ANTICIPATING CUSTOMERS’ NEEDS:
The Case of THAT Bank on the Ring Road Central

By J. N. Halm

The sun was on full blast that Friday afternoon. I had to cash the cheque at all costs since some important payments had to be made and therefore could not be too bothered with the scorching sun. I was however in a hurry to get out of the burning ball of fire above and back to the comfort of the office. My first reaction when I entered the banking hall was that of utter shock-the place was jammed packed! The single queue was winding from the glass door through the barrier ropes to the front of the tellers. I knew I was in trouble. There was no way I could get out of the place in time to make those payments. Having no other choice, I dutifully joined the queue expecting to wait for a long time.

It is a wonder why time seems to come to a standstill when you are in one of those long queues. Time decides to play tricks on you when you are late for an appointment. However, on this particular Friday afternoon it took forever for one person to be served. The queue was extra slow but like the nice Ghanaians we all are, customers stayed in the line without any complaints. I had spent about an hour in the queue with about five people in front on me when suddenly it happened.

A well-dressed middle-aged man ahead of me, who apparently had been in the queue for more than an hour and half, could not take the delay anymore. Without a warning, he shouted on top of his voice; “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN THIS BANK!!!!” His shout resonated in the closed air-conditioned office causing an instant disruption of the otherwise calm atmosphere. He did not end with that first explosive statement but went ahead with more vituperations aimed no one in particular. The situation was simply unbelievable.

The man did not look like he was on drugs or anything like that. He was decent in every sense of the word; therefore whatever caused him to explode might have gone beyond the last limit of his patience. I was so shocked because right in front of my eyes something like that was happening in a bank I used to brag about for their exceptional customer care. What had gone wrong with this bank? Three years ago, when I was in the banking industry, this bank was the dream place to work for many of us. Incidentally, it was around that same period that the bank won the most prestigious award any player in the industry could win.

Analysing the situation from where I was standing and with my little background in banking, I realised the bank, or that particular branch, had failed in a very important aspect of excellent customer care delivery- Customer Needs Anticipation. Anticipating a customer’s needs is vital to any customer retention drive. Many business people erroneously believe that good customer service is all about perfectly handling customer complaints and resolving issues. What they fail to realise is that excellent customer service also involves anticipating the needs of a customer and providing suitable solutions before the need arises. Excellent customer service is about anticipating what will make the customer unhappy and seeing to it that the undesirable does not occur. This is where That Bank on the Ring Road Central failed. For a bank that deemed it fit to recently add a few changes to its logo and corporate image, one would have expected that basic issues like this would not be seen in their banking halls.

In my estimation, the customer service failure was as a result of something so basic that one wonders if that bank is really in business to serve its customers. The first step in anticipating customer needs is to have a system in place that adequately tracks customer requirements and needs on a regular basis. The system does not have to be a high-tech equipment or advanced software. It could just be people being more observant and considerate of customer concerns. At other times it would be appropriate to undertake a survey to gauge what customers expect from the business. The question however is: Who in this country does not know that the last Fridays of every month are days when banking halls are always choked? That Bank on the Ring Road Central did not need a sophisticated system to determine that the banking would be choked on the last Friday of February. It was going to happen. It did happen and they were ill-prepared for it.

One would have expected that being the last Friday of the month; the bank would have found a way of increasing the number of cashiers paying out money. I counted only three cashiers at that peak hour. One teller was just handling Western Union transactions and so only two cashiers were serving all the customers in the queues. No wonder the explosion occurred. The bank should have also placed staff in the banking hall to calm down nerves if things got out of hand. This they also failed to do resulting in that embarrassing situation.

Good customer needs anticipation must also go hand-in-hand with an empowered staff. It is always reassuring to customers when professionals are able to fix service problems as and when the problems arise. Empowering staff to solve problems produces customer service champions. These are those individuals who quench the little sparks before the sparks turn into blazing fires. This was what was missing in THAT bank on that day. None of the bank employers came over to handle the situation as the aggrieved customer continued to spray the invectives in the banking hall. As was to be expected the gentleman received support from some customers in the queue with some urging him on.

I am sure if any of the bankers had come over and apologise to the customers for keeping them waiting that long, that sad incident would not have happened. I would not be too quick to blame the staff, though. I have been on the other side of the counter and I perfectly know how managers would easily look for scapegoats when things do not go well. The staff might therefore have been scared to attempt a solution. I am told that the quality of customer service began to fall with the installation of new software that was supposed to improve the quality. One staff told me in confidence after the incident that management was aware that the problem had to do with the software but seemed to be doing nothing about it.

Some experts are of the view that exceptional customer service should not be too difficult a task. What happened in the banking hall that Friday afternoon must have happened before, if not on the scale I witnessed. The bank needed to have taken note of any such previous incidents and used the solution to set a customer service standard. That is how standards of service are established-by looking at what has happened before and finding ways of ensuring that those negative incidents do not happen again.

Great companies learn from their experiences. They keep detailed files on customer experiences and expect staff to always be on the look out for experiences that might affect the delivery of great customer service. Such companies have regular team meetings where staff are encouraged to discuss typical situations where customer service might not have been at its best. These companies know that the greatest test to achieving a status as a great customer service provider is in always anticipating customer needs and proactively providing solutions.

Businesses that take the responsibility to actively seek out clients’ needs, not only make life easier for staff especially front line staff by reducing the number of complaints, they also make the lives of their customers easier. The stress that man went through in the short spate of time would have been avoided if That Bank on the Ring Road Central had simply anticipated our needs.

Clients will view their interactions with a business that anticipates their needs as both irresistible and rewarding. It is beyond this point that the business would start reaping the rewards of great customer ‘evangelists’. When customers are pleased with a business’ service, not only do they bring repeat businesses sooner, they also refer friends, relatives and associates. Sales figures will begin to show as satisfied customers become another sales force for the company. Satisfied customers are not too concerned about the cost of the offering. All these benefits come because the business anticipated the needs of the customer and proactively dealt with situations before they arise.

I recently read some findings of a research that compared the results of a customer satisfaction focus to a customer anticipation focus. It was found that strategies that ANTICIPATE customer’s needs are 10 times more predictive of success than those focused on customer satisfaction. Obviously customer satisfaction alone does not suffice. Companies that are able to anticipate needs and do something about those needs will trounce their competitors anytime on the market.

It is important to read customers ahead of time. Failure to anticipate your clients’ needs and a failure to proactively provide solutions is a sure way to hand them over to your competition. I might not take my account away from that bank but I sure will not be recommending them to anybody else. I am sure I am not the only one with that sort of mindset. I can bet that ‘our good friend’- the shouter, will not be singing the praises of That Bank on the Ring Road Central.

J. N. HALM is a Sales and Customer Care Coach with Exsellers International, LLC.