Introduction
The survey focus was to gauge customer engagement in the banking sector in Zimbabwe. Customer engagement is defined as the strengthening of the customer relationship across touch points, including the internet, phone, in person, and through transactions. As reported in this survey, the engagement levels of banking customers in Zimbabwe have changed significantly since dollarization.
Industrial Psychology Consultants (Pvt) Ltd does not hold itself liable to any derogatory comments and or opinions expressed as part of and through this survey. Our objective however, is that this report may be used constructively towards creating a competitive financial services sector that engages the support of its customer.
Summary of keys findings
This report highlights some very interesting key findings. These are listed as below:
- More customers want to switch to international banks (Stanbic Bank, Standard Bank, and Barclays Bank) today than they did in 2012. Only 24% want to stay with their current banks.
- Net engagement of 11 out of 12 banks increased by over 50%.
- Since dollarization customer service expectations of the respondents (64.80%) are higher.
- 10% of respondents regard courteous staff as good customer service as compared to 34.50% in 2012, an increase of 9.60%
- Turnaround (queues, notifications) is still what most (31.20%) respondents dislike about their banks as compared to the 20.80% in 2012
- Standard Chartered Bank Zimbabwe Limited had the highest net engagement score of 88.20%, followed by NMB Bank with 88.00%, FBC Bank with 86.30%, and MBCA Bank with 80.50%.
Background
According to an article in the Zimbabwe Independent (January 10, 2014) seven out of the 21 licensed banks excluding People’s Own Savings Banking (POSB) were facing challenges and are the subjects of close monitoring under the Troubled and Insolvent Bank Policy.
[1] The banking sector is currently confronted with liquidity challenges which are manifesting themselves through constrained banking sector lending capabilities, high lending rates and failure to meet customer withdrawal requirements experienced by a few banking institutions. The few troubled banking institutions are of low systemic importance as they accounted for less than 10% of the banking sector’s total assets, total deposits and total loans respectively, as at 31 December 2013.
[2] Profile of participants
872 bank customers participated in the survey. Participants were asked whether or not they had a bank account at the time of completing the survey. Those that responded negatively to this question were excluded as it would be unfair to rate a bank for which you do not have a bank account. The average age of the participants is 37 years and the average years of working experience is 14 years.
96.90% of the respondents are currently employed, 3.10% are unemployed. 67.00% of the respondents are males and 33.00% are females. 19.00% are non-managerial employees, 23.70% are part of junior management, 29.10% are in middle management, 16.00% are senior managers and 10.50% are executives. 7.40% of the respondents earn an income of US$ 500.00 and below per month; 27.90% earn US$ 501.00 – 1000.00; 44.90% earn US$ 1001.00 – 2999.00; 11.10% earn US$ 3000.00 – 4999.00 and 8.70% earn over US$ 5000.00 a month.
A total of 22 banks were represented in this survey as shown in table 1 below. For analysis, banks with a sample of 30 respondents and above were used.
Table 1: Distribution of respondents by Bank.
| Bank | Frequency |
| Standard Chartered Bank Zimbabwe Limited | 16% |
| Stanbic Bank Zimbabwe Limited | 11% |
| CBZ Bank Limited | 10% |
| Barclays Bank of Zimbabwe Limited | 10% |
| NMB Bank Limited | 10% |
| FBC Bank Limited | 7% |
| BancABC | 6% |
| Central Africa Building Society (CABS) | 6% |
| MBCA Bank Limited | 6% |
| Afrasia Kingdom Bank Limited | 6% |
| ZB Bank Limited | 4% |
| Ecobank Zimbabwe Limited | 2% |
| Steward Bank | 2% |
| FBC Building Society | 1% |
| People's Own Savings Bank (POSB) | 1% |
| Metropolitan Bank of Zimbabwe Limited | 1% |
| Agricultural Development Bank of Zimbabwe (Agribank) | 1% |
| Allied Bank | 0.5% |
| ZB Building Society | 0.3% |
| Tetrad Investment Bank (Tetrad Securities Limited) | 0.2% |
| Capital Bank | 0.1% |
| CBZ Building Society | 0.1% |
Methodology
This survey was conducted via an online survey tool called Survey Monkey. The survey instrument had a total of 15 questions. Participants were not randomly selected therefore results cannot be generalized. Responses reflect customer engagement levels during the period November 2013 to March 2014, the period in which data was collected.
Short comings
- The participants in this survey were not randomly selected hence generalizing the results will not be possible.
- Some bank customers do not have access to the internet, considering this research was done via survey monkey which is an online tool.
When interpreting the results, the above points need to be considered.
Results
Net engagement is calculated by subtracting the percentage of customers who are disengaged from the percentage of the engaged. Compared to the 2012 results, the highest increases in Net engagement were recorded in Standard Chartered Bank (88.20%), MBCA Bank Limited (84.20%), and NMB (82.60%) as shown in the table below:
Table 2: Ranking of Banks by Net engagement score
Rank | Bank[3] | Net Engagement Score 2012 | Net Engagement Score 2013 |
| 1 | Standard Chartered Bank Zimbabwe Limited | 0.00% | 88.20% |
| 2 | NMB Bank Limited | 5.40% | 88.00% |
| 3 | FBC Bank Limited | 34.20% | 86.30% |
| 4 | MBCA Bank Limited | -3.70% | 80.50% |
| 5 | CBZ Bank Limited | 0.00% | 76.70% |
| 6 | ZB Bank Limited | 11.60% | 72.90% |
| 7 | Barclays Bank of Zimbabwe Limited | -6.70% | 66.30% |
| 8 | Stanbic Bank Zimbabwe Limited | 16.30% | 66.30% |
| 9 | BancABC | -3.30% | 64.60% |
| 10 | Central Africa Building Society (CABS) | 5.20% | 56.00% |
| 11 | Afrasia Kingdom Bank Limited | -13.50% | 27.60% |
The customer engagement levels were categorized into four groups, namely Actively Disengaged, Disengaged, Engaged, and Actively Engaged. Customer engagement levels have increased compared to the 2012 results. Disengaged customers decreased by 32% whilst engaged customers also increased by 32%. Since dollarization, customer service expectations have changed, with 64.80% having higher expectations (despite a 2.10% drop from the 2012 results).
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