The art of customer listening: interview with Capitec Bank – E09 Part 1

I recently interviewed Charl Nel and Shaun Ray from Capitec Bank, one of the Big 5 banks here in South Africa. Charl is the Head of Communications and Shaun manages its CX.

Firstly, for those who are not familiar with Capitec, it is truly a major success story for a South African Bank. Now 18 years old, Capitec’s primary vision was, and still is, to simplify banking for customers at a time when the financial services industry was renowned for its complexity and lack of transparency.

How did they do it?

For Capitec, the customer really does come first. By using a range of digital tracking tools and formal research projects, they understand what the customer likes, and what their pain points are, many in real-time. These are addressed as soon as possible, and communicated to customers.

They also deliver on their promises. Charl underpins how important it is to live up to what the bank says it will do, as customers can become underwhelmed quickly or disappointed when what they thought would happen – as promoted through advertising or on social media etc. – didn’t.

Talking of social media, customer comments are rife. While it is increasingly being used as a customer service channel, among this are genuine conversations customers have with other customers or a competitor banks’ customers. For instance a competitor’s customer disses their bank and a Capitec customer will pipe up to say they need to switch to Capitec. That is excellent brand advocacy happening all on its own.

It’s clear that Capitec has been doing something different, but this is easier said than done. Check out part 2 of my interview with Capitec, where I sat down with Shaun Ray to dive into how Capitec’s customer experience team is embedding customer-centricity across the business.

Decoding the Customer is a customer experience podcast created and produced by Julia Ahlfeldt, CCXP. Julia is a customer experience strategist, speaker and business advisor. She is one of Southern Africa’s foremost experts in Customer Experience Management. To see Julia’s banking industry research collaboration with Brandseye, click here. For more information about Julia’s services including her customer experience analysis methodologies, click here. To hear other episodes of Decoding the Customer, click here.