Beware of Customer Expectations

Today morning, as part of my job, I visited the technology office of a bank in my work city. This visit reminded me of my relationship with them over 7 years back. Then I was a software project manager in my previous company. As a typical software professional from India, I was required to travel to different geography based on the location of my client.

During this period I was posted to a branch in southern most part of Mumbai. There was only one ATM nearby. This belonged to the bank I had visited in the morning. I called up the call center and expressed my interest in opening a savings account with the bank. The call center agent took down my contact details and stated that a representative from the bank will be contacting me before the end of the day.

True to her work, I got a call from the bank representative in the noon and he landed up at my office around late in the afternoon. I handed over my identification papers and the initial cheque to open the account. When it came to filling up the customer acquisition form, the representative just asked me to sign the form and mentioned that he will fill it from the information available in the identification papers. I was impressed.

He mentioned that the welcome kit will be delivered within 7 working days. Again, true to his word, on day 4 I received my welcome kit containing my cheque book as well as the ATM card. Again, I was impressed.

I had a lovely relationship with the bank while it lasted. I still do not know which branch owned my account. All requests were handled over the phone. Again, I was very impressed. I recommended this bank to everyone I knew.

Then, I was drafted to an onsite project. This meant I was not transacting anymore. But I did maintain my minimum balance as required. After sometime, the bank deactivated my account. I called them and requested that they re-activate my account. They asked me to come to their branch and apply for reactivation of my account. I explained that I was on an onsite project and cannot visit the branch. The agent was cold in her response that I have to come to the branch and they cannot help me otherwise. After a few such followups, I was frustrated and stated that I would like to terminate my relationship. The response I got "for that also you have to visit the branch".

After a couple of months, the bank started deducting a "inactive charge" from my account every month. This led to my balance falling below the required minium. This led to the bank making additional deduction as "non maintenance of minimum balance". In the next 6 months, my entire balance was wiped off.

It was real sad that the bank started at such a high note on customer service and satisfaction. But failed in their process when it was really needed. I blame the acquisition process of the bank which set up such excellent acquisition process that I had very high recommendation of the bank. But now, I tell everyone to beware of the bank.

Data Driven Company

"We are a data driven company"

I bet you have heard the above sentences infinite number of times. The speakers often mean that they have processes instituted for decisions to be taken based on facts and hard data rather than pure intuition.

My job entails selling customer analytics solutions. Analytics is dependent on the richness of data available to be mined. The availability of data is often the toughest challenge. Since most transactions systems were designed for just easing the transactions, they only collect information necessary for completing the transactions. During the time of selecting transaction systems, analytics was nowhere in sight for the evaluation criteria. So it is no surprise that data needed for analytics are not available within a company.

But what often surprises me, or let me say amuses me, is the attempt by the clients to run the "best" analytics on the available data. I was shocked to hear from one senior executive the statement "but all we have is 3 fields on customer data". This executive wanted a solution which will work on the 3 fields and not demand additional data. He claimed that his customer did not give more data.

Now why should a customer part with any more information than is needed? Let me illustrate this by my personal experience with buying automobile insurance in USA and India. India has a standard rate card. So I am not enticed nor am interested in giving any more information than is mandated for the insurance cover. Whereas, in the USA, I know that certain information, like marriage and family will help me get a lower premium. So I am happy to part with that information. I asked the same question to this execution "What has the customer to gain by giving you additional information? Why should he give you additional information?".

The company could have provided additional or special privileges to the customer based on certain information. This would have enabled them to get more information from the customer. The cost of this information could have been justified by the richer analytics that could be run on the customer data.

Just stated that we have limited data is not an excuse. It reflect poor foresight of the company. You cannot let the limited data drive your future activities. You need to enrich your data collection to meet future business needs.