Mystery Shopping- A Successful Strategy of HSBC’s Retail Banking

HIERARCHY OF STRATEGIC INTENT

PREPARED BY

Serial

No

Name Student ID

1 Mahmudul Hasan Maruf 2011210005139

2 Md Jahid Hasan 2011210005125

3 Tamal Kumar Saha 2011210005141

4 Shovon Kumar Baggchi 2011210005130

5 Arup Ratan das 2011210005126

Prepared for the partial requirement of the course named ‘Strategic Management’. We are sincerely thankful to our course teacher Mr. Abdus Sabur for assigning us doing such an important report which is not only enrich our knowledge but also widen our outlook.

HIERARCHY OF STRATEGIC INTENT

The framework within which firms operate, adopt a predetermined direction and attempt to achieve their goal is provided by a strategic intent.

The hierarchy of strategic intent covers the vision, mission, business definition, business model and the goals and objectives.

Objectives

Goals

Plans

Mission

Vision

WHAT DOES REFER TO EACH STEP?

Vision •It describes aspirations for the future without specifying the means that will be used to achieve those desired goals.

Mission •It is a statement of fundamental and unique purpose of an organization that sets an business apart from other firms of its type and identifies the scope of the business's operations in product and market terms.

Goal •Just as mission statement try to make vision more specific, goals are attempt to improve and organization's performance by making mission statements more concrete.

Obejectives •Objectives are the end towards which organizations and individual activities are directed.

Plan •It is the process of evaluating all relevant information and the assessment of probable future development results in the statement of a recommended course of action plan.

ABOUT

British multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom.

It is the world's second-largest banking and financial services group.

It is organized within four business groups: Commercial Banking; Global Banking and Markets (investment banking); Retail Banking and Wealth Management and Global Private Banking.

It has around 7,200 offices in 85 countries and territories across Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America and around 89 million customers.

The origins of the bank lie in Hong Kong and Shanghai, where branches were first opened in 1865.

As of 31 March 2012, it had total assets of $2.637 trillion, of which roughly half were in Europe, a quarter in the Americas and a quarter in Asia.

HSBC has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

OPERATION OF HSBC BANGLADESH

It has opened first Bangladesh branch in December 1996

It has a network of 13 offices, 38 ATMs, 9 Customer Service Centers, an offshore banking unit, and offices in 7 EPZs.

It has 1051 employees as of December 2010

Key business areas are Retail Banking and Wealth Management, Commercial Banking, Corporate and Institutional Banking, Global Markets, Shariah Compliant Banking

ABOUT MYSTERY SHOPPING

A tool used externally by market research companies or watchdog organizations or internally by companies themselves to measure quality of service or compliance to regulation, or to gather specific information about products and services.

The mystery consumer's specific identity is generally not known by the establishment being evaluated.

Mystery shoppers perform specific tasks such as purchasing a product, asking questions, registering complaints or behaving in a certain way, and then provide detailed reports or feedback about their experiences.

CUSTOMER SERVICES AT RETAIL BANKING

Front Office: Accounts related query handling, account opening, receiving customer’s closing requests, cheque book, ATM card, PIN, Internet Banking, phone banking requests. Loan processing, loan settlement. Providing Bank statement and bank certificate to customers

Back Office: Cash deposits and withdrawals, inter bank fund transfer, Inward and outward remittances, clearing cheques, SI and Hold maintenance, CTR, Money laundering reporting

REQUIREMENTS OF BETTER CUSTOMER SERVICES

Good knowledge about financial products and services and the operational facts

Familiar with the local compliance and regulation about financial services

Vigilant about money laundering and fraud

Self motivated and smart, well groomed

Dependable, able to work with group, adaptive and matured

Sales oriented and focused

Sensible about avoiding customer complaint

Quick thinking and problem solving capabilities

POTENTIAL AND EMERGING PROBLEMS

immaturity of the customer services officers, less knowledge and improper knowledge and even error knowledge of customer services officers about financial products and services,

frequent operational errors, laziness in customer servicing, forget about the customer’s promises, delay in delivering cheque books and ATM cards, hiding about the costs,

telling not the truth about the interest and charges of savings accounts, messy customer services environment, no greeting and warm welcoming, not say good bye and thanks, attending and delivering services more than one customer at a time,

no delivery and unwillingness to give visiting cards and product brochures, improper dressings, harsh voices while talking with customers, empty customer services desks,

not offering products for selling, unwillingness to provide any extra services, attempt to finish the services quickly, defective in customer queue maintenance etc.

