SBM BANK

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for instance , we had to train all our front-end staff ,” Ramphul explains . Corporate customers were accompanied with small teams of experts to ensure they understood the new platforms and the value the changes were adding . “ We were present with our corporate customers before and during the launch , guiding them through the new system .”

When it came to individual customers , SBM ’ s customer service centre was vital . “ Our contact centre played an important role in this – we had to ensure that all staff were up to scratch in terms of competency , knowing what the platform was all about . One of the ways of doing this was to involve them in our user testing . They were an integral part of the project ,” he says .

Ramphul is confident that the bank is already reaping the rewards of implementing new digital solutions , both from a customer service perspective and through automating operations within the company . “ With technology , we are able to redeploy our staff to do more value adding tasks and more revenue generating initiatives , instead of getting bogged down with administrative tasks . The second aspect of technology is in terms of reducing human errors – the cost of errors can be really huge , like a manual error where a transaction is duplicated and processed twice … the risk of this with solutions like robotics is mitigated and minimised , so the cost of errors goes down significantly .”

Moving forward , SBM will look to

DECEMBER 2018