8-out-of-10 Bank of Ireland customer calls are resolved first time, with 9,000 fewer calls transferred to other teams.
A €34m investment in contact centres by Bank of Ireland, including an overhaul of its telephony and customer management systems, is already bearing fruit for customers.
Analysis of key customer service statistics – over the last 12 months – show better customer outcomes and a faster customer service response is being delivered.
“When our customers contact us, they want to be served right first time. The investments we are making are helping us do just that, serving more customers faster and better”
In this period, more customer calls were handled and completed by the agent the customer spoke with first time, with no need to transfer the customer to any other agent or team.
Speed of response
Over 80% of customer calls were resolved first time in March 2024 (up from 76% in March 2023), whilst Bank of Ireland saw a drop of over 9,000 call transfers between agents from March to May 2024, compared to the same three-month period in 2023. Customer calls were also answered considerably faster, now only taking 10 seconds on average to connect to an agent.
Part of the investment package is in Conversational Interactive Voice Response (CIVR) technology, which understands customers spoken requests and connects them first time with the right team to deal with their query. Calls are constantly analysed, with the data used to simplify customer journeys, route calls to agents and, resolve customer queries faster.
Total complaints relating to contact centres (e.g., call waiting times, too many phone menu options) are down 35% in the first six months of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023, with specific complaints relating to the various menu options causing prolonged delays down 42% during that time.
Customers will continue to see the benefits of this ongoing investment as further innovations are introduced in the coming months, including enhanced fraud prevention measures and an enhanced number of self-service features on the Bank of Ireland mobile app.
“When our customers contact us, they want to be served right first time,” said Susan Russell, CEO of Bank of Ireland’s Retail Ireland division.
“The investments we are making are helping us do just that, serving more customers faster and better. While we know we have more to do, I’m pleased to see our investments bearing fruit and we are ambitious to do more.”
In addition to this investment in contact centre services, Bank of Ireland is also undertaking a €60m investment in a range of branch improvements including the replacement of the entire ATM fleet and spending of €50m on customer fraud prevention and protection measures including investments in new technology.
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