Offering the perfect mix of digital and human services thanks to customer feedback

Saxo Bank is one of the largest investment banks in Belgium. Our customer, previously known as BinckBank within the international Saxo Bank Group, started a transition from BinckBank to the current Saxo Bank in 2019. Because of the increased digitization in the industry, it's crucial to keep a finger to the pulse. Saxo Bank wants to find the right balance between offering a frictionless digital experience, and the human touch when customers need it. 

Their challenges:

1. Saxo Bank wants to optimize and digitize their processes. They want to involve customers proactively in new projects to develop a customer-focused solution time after time.
   
   
2. The transition from BinckBank within the Saxo Bank Group to its current institute began in 2019. They aimed to ensure that their customers went through this transition as effortlessly as possible and maintained high customer satisfaction throughout the process.
   
   
3. Saxo Bank wants to break down silos and ensure an agile working process between departments. For that, every team needs to understand their impact on the customer.

1. Adjusting processes based on feedback

“The ultimate result of each project should be an effortless process for the customer,” says Anne-Laura Janssens. “That is why we already ask our customers for feedback in the development stage. For example, we send our customers a clickable mock-up and ask for feedback before we ship the solution to development. We even include the legal & compliance team when necessary. They are always happy to be involved in the beginning of a process, and not having to play the ‘bad cop’ at the end.”

“We notice that the survey is very easy for customers to fill in. That is why we get such high response rates. It allows us to keep a finger to the pulse for new projects and for our current services. We learned for example that our daily stock market update is great in terms of content, but our customers were bored of the lay-out. We continuously find opportunities for improvement. One of our touchpoints has an average satisfaction score of 87. But even then we see small tweaks or possible optimizations. In that respect the ‘Top 10 positive and top 10 negative categories’ is a very actionable part of the dashboard. It immediately shows us what we should focus on first.”

2. A smooth transition thanks to feedback

“Not long ago we started a transition process to incorporate BinckBank into Saxo Bank. From a customer experience mindset, we decided to go for a phased roll-out. No one likes change, so we wanted to ensure we had enough capacity to support our customers in the process at all times.” Saxo Bank measured satisfaction before and after the transition from BinckBank. “We really wanted to understand how the customer experienced that change. Did we need to adjust processes? Was there enough information available?”

Based on customer feedback, Saxo Bank actively adjusted its communication about the transition. “After the first communication, we sent out a Hello Customer survey to evaluate. We learned that we should hand out some information sooner, instead of waiting until after the transition. This way we could solve communication needs upfront and we tweaked our approach along the way. After, we also asked our customers how they were experiencing the new investment platform. We can’t solve issues on the spot, but feedback already showed us what we need to improve.”

3. Sharing feedback with all stakeholders

“Every company consists of different departments. But customers shouldn’t notice it when different departments are handling their issues or question. Similarly, customer feedback runs horizontally across departments. That is why it is crucial to bring all departments closer to each other. Listening to your customer should be a way of working.” Customer centricity was part of the DNA of BinckBank and they wanted to include this in the transition to Saxo Bank. “Once my colleagues saw how quickly and accessibly the platform delivers information, they embraced it in a heartbeat. It also makes things easy. We are all connected by the fact that we want to do well for our customers. Hello Customer shows us: this is what the customer wants, and now we need to work on this together.”

By frequently asking for feedback, Saxo Bank can also create awareness about the customer in the organization. “Feedback accelerates customer centricity. No one will say that the customer is not important, but to make it part of your daily way of working is something else. That is why we always share feedback about projects with the involved teams. I also make presentations about the Hello Customer results which I share with executive management. And when a customer says something nice about one of our employees, I forward the feedback to that person and his or her manager. That is always appreciated.”

1. High response rates. Saxo Bank reaches response rates between 8 and 20%. “We combine Hello Customer with classic market research. With a standard market research survey we collect about 100 replies, but with Hello Customer we receive thousands of responses.
2. Consistently high NPS and customer satisfaction linked to higher customer loyalty. “We measure NPS on a monthly basis, and we have a high score compared to the industry. Those are the result of hard work. We survey our customers systematically and we make changes based on their feedback. Every small improvement eventually contributes to that high satisfaction score.”
3. Targeted improvements based on relevant insights. “For me, Hello Customer is the perfect combination of quantitative and qualitative research. We can easily monitor our current services, and because of the high response rates we get with Hello Customer, the insights are statistically relevant. Which means we can take actions based on data.”