Remittance is the most common entry point for mobile money systems as it not only addresses significant pain points for customers but also builds trust in the system. However offering only remittance – the star product – is rarely sufficient. Expanding the product suite to offer other services and products is essential. Providers need to look beyond remittances both to drive profitability of mobile money systems and to cater to the huge unmet financial needs of the masses. However, it would be a mistake to assume that clients are essentially homogenous.
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Lessons from CSMs: Customer Perspectives
This Note focuses on feedback received from customers on the product offering, customer service, and the processes involved in m-banking, all important aspects of product acceptance and usage.
The information in this Note was collected during several Customer and Channel Satisfaction Measurement and Management (CSM) exercises with Eko India Financial Services (Eko), a business correspondent network manager (BCNM) for State Bank of India (SBI) and ICICI Bank in Delhi and Bihar, over an 18-month period. Based on the CSM feedback, Eko has now taken significant, yet often simple, steps to augment customer satisfaction, such as the introduction of new services and an improved back-end MIS to improve transaction confirmation, amongst others.
Financial Education – Time for a Rethink?
Traditional financial education both in poor and rich contexts have taken a didactic, class-room based approach to conveying analytical financial concepts like budgeting, saving, managing debt, and calculating interest rates. This Note makes the case that it is time to re-think the process of financial education to merge it with product marketing, thus making it more relevant for customers and more cost-effective for financial institutions. It is clearly time to test the efficacy of alternative, experiential, product-focused financial education interventions compared to traditional financial education training.
Managing Customer Satisfaction in Agent Banking
This Briefing Note discusses the design and implementation of a Customer and Channel Satisfaction Measurement and Management (CSM) exercise which seeks feedback from m-banking customers on important areas that influence take up and on-going use of services. These areas should include (but not be limited to) the product, cost/charges, marketing, process and service provided by the agent. While there are many ongoing m-banking pilots, few have shown capacity to be taken to scale. The CSM is a good way to understand the extent to which the product is satisfying customer concerns and make amendments accordingly.
Lessons from CSMs: Agent Perspectives
This Note explores how Customer and Channel Satisfaction Measurement and Management (CSM) exercises helped Eko India Financial Services, a business correspondent network manager (BCNM) for State Bank of India (SBI) and ICICI Bank in Delhi and Bihar, improve its systems over an 18-month period.
This Note particularly focuses on agent (customer service point/CSP) feedback. Regular CSM exercises can be very helpful in taking the pulse of its agents or customer service points (CSPs). For Eko, feedback from agents resulted in improved agent management systems, the introduction of a dedicated CSP hotline and prompt remuneration for agents. Furthermore, based on the CSMs, Eko also received insights into the agent selection process and marketing.
Managing Channel Satisfaction in Agent Banking
Customer and Channel Satisfaction Measurement and Management (CSM) is a qualitative tool to collect information from two of the most important stakeholders in m-banking – agents and clients. Without adequate support, agents will quickly become disinterested. A CSM exercise is a great tool to understand the agent’s perspectives on products and client take-up and thus, optimise the on-the-ground reality.
This Note covers the major areas where an agent’s input would be valuable to ANMs seeking to improve their mobile money products, services and delivery channels.