The Customer:

The customer (the bank) was one of the earliest Islamic Banks established in the Middle East. One of the main objectives of the bank was to provide banking services of the highest standards according to the guidelines of Islamic Banking.

The bank viewed its relationship with its customer community as one based on trust; service to customers has always been of high importance to the bank. Starting with one branch, the bank had grown to more than ten branches and a quarter-million customers.

The bank, besides branches, also operates ATMs (owned and shared) and a tele-banking system through an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) System.

The Challenge:

Banking services were growing rapidly in the region and with competition, particularly from foreign banks in the high-value/high-profit corporate and high-net-worth retail customer segments. In this environment, the bank, guided by tenets of Islamic Banking, provided undifferentiated, high-quality and personalized services to all its customers. With such customer-friendly policies, the customer base of the bank grew rapidly. The growing customer base, however, put pressure on the bank's operations, particularly its branches. The tele-banking facility through the IVR had not found much acceptance with customers and the bank continued to provide personalized services at the branches.

The current mode of delivering customer requests in the context of growing customer activity was not sustainable. The bank had to review its processes to receive customer service requests and effectively fulfil them. This had to be done consistently across all the branches of the bank. The bank had to position other delivery channels, such as the ATM, tele-banking and call center in providing efficient customer services and thereby relieve some of the current load on the branches. i-flex Consulting was invited by the bank to evaluate its current tele-banking processes and formulate the delivery channel strategy.

Solution Offered

Review of Telebanking Service

In an initial investigative engagement, i-flex Consulting, while reviewing the tele-banking processes of the bank, identified basic issues and opportunities with customer service in the bank:

	setting up a centralized customer services function in the bank
	defining role/responsibility and structure in the bank's organization
	assessing role and utilization levels of current delivery channels
	identifying and prioritizing customer activity and service needs at branches, ATMs and IVR/tele-banking, among others.
	setting goals and performance measures for customer services
	structuring customer service processes
	evaluating the potential of and need for the call center

Channel strategy and call center planning

i-flex Consulting followed the diagnostic study with a channel strategy and call center plan engagement for the bank:

Channel strategy · Formalize the role and structure of the customer services function · Segment customers and identify their different needs · Review product features - promote customer-convenient service-delivery

Call center plan · The business model for the call center

	call center services
	fulfillment processes - design and re-engineering
	technology infrastructure
	organization, staffing, quality and training
	channel integration
	call-center management

The call center services were categorized as: enquiries, product-related-services and complaints-redressal, and enumerated in detail.

Fulfillment processes for all call center services were designed for re-engineering into the existing processes of the bank.

The call center infrastructure, activity levels and technologies were designed for scaling up efficiently.

The call center technologies and processes were designed for integration with those at the branches, ATMs, and the planned Internet- and SMS-based banking services.

Customer Benefits

The bank had a well-defined strategy that included a business model, technology architecture and corresponding organization structure. A detailed implementation plan was now available to the bank to consistently and efficiently service its customers through the call center, thereby reducing the load at the branches.