Establish a proactive customer service culture at financial institutions: Mystery shopping activity successfully conducted in Tanzania

22.01.2018
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In Q4 2017 EIB’s partner bank KCB Tanzania was assisted by the EIB Technical Assistance Programme (www.ta-eca.eu) to conduct several mystery shopping activities as well as a customer satisfaction survey.

The overall objective of the exercise was to cultivate a proactive customer service culture at the bank to better support local small and medium enterprises. For this assignment, AFC tried a new approach, by selecting a number of mystery shoppers to assess the bank’s ability to address the needs of Tanzanian MSMEs.

The scope for the mystery shopping covered three key areas, namely:

  • the bank staff
  • the branch and site look
  • the office management

The customer survey covered similar areas, except that it was given in a form of the bank’s own experience. KCB Tanzania Limited customers were asked to provide comments regarding:

  • staff service attitude
  • staff product knowledge
  • complaint process
  • pricing (perception)
  • brand loyalty
  • the probability of recommending the bank to others

All branches of KCB in Dar es Salaam were visited multiple times by different mystery shopping agents and at different times of the day. Likewise, the branches were visited by different agents for the customer survey interview.

With the strong commitment and great cooperation of KCB Tanzania Limited, it is fair to say that the exercise was a success. Over 170 respondents were reached through the customer survey as well as important observations gathered from the mystery shopping activities, which will help to improve the overall performance of KCB Tanzania MSME business in the future.

Contact: Paul.Kitemu [at] afci.de