Customer Experience Management after a merger

All the interviewees have been working in the bank before the merger and had quite a good understanding of the merger process and what it meant for the bank. They were asked if it has had influence on their positions in the bank. All of them have had some changes in their roles and titles after the merger. They were also asked how the merger has influenced on the customer experience. Everyone mentioned that in the beginning customer had some hesitations and negative thoughts about the merger. It is more than natural for people to have some resistance towards a change and these feelings of are somewhat equal to the employees as well. The main thing is to make

sure that those feelings of uncertainty during a major change are being managed right.

The interviewees were asked to explain what is customer experience management in their opinion. Everyone has slightly different perception of customer experience management; getting the personnel perform well, keeping up the matter and assessing how the customer experience is evolving, creating new processes and policies to better the customer experience and to make the customer experience coherence no matter the branch.

“When you get this group to perform well, that is what it is. My previous team leader was great, she got me do a lot of great things and made me find new solutions and that sort of stuff. If you lead your team well, then also the customers will be satisfied.” (P6)

“In my opinion it is about keeping up the matter, assessing it and if it looks like the customer experience is not evolving in the way we wanted, then it will be discussed and new solutions to improve the customer experience will be found..”(P3)

“Ultimately it is about creating policies in a way that we know what we are expected and these expectations will be answered and exceeded in negations, meetings and in every encounter. In practice, it means that in our bank we must have certain policies that can be copied in numerous encounters so that we can perform homogenously.

This is what customer experience management about. We should be able to perform homogenously no matter the branch or the bank within the group. This what the OP financial group wants; one experience no matter the bank.” (P2)

“In my opinion it is about coaching the personnel to create better customer

experience. Improving the customer encounters and utilizing different channels. It can be managed by getting a lot of feedback so that we can improve our policies.” (P4)

5.3.1 Instigation and objective setting

The interviewees were asked has the bank conducted any research about what the customers are expecting from the customer experience after the merger and what were

the new objects for customer experience after the merger. Some said there was no instigation made for what they know of, some said there was. More instigation for what the customer actually expect from the customer experience is wished. New objectives were coherence policies within all the branches, reacting quicker to

customer feedback and getting personal goals for the personnel in the small branches.

“I do not think there has been any instigation made, it might be that the management has done some.” (P6)

“Executive board did some instigation before the merger about what sort of services the customers would like to have in the different branches and relatively well we have been able to answer these wishes. I am not sure if any instigation has been made after the merger but before the merger instigation was put in place.” (P2)

“It came pretty clear in some point that we need to create coherence policies within the branches. Not necessarily what we had in the receiving bank, because there was room for improvement in everything. When we realized this, new objectives were set in place. The customer experience management has become more structured within the merger. For example, we reacted quickly, when there were cries for help from the customer in the new branches.” (P2)

“New objectives, well this small new branches, they didn’t have personal objectives before. They were small banks and now we have created coherence policies so that also they have personal objectives for example, NPS, which makes it easier for manager to lead.” (P4)

“What customer are expecting from the customer experience have not been measured well. This what does the customer hope from us, this is not asked often enough, we do not have any customer forums or anything like that.” (P4)

5.3.2 Customer research

Customer research is very important for the bank. Interviewees were asked have they conducted any research about how the customer feel about the customer experience after the merger. Customer research have been conducted via Net Promoter Score

(figure 6.) The Net Promoter score Reicheld (2003). Also, vital feedback is asked during customer encounters in different channels. Some of the interviewees felt that any special customer research about the effects of the merger to the customer experience have not been conducted.

“We have the same customer research model in every bank, open feedbacks as well as NPS results. Also, the feedback that we get from customer during encounters in every branch. We have been focused in these more and more. Open feedbacks are reported to the Executive board every three months. Customer research is in big focus.”(P2)

”Some thoughts have come up in the written feedbacks and through NPS. Some new information was gathered in the customer encounters that did not come up in the NPS questionnaires.”(P3)

“We have not been conducting enough customer research after the merger, that I can say firstly. We have gathered some customer feedback. I called some customer after the merger to ask how they feel about the new bank, this was also my way to get to know the customers. Because some of the first impressions were somewhat negative I might have broken these preconceptions a little bit. I think some of the other

managers did the same.” (P4)

“I think we have not done any special customer research after the merger. But I also think that in a country bank if the customers are asked to tell aloud how does the merger feel, they would not say a thing.” (P4)

5.3.3 Implementation and training the personnel

Once customer experience data have been gathered management puts the new

processes and policies in place. This involves training the personnel. In the interview, I asked what changes have been done to the bank’s systems, processes and what sort of training has the personnel got after the merger. New process and training the personnel were the main things that came up in most of the interviews. Training was both independent and together with the team as well by following and learning from

colleagues in real-life customer encounters. Also, going through NPS feedbacks together with the manager was one way to train the personnel.

“Trainings have been done very independently, one needs to train her/himself and read.” (P6)

” Surely personnel is being trained, we have different customer service and sales coaching. We also have some mutual customer encounters with other employees and this way we will learn from each other and do better in customer encounters. Als,o we try and bring this digitality to that.” (P4)

”Now we have this policy that we actively gather customer feedback and we go thru that with our managers. This way the personal NPS is being improved and it is done the same way within the whole team. Now the processes and policies should be the same in all branches. All employees should have the same information. If we talk about our own wellbeing, employee experience, it has been brought lately and it relates to customer experience. We have had some common days; some Saturday were the whole personnel is together and we talk about customer experience and how it could be improved.” (P3)

6.3.4 Measuring and assessing the impact

Measuring and assessing the impact of the done changes is very vital in customer experience management. The interviewees were asked how does the bank have monitored the improvement in customer- as well as owner customer numbers, sales numbers and have they compared these in to the time before the merger. They were also asked how are the impacts of the customer experience management measured.

These numbers have been measured and compared to the time before the merger and the impacts of customer experience management are measured by using the earlier mentioned Net Promoter Score. One thing that came up in the interviews was employee experience that is also an important impact of customer experience management. Satisfied and motivated personnel are the ones that create superior customer experience.

“We monitor very carefully customer- and owner customer numbers. They have been positive and they have been compared to the time before the merger. We also follow sales numbers regionally and we can monitor how they are evolving. (P4)

”We only measure the NPS and customer benefit rate in the management. Part of the development is that the customer experience has been managed well and part of it is that customer expectations change and customer encounters have become multi channelled. Also, part of it is employees’ personal input to do better and evolve, and that is something that we have not measured.” (P4)

“It probably depends if it has been a minor case that has been fixed, it is not

necessary to assess the impact of that change. But if it has been a big change it most certainly will be measured and assessed. Through NPS we follow that have the negative feedback declined.” (P3)

“NPS and customer benefit rate and these are directly comparable with our sales in euros and in numbers. These are so embedded with each other that it is hard to separate these two. I would also stich this with employee satisfaction and how does it feel to work with us, because customer experience is a big part of that.” (P2)

5.3.5 Constant reacting

One thing that was clear in the customer experience management that it is about constant reacting. If there are any critical changes in the numbers or lots of negative feedbacks it will be taken seriously and it will be reacted immediately.

“The service personnel need to have their senses awake, if they hear that the customer experience is not as good as it use to be. We need to stay awake and

improve our processes so that the quality of the customer experience stays the same.”

(P3)

“If there are any changes in NPS or customer benefit rate it will be reacted on. For example, last July we got a lot of weak customer feedbacks and we really went

through all of them and all of us were reflecting how to improve the customer experience. If we see changes in the numbers we also monitor management intensely.” (P4)