients. Qatar National Bank is confident of the collaboration it has forged NCR and considers that the resultant banking experience is enhanced through the adoption of the innovative technology (Newscentral.exsees.com, 2015). The APTRA Activate, which is a multi-channel platform has been incorporated in to the current system being used by the bank and is supposed to give customers the opportunity to enjoy consistency in their transactions particularly through the self-service channel of the bank in a secure and advanced platform. Qatar National Bank was the first banking institution in Qatar to adopt the CxBanking Platform from NCR with the aim of enhancing the experiences of the clients with the customer service with the bank also migrated to a newer Windows platform for its self-service activities. Various managers of Qatar National Bank have been hopeful of the implantation of the NCR software that is supposed to enable a higher degree of consistency in banking experiences in the various channels the banks operate in including digital and physical ones (Qureshi, 2015). The customers will enjoy an improved level of efficiency and as well as convenient banking experiences through increasing the engagement of the customers and offering secure methods for banking transactions (Qureshi, 2015). The new multi-channel platform has been able to smoothly integrate into the present infrastructure of the bank and has made the Qatar National Bank transform banking activities and services in the whole country thereby making the experiences of its customers exceptional. The upgrades to the multi-channel platform and the newer Windows platform to increase security and the experience of users made the Qatar National Bank one of the big banking financial companies operating in the Middle East to move into a more innovative self-service network. Through the collaboration with NCR, Qatar National Bank acquired cutting-edge software that assisted it to transform the banking experiences of its customers allowing it to increase its focus on the clients and understand their needs in a better way since this is a core pillar of the business strategy of the bank. The newly adopted platform from NCR provides and exceptional vision for the transformation of banking services through provision of cutting-edge software platforms, which will facilitate faster innovations towards the improvement of experiences of the customers. Additionally, the bank is already using the Solidcore suit that is designed to work with APTRA to create the most detailed ATM whitelisting software meant to proactive safeguard ATMs from attacks through prevention of any unauthorized codes in the network to provide more secured banking. Customers can therefore conduct their Tam transactions with ease and without worry and this goes a long way in enhancing their satisfaction with the bank as well as their loyalty. Evaluation of how Qatar National Bank dealt with customer satisfaction The Qatar National Bank responded to pressure from the customers through making improvements to the services it offers customers. The bank has been a leading force as far as the corporate market is concerned through providing its customers with tailor-made solutions that are designed to suit the needs of specific countries while ensuring they remain aware of account activities. Additionally, the bank has been providing automated back office functionality via on-line services like emailing statements along with clearing of cheques electronically with the aim of improving customer experience and enhancing their satisfaction. The electronic cheques clearance works through transferring images of the cheques through electronic means as a replacement of the conventional physical movement associated with paper cheques between the bank and the Qatar Central Bank. Through this way, the deposit of funds can be done quickly and clearance of cheques takes place within a short time. In an effort to make its services more attractive for customers, Qatar National Bank established a new electronic banking platform for its corporate customers that allowed more direct interactions with resource planning structures where there can be instantaneous reporting of credits in order to enable the companies to efficiently use their funds. The authorized employees in the customer’s businesses are also able to utilize the service in purchasing or paying for utilities, credit card bills as well as telecoms while the managers are able to regulate the usage of corporate credit cards. Cash management continues to be a significant area of business in the banking industry since it is a key fundamental service that assists in building strong relationships with customers that may extend into other sections of the business. At the Qatar National Bank, cash management is important especially for its corporate banking section as a consequence of the advantages it provides in terms of liquidity management making the bank preferable for corporate clients opening corporate accounts and in the process making sure that customer loyalty is enhanced. The cash management system at Qatar National Bank seeks to provide online transferring of funds to local and international destinations and collection and payment of funds online for corporate and individual clients among others including payment of salaries, cash collection, ATMs with an ability to accept cash deposits and dividend payments. However, regardless of the development of electronic services by the Qatar National Bank along with other banks in the country, customers in Qatar do not always prefer automated or online solutions and there continues to be a slow adaptation to electronic means of settlements mainly because of cultural issues. Presently, the market is mainly skewed towards settlements using physical instruments, particularly paper cheques with the corporate customers continuing to use the bank’s branches. The customers further do not favor online and electronic transactions especially when dealing with transactions of large values and the businesses owned by families where authorities to sign physical documents is strictly controlled. The services of the Qatar National Bank include those that are supposed to assist businesses as well as individual clients in the management of their cash flows while at the same time enhancing productivity. Regardless of these developments in terms of enhancing services, there is still room for more developments and support systems that may make customers more satisfied and increase their loyalty. The bank can develop courier services along with other delivery systems that would significantly enhance the turnaround times needed for picking and delivering documents and quality of cash management services. This is supposed to be supported by an additional number of providers of security services with the ability to offer well-organized and operational services of cash delivery and pickups. Conclusion The Qatar National Bank should seek ways of enhancing the image of the Group through pro-active means of addressing the needs of the customers in a way that will surpass the expectations of the customers. It should also monitor the indicators of service quality while taking corrective measures to make sure that an exceptional degree of customer satisfaction is achieved while making sure that the queries and complaints of the clients are dealt with swiftly and in an efficient manner. This will ensure that escalated customer complaints have been resolved on time resulted in increased market share through high degrees of service and meeting of turnaround times. Lastly, in order to ensure that the customers remain satisfied, the bank should find ways of providing precise and timely information to its auditors so that transparency in the company can be enhanced. References Bricault, G. (1993). Major Companies of the Arab World 1993/94. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. Newscentral.exsees.com,. (2015). QNB deploys NCR APTRA Activate to support consumer transactions. Retrieved 18 May 2015, from http://newscentral.exsees.com/item/b6157cb536ff80864ed2c21a54a2f1b4-167c01f8f7b445e96876e52ddaa87496 Pock, A. (2007). Strategic management in Islamic finance. Wiebaden: Deutscher Universitäts-Verlag. Qnb.com,. (2015). Retrieved 18 May 2015, from http://www.qnb.com/cs/Satellite?c=QNBNews_C&cid=1355404470581&locale=1344242931585&p=1344243942363&pagename=QNBIran%2FQNBLayout Qnb.com,. (2015). QNBLife - enLifeTermsConditions. Retrieved 16 May 2015, from http://www.qnb.com/cs/Satellite/QNBLife/en_QA/enLifeTermsConditions Qureshi, S. (2015). Qatar National Bank to Adopt New Software for Better Service Experience.Customerservice.ae. Retrieved 18 May 2015, from http://www.customerservice.ae/qatar-national-bank-to-adopt-new-software-for-better-service-experience Vasudevan, A. (2003). Central banking for emerging market economies. New Delhi: Academic Foundation. Read More