The magic acronym CRM (customer relationship management) in all its different forms has been much written about as the amicable solution to the financial services industrys love/hate relationship with its customers. Nationwide, in line with its mutual status, places great importance in what it calls the members experience- in other words, how the customer deals with the society either through its staff or the delivery channels it offers.

One of the fastest growing delivery channels in terms of customer usage for financial organisations is the internet. Nationwides website banking service has about 1,500 new e-bankers per day and 900,000 registered users. In September 2021 alone the site was visited 2.4m times and each month about 600,000 e-contacts or e-enquiries are dealt with by the Societys internet contact team.

In order to cope with the volume of enquiries, a CRM system has been installed that partly automates electronic responses back to the customer. Senior operations manager Mark Cromack says: The auto-suggest systems response to customer enquires is one area where automation is ideally suited to cut costs and enhance a users experience of the site. About 60% of enquiries are dealt in this way, sorting out simple questions such as those relating to technical issues. For internet queries that require an operators input, the system is designed so a member of the team can personalise and craft an appropriate response before replying.

The automation has resulted in a 25% reduction in the Societys average e-mail response handling time of six minutes (eight minutes for a secure e-mail, which might contain sensitive details such as account information). It has helped the team exceed its service level target for five consecutive months or replying to 90% of e-mails within 24 hours of a customer query being sent.

CRM systems are often mooted as tools to sort the wheat from the chaff, giving financial services companies the opportunity to retain and reward their most valuable customers at the expense of others less valued. However, it is a suggestion that Cromack vehemently rejects as a tactic used by Nationawide: Some banks use this Gold Card approach of using CRM systems to prioritize customers. Its not a policy we follow at Nationwide.

(Source: CRM: Russell-Jones 2002)

Required:

Using a standard report format (i.e. Abstract, table of contents, Introduction, main body, summary/conclusion):

1. Discuss what CRM is all about and why it is important to Financial Services firms like Nationwide.