Banks are an important element of modern services. For banks in China, there has been a sea of changes underway in recent years with a re-orientation from one business model to another and risk management. Today, banks in China have a new look driven by significant improvement in financial services. Over 3 million people working in banks struck an uncharacteristic note by serving the customers with a servant's heart.

From Strategy to Unwavering Improvements

Take ICBC, the largest commercial bank in China, as an example. The Bank's branch in Beijing uses IT to monitor customer traffic at all outlets in real-time. The Branch deploys resources as and when necessary to address the issue of sudden high customer traffic in some outlets during some periods. To keep a close watch on the "Visualized queuing management system" ("VQMS") is now an important item in the daily agenda of the management staff in ICBC Beijing Branch. VQMS is directly linked to the callers in outlets that automatically take the statistics on the average waiting time of customers in the queue and displays in four colors - red, yellow, blue and green. In this way, the Branch can measure and monitor in real-time the customer traffic and service efficiency in all outlets. Through VQMS, management staff can directly view the queues in all outlets. In case of a sudden long queue in any outlet, necessary measures can be taken in the first instance to address the issue of customers spending long time queuing up for services, such as open more teller windows, set up fast service channel for one transaction or assign additional staff. With the installation of VQMS in more outlets under the Branch, outlet services can be drastically improved. Customers no longer spend long time standing up at the queue.

At ICBC, innovative service measures such as "Visualized Queue Management System" gain an unusually high degree of attention nationwide. "Customer First" is now deeply rooted in ICBC's 16,000 outlets. This is very much owed to the ICBC's strategy and mission over the years to sustain competitiveness through service improvement. The first priority is "customer satisfaction". The Branch seeks diversified routes to improve services, from service supply, service flow, service innovation to service management - find out where the problems are, look for the solution. In the end, staff is more aware of serving customers, while more services and faster services are offered. Continuous, all round improvement in services enables ICBC to sail through all the challenges in large and international events. ICBC created a record of "zero error", "zero incident", "zero complaint" in the delivery of financial services to Olympic Games, World Expo and Asian Games, winning wide applause from the public and customers. ICBC received numerous awards: China Banking World Expo Service Organization Award and China Banking World Expo Service Innovation Award, Outstanding Contribution Award for the excellent services to Guangzhou 2010 Asian Games and Asian Para Games. ICBC has made a successful attempt to realize "harmonious finance" while providing best-quality services to customers.

Improve Customer Experience through Innovation on Service Channel and Process

Nowadays, banks are getting their way to people's daily life in an unprecedented speed and scale. Whether a bank can meet the diversified banking needs of the public is largely determined by its service capability. With an aim to improve service capability and better align with the demand of public, over the past few years ICBC has strengthened its service delivery and efficiency by embarking aggressive programs on product innovation, channel upgrade and process improvement. At present, ICBC has 3200+ financial products for 282 million personal customers and 4.11 million corporate clients to choose from.

In channel upgrade, ICBC has invested over RMB 25 billion since going public to upgrade 10,000+ outlets to provide nice environment and easy access for customers. ICBC also sets up outlets in buildings or MTR stations to answer the changing need of customers for greater accessibility of financial services. The MTR banks in Shanghai are an example. Customers can now perform their banking activities while going to or after work. ICBC MTR banks are usually located at the central interchange stations of MTR lines. Each MTR bank has counters for wealth management services and staffed with 2-3 experienced customer managers. In ICBC MTR bank, customers can bank at any self-service device for cash deposit/withdrawal, transfer/remittance, account enquiry or passbook printing. With the on-site support from ICBC customer managers, anytime customers can seek their assistance for account opening, buying wealth management products, report loss, apply for credit card, signing up electronic banking or personal financial planning that involve tedious steps. Currently, ICBC MTR banks in Shanghai located in 110 stations along 10 MTR lines are good partners for many customers in their daily life.