STRATEGIES TAKEN

buddy programs (group learning systems headed by customer services managers),

surprise checking (internal auditing systems finding the operational errors and compliance),

clean desk policy teams (early morning visits to branches to notice the branch environment and customer services desks),

regular training about local compliance and money laundering (training headed over by the Bangladesh Bank officials),

alarming fraud (raising awareness through intra emails)

e-learning (computer based trainings)

and finally the so called mystery shopping which is the topic of this study.

VISION OF HSBC BANGLADESH

As a member of HSBC family which has been serving its millions of customers worldwide since 1865, to take our place among Bangladesh’s most powerful, most profitable, most admired leader banks.

MISSION OF HSBC BANGLADESH

Having regard to ethical values; to meet its customers financial needs in the fastest and most appropriate way, to continue innovative works in order to achieve: human resource with superior qualities, technological infrastructure and service packages.

GOALS OF HSBC RETAIL BANKING

To exceed customer expectations in service quality.

To be a pioneer in the implementation of technologies those create distinction for its customers, employees and shareholders.

To keep its reliability at the utmost level with the contribution of its strong capital structure and liquid assets.

To make a positive contribution to the community

To respect meritocracy during hiring processes, improving knowledge and skills of its employees, creating the mostly preferred work environment.

CHALLENGES OF DEVELOPING STRATEGIES

do the strategies coincide or concur with the goals

does the Retail Banking have available material, human, financial and informational resources to accomplishment and implement the strategies

local and international compliance

departmental coordination

OBJECTIVES OF MYSTERY SHOPPING

To identify the degree of customer services meticulously

To determine the common problem areas

To raise awareness by discussing about the branch mystery shopping results

To improve the first impressions of the customers

To get better in counter observations from the eyes of the customers

To ensure efficiency in inquiry holding

To make better the follow up and overall experience of the customers

To achieve the leadership in customer servicing in the bank industry of Bangladesh

ACTION PLANS

design a questionnaire consists of both quantitative and qualitative questions. The quantitative question carries scores. The cumulative score shows the branch’s performances about customer services in the eyes of non-customer.

select an independent vendor to conduct the survey and decides to provide sufficient guidelines and resources to conduct the survey.

They are guided to provide or send two typed profile customers between those the first type is young and mid twenties and the rest type looks like professional or executive.

ACTION PLANS

execute the survey in duration of at least half an hour in the branch premises and report accordingly the customer services experiences in the light of the set standards.

The overall reports are sent to the branch managers by identifying the best and worst branch with their marks.

The report also identifies the branches are in red, amber and green zone.

The report also marks the common problem areas of all branches, shopper’s special feedback, and exceptional performances by the branch staffs.

The strategy makers decide to provide the trophy of service champion to the branch who successively doing better results in mystery shopping reports for six months.

DEVELOPMENT OF QUESTIONNAIRE

Two parts: Quantitative scoring and qualitative comments

Quantitative section has 4 parts:

1. First Impressions

2. Counter Observations

3. Enquiry Holding

4. Follow up and overall experience

The qualitative section consists of comments of mystery shoppers, three positive observations and three negative observations about the branch and the branch staffs.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

find out the quality of internal and external environment of the branch premises,

greetings of customers,

visibility and cleanliness of the internal marketing materials and printed Bangladesh Bank circulars inside the retail outlet,

visibility of the handmade signs on display from the eyes of mystery shoppers.

COUNTER OBSERVATIONS

Mainly the counter observations are conducted on the customer services- back or support offices.

answers the following questions like queue time for counter, proactively management of queue by the customer services officers, waiting time at counter,

greeting with smile, maintaining positive eye contact, addressing customers with proper salutations,

confidence of customer services officers in handling customers, eagerness to help the customers more, thanking the customers after closing the deal.

