Barclaycard obsessed with customer service

Citation

(2010), "Barclaycard obsessed with customer service", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 42 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ict.2010.03742dab.003

Barclaycard obsessed with customer service

Article Type: Notes and news From: Industrial and Commercial Training, Volume 42, Issue 4

A training initiative is helping Barclaycard, issuer of the first credit card in the UK, to build on its reputation for good customer service.

The so-called Obsessed campaign, run in conjunction with partner training company Cragrats, won a north-east region prize in the latest National Training Awards.

Barclaycard, with almost 12 million customers in the UK, teamed up with Cragrats to produce multimedia training resources for its internal-customer-experience training. The objective was to become obsessed with understanding customers’ needs, getting things right first time and delivering service with purpose.

Cragrats produced a DVD consisting of highly stylized animation interspersed with real film. Team leaders delivered two-hour training sessions to 4,000 call-center employees, up to 16 at a time, between December 2008 and March 2009, using the Cragrats training manual.

Employees were given diaries in order to record the changes in customer experience, and obsessed badges to wear once the training was completed. Awareness of the campaign was raised through internal training events and execution of an internal communications plan, full of activities.

The results exceeded expectations, both financially and in terms of the reduction in complaints. In particular, complaints no longer need to be passed to senior leaders and the number of inbound repeat-complaint calls has fallen by 42.5 percent. In addition the number of calls resolved at the first point of contact has risen from an average of 80 to 96 percent. Customer satisfaction scores have risen from an average of 80 to 98 percent.

Barclaycard has noted a rise in engagement at advisor level as a result of their being empowered to change processes to make them more customer-centric.

According to Craig Buckley, Barclaycard head of customer service, the training has produced a culture change across the organization. He described this as a new way of thinking for Barclaycard; challenging and redesigning measures of success and focusing on what great customer service looks like.

“We are changing the way in which we think about our customers, from the top of the organization right through to our front-line advisors,” he said. “We are improving and changing systems to make sure they are designed to deliver from a customer’s perspective. The huge improvement we have seen in overall quality, customer feedback and first-point-of-contact resolution has been amazing.

“Following the outstanding results against all five key measurements, we are now looking to roll out the program in our US, South African and German operations. Obsessed has been endorsed by our chief executive as the way in which Barclaycard will do business with its customers in future.”

Cragrats Ltd and Barclaycard both have Investors in People accreditation.