ICBC is now "A Bank around You" as more outlets are upgraded and renovated. On the other side, the continuous innovations in electronic banking let ICBC become more and more "A Bank at Home" and "A Bank on the Move". In these days of the Internet Age where people are relying on the web for work and living, ICBC continues to improve and shape new technology and services for customers to do their banking online anytime, anywhere via ICBC online service systems (Internet Banking, Telephone Banking, Mobile Banking, self-service devices). More services no longer need to be completed at the counter, more customers experience fast and convenient services. As of today, nearly 50% ICBC personal customers use Personal Internet Banking, nearly 70% ICBC corporate clients use Corporate Internet Banking. On top of this, ICBC has 90,000+ ATMs, 600,000 POS and 14,000 self-service banking kiosks. Every year, more than 30 billion transactions are conducted online amounting to more than RMB 250 trillion, tantamount to a service volume of nearly 20,000 outlets. Nowadays, 7 out of every 10 transactions are completed through online channels. Every day, turnover of electronic banking transactions exceeds RMB 800 billion, over RMB 60 billion is transferred/remitted through Internet Banking by personal customers, over RMB 13 billion is processed through ATM, RMB 10 billion are paid through bank card. ICBC electronic banking is now the first choice of ICBC customers for banking needs. Worthy of note is that, ICBC makes conscious effort on online delivery of more timely and heartfelt services for customers. When a customer calls ICBC 95588 for call desk services, in most of the cases the call will be attended within 20 seconds, no need for customers to wait for a long time. If the customer prefers to send SMS, just edit the question into a SMS and send to 95588, ICBC SMS Banking will send back an accurate reply immediately. The average waiting time is only 1 minute.

Business process re-engineering is also one important means of ICBC to improve customer services. Before re-engineering and upgrade, ICBC decomposes, analyses and evaluates each service so that service flows for customers are more efficient and reasonable. At present, ICBC processes 170 million transactions every day on average, 2 times the daily average volume of 2006. Without adding a large number of staff, customers spend 20% less time waiting in the outlets however. Two factors behind this change. First is the wide adoption of online services. The other factor is the consistent effort of ICBC on process re-engineering. An example is the tedious steps of checking online the identity of a customer. Before, ICBC system took 10 minutes or longer when busy. Besides, teller had to help the customer to make photocopy of the identity document, which was time consuming and slow. Now, ICBC uses images to store the identity documents of customers. Three databases (image database for storing identity documents of personal customers, local database for checking identity information and account database) are created to check a customer's identity using local database instead of online. This is faster and more effective. Moreover, ICBC uses a system to create image for a customer's identity document and save into the image database. No need to make photocopy. This saves a lot of time for customers who have to submit photocopy of identity document many times. Another example. Before, when a customer came to ICBC for buying funds or wealth management products which involved account opening and many tedious steps, he/she had to fill in many application forms, enter password many times. After process re-engineering, ICBC consolidates all the steps. Now, customers only need to fill in the form once, enter password once, print the form once.

Forge Financial Service Yardstick by Consistent Improvements

Companies and general folks are asking for more financial services as the economy improves. Banking services and transactions are getting more complicated and voluminous. Banking services never end if it has to provide more and better services for companies and general folks to invest, as well as cater to the diversified needs of all.

To ensure consistent improvements for customers to really enjoy the faster and value-loaded banking services, ICBC sets up a strategic goal of "A Bank of Excellent Financial Services, A Bank for Customer Satisfaction" since restructuring and going public in 2006. "Service Innovation Year", "Excellent Service Year", "Olympic Service Year", "Service Improvement Year", "Service Value Year", "Year of Process Restructuring, Service Improvement", "Satisfaction in ICBC" have been launched in succession to fulfill the first priority of creating maximum satisfaction for ICBC customers. All issues are settled at a stroke through faster service innovation and better service management. ICBC stands out as the financial service yardstick while spending consistent efforts to improve customer services.

