Digital tools are revolutionizing the way we bank. Computers, mobile phones and networks of ABMs have made it easier than ever for customers anywhere, anytime, to effectively manage their finances.

However, Scotiabank’s digital transformation goes far beyond mobile financial tools or a streamlined user experience.

Improved relationships through digital tools

As part of the Bank’s plan to best serve customers in the digital future, Scotiabank is also leveraging digital tools to strengthen the Bank’s relationships with its customers. As Sergio Rubini Castro, Scotiabank Peru’s Director of Customer Focus, says, “We believe that in our journey to transform the digital side of our Bank, we have to improve the customer experience as well. You cannot improve one if you are not transforming the other. So we are doing both at the same time.”

Sergio’s team has been busy with transformation. Throughout 2016, Scotiabank Peru piloted (and later deployed) a new customer feedback system based on a metric called the Net Promoter System (NPS).

How it works

After an experience with Scotiabank, customers are emailed a short, four-question survey. Once Scotiabank receives a response, the Bank acts quickly. Within 2-5 days, leaders from every level of Scotiabank — from branch managers to top executives — review all comments and call a portion of respondents back so that they can hear how customers believe the Bank performed, in their own words. Once calls are completed, the Bank works to put learnings into action through coaching, employee huddles, and teamwork. With NPS, all leaders, from managers to executives, are required to make customer calls every week.

More than a score

Although NPS provides metrics related to customer satisfaction, Sergio is adamant that the system is much more than a metric — it’s a way for Scotiabank to make its entire culture more customer-focused: “What we’re doing here is using NPS to help continue a large cultural change within the organization. This cultural change will allow us to provide a better experience to clients from each level — management, middle management, front office, back office, middle office, everyone.”

Results

Although NPS at Scotiabank Peru is relatively new, Sergio is already beginning to hear how it is making a difference: “I like a story that a branch manager shared with me a couple weeks ago. She said that before we deployed the system, quality service was just following protocols; just doing what our manuals said.

“After the deployment, that changed completely, because we hear the voice of the customer. We feel the customer, we empathize with the customer. And every employee on the front line knows what the client is feeling and can put themselves in the client’s shoes.”

Trust and relationships

Most importantly, NPS is bolstering the one thing that most underpins Scotiabank’s business: trust. Says Sergio, “Whether a client has trust in us — meaning he’s trusting his money with us — or whether the Bank is trusting the client — meaning lending money to him — this is a trust business. The only way to build trust and keep it long-term is to listen to each other, to put yourself in each others’ shoes and really empathize.”

Sergio acknowledges that building this kind of trust with a customer requires effort but that effort and attention are what make relationships thrive. “It’s something that the Bank has to work for every day. It’s what the Bank promises: I’m going to listen to you and I’m going to try to delight you in every aspect through the lifetime of our relationship together. We have to measure, and we have to react, and we have to respond every day.”