Customer surveys – an important measurement tool for FIH
Over the years, both customer surveys and employee satisfaction surveys have proved to be efficient measurement tools for the merchant bank FIH Erhvervsbank. As a management instrument in the development of the company, the bank has also benefited greatly from the customer satisfaction and loyalty surveys which have been conducted in collaboration with Ennova.
In light of the increasing competition between Danish banks, it is important for FIH Erhvervsbank to benchmark themselves against the competitors on an ongoing basis. Just as important, however, is the ‘dialogue’ with the customers, which arises through the surveys of how satisfied and loyal they are towards FIH Erhvervsbank.
“We have conducted customer surveys three times since 1998, and it is necessary and interesting for the bank to benchmark itself against the other players in the banking sector. It is, of course, particularly interesting to benchmark ourselves against the other merchant banks,” says Lars Johansen, CEO of FIH Erhvervsbank.
“It’s even more interesting and useful, however, to map customer wishes and requirements for the areas in which we need to improve, and here we obtain important information which can be used directly to control the company’s development. We get information on the services and products that our customers want, but softer issues are also brought to light when customers are asked systematically,” says Lars Johansen.
Important strategic tool
“At one point, our customers indicated that they did not always find us sufficiently flexible. We have taken a targeted approach to addressing that statement, and, today, our customers rate the bank significantly higher, including this area. But we would never have been made aware of the problem in such specific terms if we hadn’t conducted the customer survey,” says Lars Johansen. “We have thus realised that the customer survey constitutes an important strategic tool that gives us valuable information and helps us chart the right course for the development of FIH
Erhvervsbank,” continues Lars Johansen.
“We often have a really good sense of how our customers perceive us, but the survey provides us with a documented contribution to the work on constantly living up to customer expectations.” Ennova’s customer surveys are conducted on the basis of the principles of EPSI Rating (European Performance Satisfaction Index®), which is a European-developed model for measuring customer satisfaction that allows for benchmarking against other companies and other countries. FIH Erhvervsbank has decided to ask a relatively large number of its approx. 4,500 customers as part of the customer survey, which is conducted every other year.
Follow-up creates improvement
FIH Erhvervsbank does not just emphasise the importance if having satisfied customers. The employees’ satisfaction with and loyalty towards
their workplace is also strategically important to the bank:“With some 200 employees and equity of DKK 5.7 billion, a large amount of capital is tied up with each of the bank’s employees. This is one of the reasons why it is important that the employees are satisfied and don’t want to leave the bank,” says Lars Johansen.
The employee satisfaction survey is also conducted every other year. Over the years, the systems in the concept for following up and launching activities to achieve the necessary improvements have heightened the level so that, today, FIH Erhvervsbank earns high scores from its employees. “We have focused on ongoing employee care because all our figures indicate that investments in this area benefit the company’s earnings. It’s a well-known fact that satisfied employees are less absent due to illness and perform better in their day-to-day work, and, over the years, we have seen that even small improvements have led to very noticeable results – both in the daily work and in the feedback that we in management get from the employees,” says Lars Johansen.
Small adjustments have not always sufficed, however: As regards both customer surveys and employee surveys, FIH Erhvervsbank compares its Danish branches in Aalborg, Aarhus, Herning and Kolding, and, some years ago, the employee survey disclosed serious management problems at one of these branches. “Experience with following up on the employees’ statements has taught us that, from a commercial perspective, putting things off does not pay. The senior executive in the branch was replaced, and, in the next employee survey, the employees’ satisfaction was once more on a par with the others,” says Lars Johansen.
Results used externally
It is not just internally that the surveys from Ennova are deemed very important. As a part of the sale of FIH Erhvervsbank in 2004, both the customer and employee satisfaction surveys formed part of the documentation used in the due diligence process carried out before Icelandic Kaupthing Bank acquired FI-Holding and thus FIH Erhvervsbank.
FIH Ervhervsbank – facts
FIH Erhvervsbank was formed in 1958 under the name ‘Finansieringsinstituttet for Industri og Håndværk A/S’ to fulfil the needs of Danish companies for medium-term funding. With 200 employees, FIH Erhvervsbank generated a pre-tax profit of DKK 886 million in financial year 2004. The Icelandic Kaupthing Bank acquired FI-Holding in 2004 and thereby became the owner of FIH Erhvervsbank. Kaupthing Bank is the eighth largest banking group in the Nordic countries.
