Standard Chartered Digital Channels & Data Analytics (DCDA) aims to be the world’s leading digital banking platform for its corporate clients by creating a more equitable, sustainable and prosperous future for clients and global communities, through technology, data and digital.
The aim is to be a digital-first and data-driven bank that delivers enhanced client experiences, drives new wallet share and realises untapped client and market opportunities.
Within DCDA, the Digital Client Engagement (DCE) team was established in 2023 and aims to amplify the value proposition of Standard Chartered’s end-to-end digital platform capabilities globally, by driving awareness and engagement programs for both internal frontline teams and clients by focusing on how digital adds value to its frontline, clients and the bank.
For its two successful initiatives that were implemented last year – frontline enablement: Digital Masters Series and client engagement: India Treasury Leadership Forum (Digital Showcase) – the bank has won the award for Outstanding CX in Digital Sales Strategy, at the Digital CX Awards 2024, hosted by The Digital Banker.
Elevating the Go-To-Market Strategy
The objective of the DCE team was to amplify the value proposition digital capabilities globally. This was achieved through deep collaboration with internal teams across CCIB (transaction banking, client coverage, marketing and regional teams).
A 3Hs (hyper-personalisation, hybrid engagement and hearing from clients) framework was developed by the DCE team, with the objective of connecting the last mile to drive global commercialisation of Standard Chartered’s digital capabilities internally and externally through scalable initiatives.
Hyper-personalisation involved the creation of highly tailored engagements both internally and externally – which led to 97% surveyed stating an increased understanding of the bank’s digital capabilities.
Hybrid engagement involved the addition of a physical experience in addition to online engagements for the bank’s clients. This included the organisation of ‘digital showcases’ where the bank could showcase its digital capabilities with subject matter experts, regulators and clients. The impact: over 90% of the clients surveyed showed that they have a much better understanding of Standard Chartered’s digital capabilities and more importantly, they also highlighted areas of interest and how the bank’s solutions could help them.
The third part of the framework was to hear from clients – actively garnering insights and feedback on its clients’ evolving needs, pain points and preference, focusing on how digital can add value in terms of revenue, productivity or risk management. All feedback was consolidated and refined into ‘stories’ with a clear business case for product partners. This allowed Standard Chartered to stay ahead of the curve and deliver exceptional experiences.
Two successful initiatives by the DCE team include:
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Frontline Enablement: Digital Masters Series
Launched globally in Q3 2023, DMS aims to increase comprehensive digital awareness among the bank’s frontline teams based on feedback from the ground on the specific topics that clients want to engage on.
In 2023, a total of 11 sessions across Asia, Africa and Middle East, and Europe and Americas were conducted with over 2000 participants.
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Client Engagement: India Treasury Leadership Forum: Digital Showcase
In partnership with the Transaction Banking India team, Standard Chartered co-created an engaging first industry digital showcase for over 400 CCIB clients at the India Treasury Leadership Forum on 14 February 2023 in Mumbai and 17 February 2023 in Delhi.
The forum was packed with insightful speeches, engaging discussions, and unique opportunities to connect with the best in the industry. The digital showcase offered clients an immersive journey through Standard Chartered’s latest digital capabilities and also demonstrated its commitment of being a digital-first and data-driven organisation.
Creating a Culture of Change
How do you ensure a 160-year-old bank can succeed in the new digital reality and deliver a best-in-class client experience? By implementing a digital-first client listening program at scale that supports client-focused innovation and continually improves CX. That’s precisely what Standard Chartered did.
To validate the anecdotal feedback it received from its relationship managers, and to turn it into robust client insights, Standard Chartered worked to set up client listening channels and insertion of insights into the product development process.
The program delivered clear outcomes, with net promoter scores (NPS) up 11 points and a reduction in query resolution times by 30%.
Recognising Standard Chartered’s efforts and success, The Digital Banker presented it with the Best Customer Insights Initiative – Corporate Banking award at the Digital CX Awards 2024, held in Singapore.
Solution-Based Listening
Dale Preston, Head of Global Client Research & Insights – Digital Channels, Corporate & Investment Banking, shares how the team has implemented holistic listening at scale to continually improve client experience and innovate the corporate banking platform.
A key challenge that Standard Chartered faced was the lack of a cohesive way to gain client feedback and turn it into positive actions. This proved particularly difficult when migrating clients to the new Straight2Bank platform and when looking to release client-centric products on the platform.
“With escalations across the bank, we needed to move away from knee-jerk reactions to holistic listening at scale,” Preston says.
To get the best possible results for clients, Standard Chartered embarked on creating a CX solution that covers listening across various touchpoints. These included in-app feedback through the mobile and web applications and surveys fed to clients at various stages of their journey.
Leveraging the Qualtrics platform, the team measured CX at four key points in the client journey: overall impression, platform experience, product journey and task-specific effort.
The deep listening program has benefited the product development cycle and go-to-market product decisions, helping to ensure clients are delivered products that align with their goals and needs.
“We’ve inserted ourselves into the product development process to ensure the client’s voice is always there in a structured way,” Preston adds. “This helps us ask things like ‘What do we want to build in 2024 and 2025 for our clients?’.”
For Standard Chartered, the CX journey did not stop there. The team ended up implementing a holistic program of activities to drive a culture of client-centricity within the organisation.
“In corporate banking, it can be hard to get face time with clients. So, to humanise the data we used, we had our teams read out client verbatims as if they were the client.
“Our intent was to make people feel the pain and angst that our clients feel to truly empathise with them,” Preston concludes.
