Client-Centricity In South African Retail Banking

Abstract

Client-centricity deals with addressing the needs of clients as they change. It requires contact-personnel who are empowered to not only identify client needs, but address them speedily. This study investigated the perceptions of client-centricity for 559 contact-personnel at three major South African retail banks in central South Africa. The results indicate that in general the contact personnel regard their respective banks as enforcing a client-centric strategy. They do however feel that the support from administrative personnel and the processes that support the sales environment are not always conducive to client-centric principles. This is a particular problem as contact-personnel are attuned to addressing the sales-related product and service offerings of clients as opposed to the process-related administrative burdens attached to the delivery of such products and services. The study also found that the job function of contact-personnel is the most important factor to consider when developing a client-centric strategy. Further to this, contact-personnel with the longest number of years of experience in a specific function are the best to use for management when determining whether or not specific tools to achieve client-centricity are effective. The major contribution of the study is that it focuses specifically on the perceptions of contact-personnel and thus provides additional knowledge of what the bank (through its client-facing staff) itself considers important with regards to client-centricity.