UBA: What's Killing Your Great Brand?-Follow UP


“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”
Bill Gates

Just over three weeks ago, I wrote a blog post UBA: What's Killing Your Great Brand?
It was easy – the flaws were there, thousands of customers had been complaining and it didn’t seem there was much being done by UBA to fix the problems. I probably should not have put that post on my personal blog and Nairaland – suddenly, hundreds of people were visiting my blog and nairaland, reading, sharing and leaving comments (183 comments with 13295 view within 18hrs).

In hindsight now, it was inevitable that I would get a call from UBA concerning that post. It only took a 6hrs to happen. This post is mostly about that call, and the events that followed. It also is probably the most difficult I have ever written.

I got a call at exactly 8.17am from the business manager of Bode Thomas branch to come and make the deposit and also to have a word with their customer service team from the Head Office. To be honest, I never expected that post to go viral the way it did, I was surprise by most comments and wonder if they were really true and why there has been no response to them. I promised him I will be there by 2pm when I normally have an hour break, but on second thought I told him I will be there by 5pm after close of work.

When I got the call from UBA, I didn’t only call a lawyer and my advisers but my brothers to inform them about what’s going down in, case I had to spend the night at Bode Thomas Police Station or better still one of the stations in Ikoyi used by big banks. However, there were no threats, and I was welcome with a smile by the UBA Divisional Head of customer service. The head of their media department Mr Ramon OlarewajuNasir was also present at this meeting, and a lady which name I fail to recollect.

I expected at least a mild air of hostility from the branch staff. However, there were no threats. The communications lead was very businesslike, almost nice. I’m not sure what the team thought about me when I walked in, but if they felt any animosity, they did a great job of masking it and the word compassionate was mentioned like twice.

Straight away, the lead went on to tell me he has read the post online and even had printed copies on the desk, and held no grudges, as he understood it was written by someone who meant well for the bank and had nowhere else to turn to. Next on, I heard a 15 minute introduction to how UBA works, the commitment to quality service, customer service process, how they have a training school somewhere in Lagos where they regularly train their drivers, customers service officers, security guards and other staff and how customer complaints are handled. In the end, I realized they must know about all the troubles the bank has – and they confirmed this. “Yes, the bank understands the issues and challenges, and is working on them”, they said.

The summary of the opening presentation was that:

• UBA is already aware of all these issues.
• Their IT department has just had a new breath of fresh air with innovations and the customers will start feeling it in the coming months.
• They are glad the customers hold them in such high regard.
• The amount of growth they had in the last three years has been enormous, and obviously, that’s taken a toll on the banks resources, and they’re currently working hard at fixing the shortfalls especially on handling complaints.
• The CFC platform is more responsive now-cfc@ubagroup.com
• Any mail sent to the CFC address and that does not receive a response, a reminder mail should be done and the customer should write on the same trail of mail earlier sent to CFC, to enable proper tracking.
• All matters not responded to at the first write in, should be escalated via the second mail, written on the initial mail trail. The matter would not only be resolved but the staff that failed to respond and resolve at the first mail would be called to order.
• If the report was made via phone, the customer should state the number with which he called, the name of the CFC staff that picked the call, the time of day during which the call was made, and the complaint type.All of these should equally be sent to the mailing group of cfc@ubagroup.com for attention.
• The Customer Fulfillment Centre (CFC) is well resourced and proper monitoring is also assured to ensure that customers are better taken care of.
• A web portal, strictly for customers service and complaint, is being worked on

I raised some issues about how they spend millions of naira running adverts on national dailies, radio, billboards and the internet to introduce new products and services to the public and on getting to the bank, most of their customer service officers don’t even know what you are talking about. You either have to show them the advert or explain what you heard; most of them had to make calls to get the details.

That’s where the explanation of a mother having six kids and after spending lots of resources to train them all, one might still come out wanting.

In the end, the team went line by line through each of the issues I raised, and addressed them.
Obviously they had prepared for the meeting, but that initself bought my respect.

Before the meeting ended, I had requested the team to please send me detailed information on how Nigerians can contact their customer services complaint desk more effectively. On Friday 13th of August 2013, I got an email from the divisional head of customer service and complaint department with all details on how to effectively fast track customers complaints.

In 2011, the world was introduced to a new brand management strategy by Steve Jobs. After reading that story, I realized that there’s no better way to promote one’s brand than getting full on with customers and stakeholders and addressing their issues. After my meetings with UBA, and the subsequent emails, I found more reason to respect the brand.

