In defence of my record at top bank
When I joined Commonwealth Bank of Australia in 2005 the bank had the worst customer satisfaction ratings in the industry, as did staff satisfaction. The bank’s share of customer complaints to the Banking Ombudsman was nearly 30 per cent of those for the total industry, against a market share of 22 per cent.
The bank was the second largest in Australia, a World Top 40 bank, and was the fifth largest company by market value on the ASX.
The board at the time was concerned about the bank’s worsening position in customer satisfaction and its market share loss. As a result, long-term incentive bonuses for senior executives were only to be paid when CBA’s customer satisfaction reached No 1 of the major banks, and were not rewarded based on financial or sales results, an industry first.
My job was to turn this situation around. To that end I reinvigorated the Cohen Brown process, which had been successful at ASB Bank. The Cohen Brown system is a well-thought out and
rigorous system, its core principle is based around customer service – not ‘‘hard sell’’ as portrayed in the Stuff article.
The Cohen Brown system is used by about 400 banks globally. The system provides a comprehensive programme based on a disciplined approach to leadership and coaching with a focus on customers’ financial needs. In fact it is a ‘‘cardinal sin’’ to sell a customer a product they don’t need.
We also used this process internally between our different divisions and work groups based on the concept of internal customers, to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of those functions that overlapped one another.
The facts are this process was very successful in overhauling the bank’s culture and it is demonstrated by the results.
Staff satisfaction improved to record levels, reaching a world-best-practice level in the Gallup annual culture survey where we had previously been a laggard.
Customer satisfaction went from being the lowest of the major banks to the highest in the Roy Morgan Quarterly Survey from last position.
Customer complaints dropped dramatically from nearly 30 per cent of complaints to the Banking Ombudsman to 18 per cent against a system market share of 24 per cent. The bank won multiple ‘‘Bank of the Year’’ titles in Money magazine’s awards, which were judged by financial experts and customer feedback on service and products.
I was named customer service chief executive of the year by the Australian Customer Service Institute in 2010, the only bank chief executive ever to achieve this award.
Over this period CBA became the biggest bank in Australia, the largest company on the ASX and the 10th largest bank in the world.
These results would not have been achieved by an organisation using flawed processes and a staff that was not committed to doing the best for its customers.
Yes, we did make mistakes and we did have misconduct. We did our best to rectify those mistakes and dealt decisively with misconduct when we became aware of it.
I take great pride in what we achieved as a committed team at CBA, as I do of the teams I worked with at ASB Bank and Air New Zealand.
Customer satisfaction went from being the lowest of the major banks to the highest in the Roy Morgan Quarterly Survey.
Sir Ralph Norris