.png)
SERVICE QUALITY ASSURANCE IN BANK AGENCIES
Bank | Financial sector
Design research
Service Design
Livework
Creating and implementing a new method to evaluate the service quality of physical agencies on one of the biggest banks in Latin America.
“How can we measure the quality of the physical bank agencies’ services in order to rapidly identify issues, improve customer experience and assure a standard service quality?”
So, the project involved an important discovery phase. Our team dove into scientific articles and market best practices about customer experience evaluation methods and metrics. While conducting a qualitative research to test on-field the client's initially chosen method with the aim of raising all the pros and cons of keeping it instead of creating a new exclusive one from scratch.
The project also had an extra challenge: the bank had already chosen a traditional service quality evaluative method to guide the project. But, as soon as the project started, our team identified that it wouldn't deliver what we needed as it was a confusing and outdated tool, hard to be filled in by customers.
Approach
. Defining an evaluative method to measure user experience on bank agencies
. Defining success and failure indicators for Service Design initiatives and strategies within the client
The project involved two main goals:
Discovery
● Desk research: scientific studies about evaluating customer satisfaction
● Qualitative on-field research to map the physical agency journey, plus test the traditional evaluation tool chosen by the bank
● Develop a new exclusive evaluation method based on the learnings from discovery and definitions of service quality attributes.
Design
Deliver
● Second round of qualitative field research: this time to iterate the new evaluation method
● Refine method based on field research learnings
Iterate
● Consolidate and align the new evaluation method with key client' stakeholders
● Present and refine framework proposal on how to implement and use the new tool developed
Define
● Consolidate all discovery learnings and research insights
● Collaborative workshops with the client to present learnings and define the attributes of a good service based on the bank value proposition, branding and user research learnings.
Images of co-creation sessions with the client to generate ideas for the evaluative method and to discuss the attributes of a good service.
I collaborated as service design consultant on all stages of the project: from kick off, desk and field research, facilitation of co-creation workshops and the development of the evaluative method.
My role
Results
The main deliverables were the exclusive evaluative method adapted to the bank context, along with metrics to measure the quality of the services delivered at the bank agencies. The method was modular and could be adapted to track and measure services at different touchpoints along the journey, both physical and digital.
An exclusive and modular evaluative method adapted to the bank context, along with a set of metrics to measure it.
In addition to the evaluative method and the metrics, a framework with guidelines on how to implement, monitor and iterate the evaluative method was proposed. The aim of the framework was to enable the bank internal service design team to continue iterating and improving the evaluation method itself, beyond making relevant data comparison through out the months and years.
“Customer satisfaction” is different than “quality of the service”.
Food for thought
One of the main learnings of this project was that measuring customer satisfaction is different from measuring the quality of a service. The company needs to establish what are the attributes that define a good service and then measure whether these attributes are being achieved on customer's experience or not.
Another important insight was that we should never use just one metric to measure service delivery. Each context, moment of the journey and touchpoint requires different metrics, tools and approaches.