Pushing Boundaries through Digital Banking
Diamond Bank Plc in March last year, launched ADA, a chatbot with the ability to provide a human-like interaction and personalised experience for the bank’s customers on social media.
“Ada will allow us to further digitalise the mobile banking process and create an increasingly customised mobile banking experience,” the bank’s Chief Executive Officer, Uzoma Dozie, had explained.
Although Diamond wasn’t the first Nigerian bank to launch such a product, several months after, the gains for the company in quality and speed of customer service appears to be unrivalled in the industry.
With ADA, “customers can contact us through calls, email, SMS, live chat, social media,” the bank’s Head of Contact Centre, Mrs. Ojiugo Emeruem said.
“For instance, on the social media platform, the contact centre works hand in hand with the customer experience and engagement centre and we respond to requests within six minutes of their chatting us up on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
“And we are very proud to say that last year, we were adjudged the ‘Most Responsive Bank on Social Media’ by the African Commercial Bank benchmark report.
“So, speed of response is very important to us across whatever channel it is our customer is interacting with us.”
Emereuem also noted that ADA’s intelligence has helped the bank provide a convenient means of interaction and basic banking transaction for customers.
“So, it is on Telegram and Facebook. If you want to interact with the bank, especially as you know social media uptake is very high, it would be easy to carry out a transaction right there on the social media platform with ADA,” she said.
“ADA answers your question, helps you carry out basic banking transactions like transfers. ADA even helps with the weather forecast, football scores, stock market prices and much more.
“And the uptake has been quite impressive. So, in the contact centre, we monitor interactions with ADA and it has been growing from day to day.
“In a day, we have an average of about 400 to 500 customers and it is increasing on a daily basis.”
According to Diamond’s Head of Customer Experience and Engagement Center, Mrs. Michelle Nwoga, the ADA platform was developed on a customer-centric culture.
The ease, ubiquity and flexibility of the system always had an eye on the customer.
“For Diamond Bank, customer service has been a very core strategic focus for us as an organisation.
“What we have done in Diamond bank and how we view is a little bit different. Service is something that is very generic in terms of how people think about dealing with a customer and for us at Diamond Bank, we have taken it further to focus on our customers experience.
“The reason is because I can walk into a branch and a teller serves me, but the branch is not the only place. As a customer would interact with the bank, I can interact with the bank via a mobile app, through a staff or through the customer centre and at different point for which are different ways customers experience the brand.
“So, we are very strategic and deliberate in making sure we are paying attention from all our different service point.
“So, for us at Diamond Bank, it is about customer service and customer service, it is about efficiency, speed, convince and responsiveness across the different touchpoints.”
On response to complaints, she noted that with regards to complaint management, “we are guarded by CBN with lists of the different timelines for different cases.
“But because we are really focused in trying to improve our service level, we try to see how we can deliver ahead of the defined response time.”
The bank’s USSD platform has equally been performing at phenomenal levels. “As at today, the number of customers that use our USSD banking, is even more than the number of people using our app on a daily basis,” Head of Operations, Mr. Alex Alozie said.
“And in terms of the number of transactions, we control about 40 per cent of the industry market. And ours is unique because we do not limit ours to any type of phones.
“Even if you don’t have a smartphone, you can still use the service. We have over 10 million retail customers across the country and if must of our customers in financial inclusion areas use our USSD banking. “Customers can use that to not only send money to diamond bank accounts but also to other bank accounts. Also, in terms of statistics from the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBBS), which is an independent body, Diamond Bank has the fastest speed in terms of transferring money form Diamond Bank to any other bank in this country.”
According to Emereuem, one of the things that distinguishes Diamond Bank’s customer service culture is that, “beyond the customer, we are making sure that those behind the scenes like the tellers and others are motivated and recognised for their excellence.
“We are giving out awards to top performing staff across the banks.”
From October 1 to 5, the world will celebrate Customer Service Week and Diamond is set to give its customers the opportunity to win Gem points when they carry out some transactions on its channels.
“We also have happy hour at our branches where we celebrate customers at a specific period of time,” Nwoga said.
“We would have cakes and sweets and also the ambience in the bank is going to be fantastic. We are also rewarding our diamond extra customers we have by presenting them with gifts on the ceremony day.
“So, we are actually having an opening ceremony for customer service week next week.”