In order to drive this practice, the Bank has established a dedicated Service Quality department, which channelises the programmes around customer experience management, quality assurance, customer care and grievances resolution, and customer service compliance, among others.

Customer Experience

The experience of customers across the journey through products, services and touch points determines longevity of their relationship with the Bank. Various observations and data on customer behaviour, including feedback received from customers, were effectively used for driving the Bank’s customer service programs. Ujjivan SFB has developed unique campaigns to deliver superior customer experience, such a merchant QR code, and On-field mobile number updation, in addition to conducting service quality training programs for the staff. The Ujjivan Pay QR code was launched in February 2022, and distributed to over 32,000 micro banking customers. The facility will help customers digitise their income without the hassle of traveling to the Bank to deposit cash proceeds of their business. The facility to update mobile number through hand-held devices through OTP verification at customer’s doorstep, shall help reduce dependency on branch visits for banking requirements.

Some of our customer experience programmes:

Lending an Ear to Customers

On the backdrop of the pandemic, the ‘Listening to Customers’ programme was initiated in FY 2020-21 by various businesses, to virtually connect with customers, and seek their feedback/suggestions on our products, process, service and delivery channels. During the current financial year, virtual sessions were held, which were attended by customers across geographies and the senior management of the Bank. The feedback provided by customers during the sessions was analysed and addressed.

The Customer Experience unit under the Service Quality department continuously gathers customer feedback through various programs, such as C-SAT surveys, monthly customer service meeting at branches, and the ‘Let’s Connect’ initiative, to mention a few. The customers of various categories, such as business community, senior citizens and micro-banking customers were contacted for their feedback, challenges, and recommendations. These communication and feedback platforms were also used to make customers aware of the alternative channels made available for fulfilment of their service requirements, without having to physically visit the branches. During the year, feedback was collected from more than 43,000 walk-in customers.

Life Events-based Banking Services

When customers go through certain life events, both good and bad, their banking service needs are unique and complex, requiring consideration, efficiency, and support. The Bank has successfully been running a campaign, designed as ‘Aajeevan’, a life events-based banking services, which includes hassle-free and empathetic services towards nomination facility, joint accounts, settlement of claims of deceased account holders, settlements of insurance claims, and priority services to senior citizens and specially-abled customers. Due to the focused efforts, 86% of service requests were resolved within specified timelines during the year, demonstrating improvement from 79%, compared to previous year.

Extending Care During Pandemic

As the pandemic brought many challenges to our customers, especially those among lower income group families, the settlement of insurance claims of the deceased borrowers has severely been affected, due to delay in obtaining documents from local authorities, restrictions on people’s movement from series of lockdowns and public offices, working with limited staffing. Ujjivan SFB has launched a special campaign to train its branch staff on assisting the families of deceased customers in document collection, and also fast-tracking the claim process. The staff was motivated to give priority for these services through the rewards and recognition programme. The progress in insurance claim settlements has been reviewed by the senior management at cross-functional forums. As a result of this special campaign, overall claims settlements have increased by 50% to 19,110 during the second half of the year, from 12,709 in the first half.

Special Attention to Senior Citizens

Our branches are sensitised on various services that need to be catered across life events of customers. Senior citizens are included as an integral part of our ‘Let’s Connect’ programme to address their concerns, obtain feedback, and to make them aware about services, such as doorstep banking facility, nomination facility, adding/ deleting a joint account holder, appointing a mandate holder, and deceased claim settlement, among others. All the branches have a dedicated desk to attend to senior citizens.

Prioritising Quality Assurance

The Quality Assurance team has defined service standards for each business, incorporating key service aspects that impact the quality-of-service delivery, and customer satisfaction. The Bank’s Board and management forums periodically review the progress made on the service quality goals, and provide oversight. Further, the service quality goals are part of the key job responsibilities of the staff, right from the heads of the functions, to sales and service staffs at the ground. The team also works towards proactively identifying process gaps, assessing incident impact, and fixing them through standard incident handling mechanisms.