Marcelo Barreto
Standard Bank Angola
Head of Client Solutions
Marcelo Barreto is Head of Client Solutions at Standard Bank Angola. He shares his experience and vision in this interview conducted for a Qorus-Sopra/Axway study on digital transformation in African banks that will be published in the second half of 2022.
GAFAMs have habituated customers to an exceptional experience. How does your bank intend to meet the new customer demands and what are your top three priorities in this area?
The matter in hand is more than just delivering an exceptional experience – it is being able to do so instantly, anytime, anywhere and, more importantly, being capable of hyper-personalizing the interaction with the customer, which creates a positive emotion that increases engagement and brand loyalty.
We have acknowledged that being client-centric isn’t enough anymore: we are evolving into being ‘people-obsessed’. What we mean is that thinking first about the client is no longer enough in a post pandemic world, where people’s habits have fundamentally changed towards a more digital and immediate experience.
We need to be within the customer’s ‘arm’s reach’, competing for attention in a digital device that is powered by notifications, social media and instant gratification. And we cannot just cater for our external customers – we need to look after our internal ones, our employees who are always early adopters of our products and services.
And for this, we need to grow into a future-ready organization, recognizing as our top priorities that a shift in organizational culture, surrounding ourselves with the right talent, and a focus on the enabling technology are key to winning in this race where competition is no longer constrained to the financial industry players.
For us, this also means starting to measure the impact on customer experience, through the number of hours saved following implementation of quick wins and more structured changes, as opposed to relying just on NPS scores, as we feel this is a more accurate way of measuring the positive impact on the customer that chooses us as their banking platform.
