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Let Your Fingers Do The Talking
It began with a long, slow-moving bank queue that caused so much irritation to Wits Business School student Craig Aiken
that he phoned a buddy and said: “I wish I had some buttons to punch so I could tell them what I think of them!”
The call to fellow student Peter Everett led to the two setting up a Customer Feedback System (CFS) and designing a
“Service Tracker” to provide customer service appraisal. The pair conceived a digi-board, which acts as a barometer,
reflecting levels of customer service. It’s a gizmo that sits at elbow height on the counter and invites clients to
answer five questions by pressing five buttons on an electronic pad.
The aim is to place the device near every employee who deals with the public. One effect is to sensitise staff to
their own performance. “It make's staff become personally responsible for their behaviour,” says Everett.
Their biggest clients are retail banks, who are required, under the Banking Service Charter, to improve their customer
service.
Nedbank currently uses the service tracker in 190 branches to monitor service on a daily basis. The questions the
tracker asks allow for anonymity and branding, and are visual and simple.
“We can see if consistent performers are in trouble and where things go wrong,” says Everett. “Complaints cost money
in terms of staff time.
“The banks are taking this task seriously.”
CFS International uses tools to analyse the data that comes in from its trackers. “We developed software and analytical tools,”
says Everett, adding: “We developed the service around the product. It’s an operational, not a research
tool.”
Aiken said: “We’ve seen a continual rise in service levels. We feel a sense of involvement.
“We have information on individual job tasks and are able to put pressure on them. In the hospitals and clinics, each
patient presses in results that give us weekly feedback – the time and the place – and we pick up the patterns that
affect service.”
The service tracker is SA technology that is ready for export to First-World service economies such as the US and
Britain.
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