Question

PART ONE: REPORT (BSBCUS402 BSBRES401)

Choose one (1) australian company that you would like to work for and choose one (1) type of product or service that they offer in your chosen field of expertise. Using the research skills, you garnered in your undergraduate study, collect, organise, interpret & analyse the following customer service information from your chosen company into a professional report. You may wish to interview someone who is working in this company as a part of your research. Please reference all valid sources of your information (both on-line and non-electronic). Answer the following questions in a professional business report style format and upload in Moodle. (Minimum 1000-1500 words)

1. What is the name of the company, their vision & mission, their location & the customer services and/or products that they provide?

2. Who are their customers & what are their customer segments? Describe how you researched this online using specific words and phrases (Boolean operators) to ensure you got valid & reliable information.

3. How does this company determine what their customer’s needs are? (Use specific evidence-based research examples and explain how this helps identify the customer needs). Statistic or data

4. Explain the role of promotional strategies in targeting customer’s needs using a specific promotional strategy used by this company for this product or service.

5. What procedures does the company have in place to ensure that their promotional strategies are up to date and relevant to the customer’s needs? Please include numerical data such as sales figures etc

6. What products or services are offered by the company to each segment & why? (Identify where the company meets the specific needs of the customer in the service or the product and how they match the product or service to these needs). Support this answer with evidence & analysis from your research.

7. What are some areas of the customer’s need that may not be met by this product or service? (Include any difficulties that you can envisage with the way the product or service is marketed? Support this answer with evidence & analysis from your research.

8. What alternative products or services are there in the same market? List three (3) and briefly describe their advantages & disadvantages.

9. If you were working for this company describe how would you assist your customer in determining what they needed from this product or service? What alternatives could you offer them in the product range? How would you prioritise what the customer’s needs were?

10. What rights do the customers have with regards to faulty products or unsatisfactory services? (Quote relevant legislation, ethical obligations, Codes of Practice, Policies & Procedures, Terms and Conditions, Product Disclosure Statements & identify how & when they are applied and what each one means for the consumer).

11. What procedures would you put in place if you were working in this company to ensure that all referrals for the product or service are relevant and matching to the needs of the customer?

12. What events and networks would you need to attend and/or maintain to ensure that you had an ongoing pipeline of referrals? Give two (2) examples one internal and one external and why you consider these two be the most important.

13. Imagine you are the owner, manager or team member of the company you have picked. Your task is to research current best practice in maintaining customer records and customer interaction history and then describe / suggest what your company will do to achieve best practice in these areas. You are required to document the process including how your company manages customer satisfaction, customer confidentiality and customer security? How do your recommendations compare with what currently exists in the company?

14. Finally, who would you distribute this report to if you were working in this company and why? Who would you seek feedback from to ensure that your findings were suitable & sufficient for organisational requirements?

Answer 1

Ans 1

Company Name: Commonwealth Bank of Australia

Vision & mission: "To-excel-at-securing-and-enhancing-the-financial-wellbeing-of-people-businesses-and-communities. This builds-on-our-customer-focused-culture,-our-sense-of-responsibility,-and-our-desire-to-keep-getting-better"

Location: Headquartered at Darling Harbour, Sydney, Australia.

Products: Bank Accounts, Credit Cards, Personal Loans, Home Loans, Business products, Travel products, Financial planning, Insurance, Superannuation etc.

Ans 2

Customers and Customer Segments: The variety of products mentioned above indicates a diverse customer profile with a huge variety of financial management needs. The bank has retail banking customers; premium (business and institutional banking) customers; customers in the areas of funds management, superannuation, insurance, investment, share-broking etc.

Ans 3

The bank does the following to determine its customer needs-

• Investment in customer data analytics - A huge team of analytics experts studying and finding answers to some of the country's biggest customer challenges.
• Developing a customer centric mind-set by:-
  • Invading the customer’s mind-set (via frequent interviews, voice of customer surveys, customer process mapping etc.)
  • defining the customers experience/vision/objectives
  • setting priorities for critical levers
  • creating, implementing and monitoring strategies accordingly
• Analysing cause and effect. - Better customer outcomes with root cause analysis. Serious stance on customer complaint resolution. Policy of providing a customer advocate to facilitate fairness in services. Offering independent reviews for individual customer complaints.

Ans 4

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia believes in innovating through technology and launches many product innovations every year - communicating the same to its customers using great promotional tactics. A good example may be the bank's ‘Lost Wallet’ Web Hunt to promote its Cardless Cash service, in 2014 [Cardless cash allows customers to withdraw cash at ATMs without using their plastic cards. All they really require is the CommBank mobile app]. The hunt was a “Where’s Waldo?” kind of contest, where participants had to search a huge virtual-photo of Sydney to find hidden wallets worth $200.

The promotional message was very well received because banks don't usually promote their services in a fun way. This was different. It was fun! And it managed to "push" Cardless Cash as a cool and practical financial tool!