Whether a customer is satisfied is the norm to measure ICBC services. Keeping this in mind, ICBC adheres to a policy of "comprehensive measures, overall situation + individual case". While improving services on an overall scale, the starting point is the services which customers needed most, services that customers are mostly dissatisfied with. More attention is paid on a sophisticated management of a modern commercial bank geared towards customer satisfaction. Outlets with the best services are nominated as examples. Efforts are spent to address the critical issues that restrict improvement. Among the ICBC 100 outlets with "high level of services, excellent customer experience, fast business growth, good performance" chosen from all branches nationwide, 17 ICBC outlets edged ahead 199,000 bank outlets in China and were included in the "Top 100 Best Performing Banks of Premier Services 2011". ICBC had the most number of outlets in the "Top 100" list. ICBC Shandong Daguanyuan Sub-branch, ICBC Beijing Xinjiekou Sub-branch, ICBC Shaanxi Lianhulu Sub-branch, ICBC Guangzhou Tianhe Sub-branch, ICBC Xiamen Lujiang Sub-branch are bank outlets in China well-known for their excellent services.

ICBC Shandong Daguanyuan Sub-branch, an old-line outlet of ICBC, is the earliest bank in the country to launch "Smiling Services" and "Premium Services". Many customers are attracted to the Sub-branch coined as the "Experienced Chinese Medical Doctor of Financial Services" and "Terminator of difficult and complicated financial services". The Sub-branch is always in good order irrespective of how heavy the customer traffic is. Besides the service skills of the staff and domain expertise ahead of the peers, Daguanyuan Sub-branch has many "secret weapons" to improve services. An example is the intelligent queuing machine. Apart from the conventional functions of identifying the customers and calling out the numbers, this queuing machine has other functions for printing out second-generation ID card, for customers to schedule services. When a customer clicks into "Personal Banking", a sub-menu comes out with different options such as cash service, non-cash service, one cash advance. The aim is to diversify services. "Our queuing machine provides a function to print out ID card automatically. Just this service enables customers to spend around 1.5 minutes less on the queue. Through the schedule service, customers just need to reserve a time to print out the schedule No.. The outlet staff will call out the number at the specified time. This allows customers to choose their time instead of waiting at the queue", said Xu Long, the manager of the outlet. Daguanyuan Sub-Branch also installs a system for customers to fill in form in advance. When a second-generation ID card is placed on the electronic machine, the customer information will be automatically displayed. Customers only click or tick against the related options. No need to spend time to fill in the form, no errors as well. Moreover, the machine is connected to the teller's computer. There is no need for the teller to enter the address, account name, account number or other complicated details, just verify and confirm, faster to complete the procedures. Each transaction saves one third of the time in processing. Each teller, duty manager, business manager and wealth management manager is equipped with an electronic calling system provided by the Daguanyuan Sub-Branch for communication between front office and back office. A map of ICBC outlets around and a diagram on the peak customer traffic are shown. Flexible service windows are set up, green service channel is opened, and financial service salon is available while customers are waiting. Every detail step is streamlined to shorten the queuing time of customers and help them relax. In service management, the Sub-Branch emphasizes "sophistication". During banking hours, at least three duty managers are assigned to serve every customer walking into the outlet, providing information and encouraging customers to use self-service devices. The aim is to dynamically manage and balance the number of customers in each service area with significant improvement in service efficiency as a result.

Create Harmonious Finance by Customer Concern

If ICBC customer services are backed by nice and neat environment, full range of systems and facilities, unparalleled professional expertise and high level of service robustness, then ICBC relentless commitment to customers and constant delivery of excellence has been defining characteristics of ICBC's "harmonious finance" and the bulwark of a harmonious society.

Whoever visits ICBC Beijing Xinjiekou Sub-branch, a bank outlet of excellent services, will be impressed by the smiling Peng Xuemei, the duty manager. Every day Peng Xuemei wears a smile to serve the customers nearly 10 hours from early morning till late evening. When old folks come to bank at the Sub-branch, Peng Xuemei is always the first person to offer help, asking what services are required, helping them whenever necessary. Every time if there are customers getting too agitated, Peng Xuemei is always the first person on the scene to resolve the conflict. In every emergency case, Peng Xuemei always has the solution. Earlier, an elderly mother came to the sub-branch and almost fainted by a heart attack. Peng Xuemei immediately picked up the elderly mother and put her on a chair. She called up the family members of the elderly mother while looking for drugs and pills. When the elderly woman was more stable, she helped the elderly mother to complete the banking transaction. When the family members of the elderly mother arrived, Peng Xuemei kept reminding them to keep good care of the elderly mother. When the elderly mother left the sub-branch, she held the hands of Peng Xuemei firmly and tried to say "Thank you" but in vain, only finding tears escaping from the eyes.

