Keeping your eyes on the prize

20twenty, Saambou`s virtual bank, has created quite a stir in the banking and IT industries. Understandably so, because admittedly, at first blush, 20twenty`s value proposition seems too good to be true.

I even had the eerily freaky experience of phoning the call centre on the weekend and having a "Wired Warrior" greet me by name.

Basheera Khan, journalist, ITWeb

It`s not so much in terms of the monetary savings one is promised; a bank is a bank is a bank, and one naturally expects to pay for the service on offer. Of course, it makes no sense to pay more money at one bank for a poor service, when one can pay less money at another and be treated like royalty.

Well, maybe I`m exaggerating just a bit. Not quite royalty - but definitely someone important.

You see, this all relates to an ongoing problem I`ve had with online banking recently. I`ve had to liaise with two banks - the old (Standard Bank) and the new (20twenty). It took just a few phone calls to either bank to realise just how much of a difference a commitment to customer satisfaction makes.

Over the past week, I`ve been in contact with several people at both these banks. I`ve dealt with upwards of five individuals at 20twenty. I know their names, they know mine. My customer history is a shared resource, and there`s no chance of being lost in the system -- as far as I can tell.

I even had the eerily freaky experience of phoning the call centre on the weekend and having a "Wired Warrior" greet me by name. This was enabled by the simple but incredibly effective use of caller line identification.

That the shock of this experience left me unable to speak for a few moments is sad testimony of the anonymity people in this country have resigned themselves to expect when dealing with banks across any communications channel.

In dealing with Standard Bank, I first called the general call centre, which advised me to phone my branch. I did, and no one was less surprised than I when the customer care division at my branch suggested I call the general call centre. After some telephonic strong-arming, it took about four hops before I spoke to anyone who had the decency to take ownership of my problem on a Friday afternoon.

From switchboard to customer care, to some obscure department, to another one, and finally to sales, where a lady called Ntsoaki made my day by actually bothering to care about my problem, even though it wasn`t in her job description.

And now that the weekend has come and gone, no guesses as to which call centre operators have since been in contact to make absolutely certain that I`m a happy customer.

Ultimately, it`s this concern for the satisfaction of the overall customer experience that will help 20twenty grab that 15% of online banking market share it is after. Service levels matter - end of story. Admittedly they have been experiencing scalability and capacity management problems - but I reckon that`s proof of how thirsty the average South African consumer is for decent service at reasonable cost.