Customers prioritise speed, others when dealing with banks — Survey

Ghanaians who do business with banks are more inclined towards those that offer speedy transactions, predictable results, knowledgeable staff, easy access and can engage with employees of the bank.

This was captured in a 2024 survey by professional service providers, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), and released to stakeholders at a consumer experience breakfast forum at the Movenpick Ambassador Hotel in Accra on Tuesday.

The survey conducted online in February with 4700 bank customers asking them to list their top five priorities of a bank they will patronise posted a similar result to a 2022 survey asking the same questions of customers.

“Banks must invest in technology projects that must ensure they are available 24/7 to their customers, as well as have digital channels that are frictionless, this will satisfy the ‘always-on’ systems and engagements that customers are asking for,” Mr Vish Ashiagbor, Country Senior Partner of PWC told the gathering of bankers, financial experts and some staff of banks at the forum.

Valuable stakeholders

Mr Ashiagbor challenged banks to view the public as valuable stakeholders whose needs must be met and concerns highly taken into consideration.

“There is a missing link in terms of communication between the banks and the public and the customer service sector of the banks must fully engage customers to hear them out and know their worries,’ he stated.

He said banks as service organisations must provide the best form of services to their clients and customers.

“PwC agrees that experience expectations from customers put a great deal of pressure on banks, as they must consider a plethora of external and internal factors: economic and market trends; technology trends and innovations; strategic ambitions; regulatory requirements; shareholder expectations; financial constraints; employee expectations and capacity; and competitor moves, as they consider investments in their people, processes, technology and channels,” he stated.

Ghana Banking Sentiment Index (GBSI)

The forum also saw the launch of the maiden edition of the Ghana Banking Sentiment Index (GBSI).  A PwC co-developed research with DataEQ a data and a service (DaaS) company that uses a blend of AI and human intelligence to filter the noise of unstructured feedback for conversation that is high risk, high value and urgent.

According to Mr Ashiagbor GBSI provides a gauge for the overall customer sentiment towards the banking industry.

“The production of the index follows a robust methodology that entails collecting and rigorously analysing social media conversations relating the good and poor experiences that social media-active customers have with their banks,” he noted

According to him the maiden edition of the GBSI was produced from analysing almost 62,450 conversations on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter), with these conversations having taken place from April 1 2023 to March 31 2024 out of which 13 of the 23 banks operating in Ghana during this period have been covered in the very first edition of the GBSI.

“It found out that 77 per cent of the social media conversations tracked are reputational in form, mostly driven by the marketing departments of the covered banks and influencers associating with the banks’ brands. The remaining 23 per cent of the social media conversations are classified as operational, mostly spontaneous praise and complaints by customers relating their experience with their banks,” he noted.