In the eyes of customers, Chen Jing, Personal Wealth Manager in ICBC Chongqing Chaotianmen Sub-Branch, is a financial planner as well as a loving friend. Customers find her for a solution whatever happens. And every time, Chen Jing offers help without hesitation. Back in 2004, Chen Jing was the first Personal Wealth Manager in the Sub-branch. Since then, Chen Jing's list of customers is getting longer every day. Despite the long list of customers, Chen Jing remembers by heart whose loan is going to expire, whose fund periodic investment plan should be renewed, who wants to buy gold. Every day, Chen Jing sends 100+ SMS on average to remind the customers, answers/makes nearly 80 phone calls, receives 50+ customers. While working through all these years, Chen Jing makes a rule: once make a promise to customers, do it. To fulfill each promise, Chen Jing marks down every details and time on a notebook prepared by herself. In three years, she uses 19 notebooks for nearly 10,000 details. Chen Jing never forgets the requirements of every customer, never misses one task should be done.

In ICBC Xinjiang Urumuqi Mingdelu Sub-branch, the "Big Bank" coined by the local, whenever the duty manger of the Sub-branch, is mentioned, customers give thumbs up and say "Great"! Once, a lady customer lost Money Link Card and cannot confirm third party depositary, so she came to "Big Bank" to report loss. When the loss reporting was expired, the lady customer went into hospital after hurting her leg. She had to come in person to report loss, according to ICBC rules. If ICBC staff came to hospital to verify the guarantee, this may miss the trading hours for the lady customer. So the lady customer came to the sub-branch to replace a new Money Link Card. When this lady customer came to the "Big Bank" with the left leg plastered and two hands holding the clutches, sullen and agitated, the duty manager spent the whole afternoon with her, saying bits and pieces. When learning that this lady customer was waiting for her family members, the duty manager immediately helped her sit on the sofa nearest to the door and put her clothes to cover the plastered leg of the lady customer. The lady customer was totally moved by what the duty manager has done to her. In the end, this lady customer was very happy to leave the "Big Bank" and give her utmost appreciation to the beautiful, kind-hearted, patient and touching big sister. In Uzbek language, the duty manager's name means "kind-hearted". The duty manager is just like her name, treating every customer like a family member, sincere and kind. Many customers faraway travel all the way to ICBC Mingdelu Sub-branch for banking, simply because of the duty manager.

A single flower does not make a spring, but all flowers make a lovely spring. At ICBC, serving customers wholeheartedly not only appears in just a few "Yardstick" outlets. In fact heartfelt services are available in all 16,000 ICBC outlets. Guangzhou Tianhe Sub-branch starts the customer service program "One more in regards" - one more reminder, one more concern, bring comfort, smiles and satisfaction to customers by heartfelt services. Zhejiang Branch's Jin Yingying focuses on the customer requirement, spending all the time on the skills to improve services in order to be the wealth management consultant for customers. Tianjin Branch's Liu Hong provides heartfelt service or at-the-door service every day for more than 20 years. Every day, Liu Hong provides heartfelt services or at-the-door services. During after-office hours, Liu Hong goes to welfare organization to learn sign language so that more customers who are hard of hearing or speaking can enjoy the heartfelt services of ICBC.

While advocating heartfelt services, ICBC also focuses on "improve wherever customers complain". The Bank launches a program to handle complaints right at the source and monitor complaints through 95588, media, visits, outlets. Clear procedures, deadlines and requirements for handling customer complaints are laid down. A mechanism is in place to manage complaints throughout the process in a "closed-circuit". In the end, the good handling of customer complaints is a driver of ICBC "Harmonious Finance".