As the economy settles onto a recovery path, banks continue to demonstrate resilience, sustaining support to both customers and businesses. Despite the COVID-19 set-back, the industry has resiliently held firm as demonstrated by the 2020 Customer Satisfaction Survey. The survey shows that of the over 15,000 respondents, 92 percent expressed satisfaction that banks have continued to improve service standards despite the disruptive wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. It o ffers a new insight: that despite the overwhelming uptake of digital banking, older customers (70 years and above), still, find the face-to-face service interface necessary.
For Customers With Disabilities, it is gratifying that 81 percent of the customers are largely able to use banking services independently. Meanwhile, 8 percent of the clients need support, with 11 percent occasionally requiring assistance. Respondents with Disabilities represented 3 per-cent of the total number of responses. While this is an encouraging achievement, there is more to be done based on the recommendations of the Persons With Disabilities Digital Accessibility Report, which requires banks to submit accessibility implementation timelines by March 2021.
As the first quarter of the year gets underway, 2020 suggested that the industry’s longstanding focus on digital innovation forestalled a complete disruption of services in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the easing of the Government’s COVID-19 containment measures is a welcome reprieve, the industry will need to continue re-aligning its operational and service models through insights gleaned from internal risk projections, as well as, shared industry-wide recommendations. On the whole, however, the COVID-19 pandemic – while challenging – has also created opportunities to explore new approaches to banking, in what will, without doubt, pave the way for an even stronger industry.
