Barclays—Driving Global Experiences via Net Promoter®

Barclays PLC, a multinational bank and financial services company headquartered in London, operates in over 40 countries and is organized into four core businesses: Personal & Corporate (Personal Banking, Corporate Banking, Wealth & Investment Management), Barclaycard, Investment Banking and Africa.

To measure continued success and performance across their global organization, Barclays uses a number of targets:

• Net Promoter Score® (NPS®)
• Client rankings and market shares
• Complaints performance
• Lending volumes provided to customers and clients

Net Promoter® has enabled Barclays to better understand their customer satisfaction and customer journey across channels. Like other global organizations, Barclays has varying Net Promoter Scores for different locations. However, whether Barclays US (NPS 70) or Barclays Africa (NPS 28), the Net Promoter Score is a central metric for the global organization.

In this case study, we’ll look at how Barclays uses NPS best practices across their core business verticals and countries to deliver a superior experience.

Relationship Net Promoter Surveys vs. Transactional Net Promoter Surveys

Like many Net Promoter practitioners, Barclays employs both relationship and transactional surveys to take the temperature of their customer experience while also closing the loop.

Barclays UK uses relationship Net Promoter surveys to determine customer satisfaction across key product categories, including accounts and credit card users. From 2015 to 2016, Barclays UK increased their Net Promoter Score by +6 points to a high of +13. Barclays states that they continue to experience a strong relational Net Promoter Score “driven by a clear focus on advocacy and improvements in our products and digital experience.”

Via their transactional Net Promoter surveys, Barclays was able to improve their customer journeys by focusing on automation and omni-channel experiences. This led to +5 point increase in their transactional Net Promoter Score and a 11% reduction in customer complaints in 2016 alone for Barclays UK. In 2017, Barclays continued to focus on improving their transactional Net Promoter Score for banking telephony and complaints.

Achieving Operational Success by Improving the Customer Journey

Using relationship and transactional Net Promoter surveys, in unison with other emerging technologies, have allowed Barclays to focus on improving operational issues for customers.

Barclays US identified over 400 different customer journeys using their IBM BPM system. Because of this says Mike Gamble, Director of Operations, “we needed to find a way to align them across the enterprise and move at a pace that impacts the customers in a positive way really quickly.”  

For Barclays US, this meant better understanding the processes involved in delivering these customer experiences. Using the IBM BPM platform, the operations department was able to build out automated processes for when customers report lost or stolen debit cards. The same system also allowed Barclays to send automated SMS messages to customers letting them know the first sign of fraud detection.

With over 9.5 million digitally active customers, Barclays International understands the importance of catering to varying consumer journeys. They’ve continued to improve their online banking environment, while also offering new innovations such as Europe’s first video banking option, voice recognition, and services such as Pingit (which allows you to perform transactions regardless if you’re a Barclays’ customer or not) and Cloudit (which stores all bank correspondences in a customer’s personal cloud).

Creating Retention Strategies for Global Customers

Barclays Africa similarly invests in retention strategies that focus on improving the customer journey from a multi-channel stand point. In their 2016 Integrated Report, Barclays Africa found four key points for improving their client relationships for their unique regional model:

1. Understanding customer needs: Looking into transactional business interactions has allowed Barclays Africa to better understand customer needs and challenges. However, according to Barclays, data isn’t enough: “It is not enough to understand data – it is the intelligent interaction between data, insights-driven solutions and human interactions with customers and clients that ultimately leads to differentiating ourselves through richer solutions with the correct products, services and advice.” This means Barclays needs to look into customer history to better understand consumer critical needs as well.  

2. Creating and delivering on solutions: Part of improving retention and reducing churn is not just capturing customer feedback, but acting on it. Barclays uses their customer data to improve current solutions or create new ones to aid in day-to-day customer needs. They’ve used this approach for a number of initiatives, including:

1. Reducing administrative constraints when it comes to changing account types with account number portability.

2. Implementing a range of payment methods, such as Payment Pebble which offers quick mobile payments, CashSend for mobile-based ATM cash withdrawals without bank cards, prepaid cards for young people, etc.

3. Using tablets in remote locations for customers without smartphones so they can access basic mobile banking through their “Hello Money” feature.

3. Balanced distribution model: Like Barclays US, Barclays Africa continues to ensure their experiences are consistent, from their banking and ATM locations to their digital platforms. With 26% of Barclays Africa’s users now active on digital platforms, initiatives such as ChatBanking, where customers can perform transaction limits through Twitter, are just one of the ways they are keeping in tune with the needs of their market.

4. Building trust: Trust and security in banking is of the utmost importance. With large breaches reported daily, consumers have become increasingly jaded by retail and financial institutions. By focusing on customer awareness, management of key risks, and technology upgrades, fraud losses have lowered 29% compared to 2015 for Barclays Africa.

Barclays Africa’s ability to adapt to the needs of their region-based market is one of the reasons why their Net Promoter Score continues to grow year-to-year, from 20 in 2014 to 28 in 2016.

In a similar vein, Barclays UK has been looking to improve the lives of customers through product offerings. From a B2C perspective, Barclays UK was the first UK bank to offer contactless mobile withdrawals from smartphones. In addition, Barclays UK has introduced “Barclays Eagle Labs” as a community resource for small businesses and innovators in branches throughout the UK. The service helps mentor entrepreneurs from start-up to IPO via banking solutions, relationship support and networking.

In unison with Barclays RISE, a community of FinTech leaders and founders, Barclays has not only poised itself for innovations in the future of finance, but built a mutually-beneficial community of loyal new-age thought leaders with which to grow their business. Barclays understands that investing in the success of their customers means investing in their own bottom line.

Conclusion

While Barclays continues to experiment within their global markets in terms of customer experience, it’s important that they communicate best practice successes within their organization. Barclays UK, for example, has room to improve their Net Promoter Score to reach industry benchmarks. Leaders should look at their Net Promoter Scores, level of engagement, and retention rates across markets to understand where improvements can be made and what initiatives can be shared.

Before you go...

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