ENQUIRY HOLDING

Enquiry holding are conducted mainly on front offices

the availability of customer services officer in the sales and services floor, ability of him greeting the customers with proper salutations and smile, maintenance of positive eye contact, efficiency of handling time in inquiry,

handed over ability of initial contact officers to main contact who actually levying the services and efficient in solving the required problems and services the mystery shopper looking for, clean desk reporting,

the same goes to the main contact who mainly deals with the service the shoppers mainly seek for,

ENQUIRY HOLDING

easy introduction capability of the main contact, knowledge of main contact customer services officer, consultation ability of main contact with his colleagues about the enquiry, ability of the main contact to communicate simply and understandable manner,

efficiency of the customer services officers proactively recommend relevant products and Shariah compliant products, problem solving ability to satisfy the shoppers need,

offering of brochures, respectability, communication skills, politeness attentiveness patience, efficiency in handling queries and confidence of the main contact customer services officers

FOLLOW UP AND OVERALL EXPERIENCE

Follow-up and overall experience is the ending part of the survey and from this sector it reveals the habit of customer services officers in giving visiting cards with further contact numbers,

ability of customer services officers to set another successive appointment making with the mystery shoppers, habit of thanking the customers at the end of closing the deal

overall time taken at the retail stores and overall experience of the visit of the mystery shoppers.

GENERAL OUTCOME OF MYSTERY SHOPPING

Mystery shopping report are made by the Alternate Delivery Channels officers to the ADC Managers by copy of Compliance Departments, Marketing Department, Human Resources Departments, Head of Retail Banking Branches, Retail Banking Cluster and Branch Managers.

The overall presentation of the report says about its gravity and importance.

That’s why every customer services officers, customer services managers and branch managers become aware about the each and every facts of efficiency in dealing with customers.

Another fact is that branch managers become careful about making the branch premises clean and tidy to look more attractive and pleasant.

Customer services officers started learning pro actively about the products and services, Bangladesh Bank rules, regulations, internal compliance manuals etc which helps to build confidence of them.

AFTERMATH RESULTS AND QUALITY CONTROLLING

Before informing formally to the branch officials the strategy maker conducted a tentative mystery shopping in every branch. The result is very disappointing. Most of the branch gets very poor marks in the result.

But after implementing the strategy, the scenario has been changed number of customer complaints reduced incredibly, total number of accounts especially Shariah compliant accounts and different savings schemes were sold in large scale, overall liability gets a boom, customer satisfaction reaches a superior stage.

But how, the simple answer is accountability ensures at each level, whereas productivity become stronger in all the functional units. Customer Services Officers become matured.

AFTERMATH RESULTS AND QUALITY CONTROLLING

. Brand value has been ensured. The average score in June 2012 raised a distinct level of 84.13% which was only 55.7% at the initial stage.

The best branches are awarded in the annual presentation ceremony. Motivation raises at all level. The fact now becomes a challenge to get more marks in rivalry from the competing branch.

Branches fall in red zone (Less Than 60%) and amber zone (60%-80%) are treated specially by providing more training, motivation and extensive caring and regular supervision by the higher officials.

COORDINATION AMONG OTHER STRATEGIES

The successful result in Mystery Shopping is not just a result of implementing a single strategy, but also a triumph of developing and maintaining simultaneous strategies

e-learning on brand value, better customer services, consumer behavior, operations, clean desk policy, money laundering, catching the frauds, cross selling etc.,

the buddy program is another a fruitful attempt where customer services manager become the buddy leader chooses 4 customer services manager as buddy and provides training and discussion, later customer services officers faced presentation and interview, based upon that both officers and managers are evaluated,

COORDINATION AMONG OTHER STRATEGIES

surprise checking adds a value that customer services officers become more cautious about dealing with security items and cash,

continuous fraud alarming through e-mail and workshop creates awareness among the customer services officers and learn them whistle blowing.

At the meantime, a group certificate was provided with the signature of group Asia Pacific CEO name “Identify to Act and Protect HSBC’s Franchise” help young learners and new joiner more about operational risk.

RECOMMENDATIONS ON MYSTERY SHOPPING

Mystery shoppers should provide adequate resources and training before conducting survey to branches

Mystery shoppers should be well educated and well paid

The independent contractors should be changed at regular intervals to maintain secrecy and ensuring quality

Best Customer Services Officers should be awarded in the light of mystery shoppers report

Mystery shopping survey should focus on and introduce a new section on attempting fraud in office premises which overlook in the program

Mystery shopping survey are now conducted only the customer services officers, it should also made on managers and customer services and manager and even sales officers also

CONCLUSION

Introducing the mystery shopping in the service industry of Bangladesh is innovating and unique but successful.

That’s why by implement the strategies along with mystery shopping the retail banking of HSBC Bangladesh proved that quality customer services is the key of business success.

Undoubtedly, it is a win-win strategy of satisfying customers and a value addition to the products and services offered by the retail banking of HSBC.

Mystery shopping raise the brand value of HSBC Bangladesh in the services industry not in the national market of Bangladesh but also in the international arena.

THANK YOU