Empathy strategy
One of the pillars of „mobile Bank” strategy is excelling the ability to perceive the reality from clients’ point of view. We strive to treat the clients in a way we would like to be treated ourselves, providing them with intuitive solutions. Empathy is a fundamental to offer creation and shall encourage the clients to choose mBank and stay with us as long as possible.
Fulfilling empathic actions by mBank Goup in 2018 is described in details in segment „mBank Group strategy”.
Empathy ambassadors
To better instil empathy in our corporate culture, we have identified employees capable of promoting the correct understanding of the concept.
Empathy Ambassadors are opinion leaders from all areas of the bank and all parts of Poland. The 150 Empathy Ambassadors participate in a programme of workshops where they learn how to listen to others, understand their own emotions, design user-centric solutions for users and with the participation of users, and test new solutions. The Empathy Ambassadors provide the plenipotentiary of the Management Board for customer centricity culture and client relations with truthful comments and suggestions for improvement.
In 2018, we focused on equipping the Empathy Ambassadors with knowledge and skills. In 2019, we want to support their own projects and motivate their initiative.
Stopklatka
To make sure that our empathy strategy is more than words, thousands of our employees have to be able to implement it in everyday practice. This is why we have developed Stopklatka, a check list which helps employees understand whether their attitude, behaviour and practice are empathetic.
The one-pager focuses on the expectations of clients and the appropriate relations between employees. The leading questions evoke our mission:
- How what I do helps?
- Why what I do does not annoy?
- How what I do delights?
Stopklatka is a tool of internal communication. The questions are embedded in selected steps of process development. We promote Stopklatka at meetings and workshops. In 2019, we will distribute videos to employees, translating the objectives into actual solutions implemented at the bank.
Dialogue with stakeholders
We want to engage stakeholders in a dialogue rather than only just meeting legal obligations. By selecting relation building techniques and the level of formality depending on the stakeholder group, we always look for mutual benefits and ensure open and transparent communication.
Focus on stakeholder relations in 2018:
- we communicated with capital market participants through our Investor Relations service;
- we conducted regular market research;
- we regularly polled employee engagement and performed employee assessment including assessment of attitudes towards clients;
- we developed the channels of communication with clients to better understand their needs, problems and expectations.
mKanon
In our view, good and effective communication is:
The structure of our communicates is clear, sentences are simple and do not include banking jargon.
We fully explain reasons and consequences of the processes, underlining crucial issues from the client’s perspective.
The sentences in our communicates are compact. We resign from what is unnecessary, but keep explanations, indicate further steps and express empathy.
We write and speak correctly, according to rules of Polish language. We do not use English nor specialist expressions unless it’s necessary.
Our communication is based on partnership. We deliver key information and express honesty of our intentions. Small print size is dedicated to additional information only, including this required by the law.
We are friendly, supportive and open to dialogue. We try to prove that we understand the situation and client’s emotions – both positive and negative.
We do not communicate in the third person but in a way that shows that we are responsible for bank’s actions.
We analyse experience and satisfaction
In order to know the key needs and expectations of our clients in detail we apply various tools, such as NPS surveys, mystery shopper, eye tracking and ethnography surveys. The survey results give the opportunity to improve our product offer, service and developmental programmes for our advisors and consultants on an ongoing basis.
We engage clients into designing and testing our processes and services
Thanks to the “design thinking” methodology we redesigned processes and services for customers and employees. The methodology improves, among others, processes which are pose major difficulties to our customers: seizure of assets, death of a relative who was our customer, divorce, illness and disability, or theft of funds.
Our customers have access to financial service countrywide – almost one-fifth of our access points is located in low-populated areas or those exposed to unfavourable economic situation. Wherever Internet reaches – all over the country and whole world – we ensure access to the internet banking and mobile services through the application.
| 2018 | Number of retail branches | Number of mKiosks | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total number of access points to financial services offered by the organisation | 141 | 143 | 284 |
| Number of access points to financial services in the low– populated* or economically-weaker** areas | 35 | 15 | 50 |
| Share of access points in the low–populated or economically-weaker areas | 25% | 11% | 18% |
* voivodships with the lowest population density in Poland according to GUS data are: Podlaskie, Warmińsko-mazurskie, Lubuskie, Zachodniopomorskie, Lubelskie, Opolskie, Świętokrzyskie
** voivodships of the lowest economic activity in Poland according to Local Data Bank are: Lubuskie, Opolskie, Podlaskie, Pomorskie, Warmińsko-mazurskie, Zachodniopomorskie, Świętokrzyskie