DBS Bank Ltd - Contact Center of the Year

Company: DBS Bank Ltd, Singapore
Company Division/Group:DBS Bank Ltd
Company Description: DBS is a leading financial services group in Asia with a presence in 18 markets. We are one of Asia’s leading banks, operating in the most dynamic region of the world. We provide a full range of services in consumer banking, wealth management and institutional banking. We are focused on leveraging digital technology to reimagine banking, so our customers can live more and bank less.
Nomination Category: Customer Service & Call Center Awards Team Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Contact Center of the Year (Over 100 Seats) - Financial Services Industries

Nomination Title: DBS Bank - Singapore Customer Centre

DBS is a leading financial services group in Asia with a presence in 18 markets. Headquartered and listed in Singapore, DBS is in the three key Asian axes of growth: Greater China, Southeast Asia and South Asia. Recognized for its global leadership, DBS has been named yet again as the “World’s Best Bank by Euromoney, “Global Bank of the Year” by The Banker and “Best Bank in the World” by Global Finance.

The bank is at the forefront of leveraging digital technology to shape the future of banking, having been named “World’s Best Digital Bank” by Euromoney.

Set up in 1999, DBS Customer Centre is a fully in-house contact centre with over 400 seats, serving DBS’ Consumer Banking customers 24/7. We offer multi-channelservice,including voice, email, chat, video teller machine, online messaging, and social media.

We have receivedindustry recognitions for customer service excellence and innovation, with numerous wins in the CCAS (Contact Centre Association of Singapore) Regional Contact Centre Awards. Most notably, we won 6 Golds and 2 Silvers in the "Best In-House Contact Centre (Above 100 seats)" category alone over the past 8 years of participation.

Based on a Singapore Police Force report, people in Singapore were cheated of more than S$201 million in the top 10 scam types in 2020.

The painful process of recollecting the details of a scam to the bank staff may lead to some details being left out, due to the customer’s anxiety. At times, the staff may be preoccupied with noting down the details of the case to expedite the recall of funds, and they may not show adequate empathy to the victims. This may lead the victims to call the bank several times, repeating their story to different agents.

To avoid such negative experiences, a Scam Buster team was formed in March 2020.

It aims to empower CSOs who receive time-critical scam calls in activating the Scam Buster team (who does the important job of blocking customers’ cards/internet banking accounts to halt further outflow of funds). Hence allowing CSOs to provide victims with the emotional support they need.

This ensures the scam report is managed efficiently, increasing the probability of the bank recalling customers’ funds and reducing the anxiety felt by both customers and frontline CSOs.
Scam Buster also acts as the sole contact point for victims on follow-up matters, to give assurance and ensure that victims speak to a familiar voice from the Bank throughout the journey.

The initiative successfully recovered funds for our customers within 9 months. Customer complaints on scam related calls also dropped from pre-implementation to when it was launched.

Besides the successful recovery of funds for our customers, we also prevented scammers from accessing customer accounts, thanks to the information driven by Scam Buster calls.

A ring-fence team manages a specialised hotline where customers with suspended accounts due to the bank's fraud parameter, call in and are verified via various authentication questions and are not limited to a set of dynamic questions.

This ensures that it is a real person behind a transaction and proves that the one calling in is who he or she claims to be, preventing others from carrying out a transaction on their behalf without authorisation, and creating false identities or committing fraud.

In addition, on the technical front, our data showed that it would take customers an average of 120 seconds to reach the fraudulent transaction option, often adding to their frustration and anxiety. Hence, we moved the Scam IVR Menu upfront, and tweaked the messaging and order to ensure non-emergency scam related queries do not utilise this option.

It drastically reduced the customers’ time to reach the correct option and successfully deflected calls which would have otherwise gone into the wrong IVR option.

With Covid-19 since 2020, there were reduced CSO resources and increased call volume with the closure of bank branches during lockdowns. Despite such challenges, DBS did the necessary to deliver RED service to customers who are in danger of losing large chunks of their savings to scammers.

Customerswere appreciative of how we designed the journey, saying, “I did not lose any money thanks to reaching the agent so quickly”, and “I reached the agent within 30seconds, and she was able to stop the transaction”.

Our Customer Centre is clearly aligned indelivering our vision and mission –

Our Vision
To be a World Class Customer Centre, delivering a RED and joyful digital banking experience for our customers and employees.

Our Mission
Transforming the way we serve, with a team ofempatheticand empowered people who embracedigital first, in afuture readyworkplace that isinformedwith data andresilientto risk.
Despite an increase in call volume due to branches being closed, we never lost sight of our main aim, to serve our customers. Our overall customer satisfaction scores have been steadily increasing.

Our consecutive Gold wins in the CCAS Contact Centre Awards "Best In House Contact Centre (over 100 seats) is the best testament that we are an award-winning contact centre.