UBA may not have addressed all my problems, they are a big bank, and constant monitoring of their staff can still be a problem. I am just one customer, and the only UBA staff I can claim I know is one UcheA(BB PIN:240580B) from their e-commerce department, who spent hours chatting with me, to convince me that the bank was doing its best to improve customer services and banking platforms and how part of what her team does, as a side, is scan the internet for feedback. It goes to show they are working to improve on their services. I work in an e-commerce department for a lifestyle brand, where my core duties is online brand promotion, customer service and creating newsletters, so I know what she is talking about.

Though the questions on customer experience and quality of service remain, I know now what UBA plans for the future, and hopefully they can communicate these better to their existing customers and others, but how soon are those changes coming in and can they get back on track?
Of course, being a big bank, stuff takes a little longer to get done, approved and tested. But maybe the management could create special channels, which have direct access to the decision makers, so they don’t get caught up in the bureaucracy. That’s what Steve Jobs and Jony Ives did at Apple, which built up a 10 year advantage in product innovation.

A focus group would be great for UBA; people are asked a series of questions about a product or service. The group may consist of a cross section of people from society or be made up specifically of potential customers.In my head, UBA is not a bank - it’s a brand, built on great banking products that I joined in 2003. Often times though, a successful product team could get stuck. This is where a focus group helps. Feedback and ideas could be crowd sourced from people who love the brand and would love to see it succeed. And the cost of this could be as expensive as a few plates of cat fish and open communication channels.

I will also like to see how UBA improve the experience in banking halls by creating more space in front than behind tellers e.g. Bode Thomas Branch. It could be better, but I hope whatever the bank is currently planning and doing to improve the experience of customers, it does quickly. The customers who truly love their bank will appreciate it and the news will surely spread like wild fire.

In the past few days, I also had to deal with a lot of random people asking if I was writing so UBA would ‘pay’ me, and probably will have to answer if this post was paid for by the brand, I must clearly state that I was not paid then, and haven’t been paid to write this follow up. If one bottle of chilled water and a FREE RIDE home at 8.45pm that evening qualify as payment, then maybe I have been paid, otherwise, we could all treat this as a conversation between a great brand and a true friend.

Hopefully, I might have a part to play in its brand promotion and services awareness campaign.
Thanks



By Nath Ekanem (You can search me on google , I also run www.natekanem..com - BB PIN : 275F2D24

Am yet to hear from them

Hmmm

It's the CNN advert of that creepy afro guy that's killing UBA....He is scaring potential customers.

UBA was never cool

End Time

Ok 5th abi 6th to comment hmmmm will get there sooon . Now back to the topic seriously I don't know

UBA has always been crap.

STB had all the new generation bank swag and all when they came in, UBA was with the dinosaurs like Union Bank and First Bank at the time they were acquired.
They where a pain in the behind and I only got an account with them because internet banking and all was not existent so you had to open in a bank with the most branches so it would be easier for people to pay in money for you.
That's all.

Next time try to abridge your post in order not to run the risk of being the the first post without a comment.

Next pls

i have a similar story too

Poor service
Un-innovative
Customer care - total failure
Everything, when there are better banks like GTB

Management of course! Or is it the customers?

pooer human relations and customer service


Employees are used as tools not seen as resources

Tony Elumelu was the brain behind.

their awkward advertisement .. starring that annoying guy everything red, even de guy eye red

UBA needs re-branding and I can give the bank a lift.

In my humble opinion : Poor customer service, Non-challant attitude, Bad management, Arrogance and Greed!

Sorry, I didn't even read up to half of this post. But I can rightly say that UBA has poor services and is not well managed. Banks such as GTBank and Zenith Bank are better.

ok. noted

UBA_-The wiselestest choice in banking.. *yawns*

I got my STB bank a/c in 2004.

STB was a great brand, UBA (though a great brand too in the eighties) had actually lost its appeal before the merger.

STB was peopled by young dynamic guys with innovations and all that (in the class of GTB, Zenith), UBA refused to jettison its old school, poor customer service style.

The killer punch was retaining the UBA name, instead of STB.

In any case, I have not operated teh account in the last 5 years.

These idiots pulled out my wife's money via their useless online banking portal. She needed a password reset which was never effected and while she waited for the password reset, her money was stolen by UBA insider crooks. And of course, nothing was done.

I questioned why my beautiful wife would ever have an account with a bank that has no control on crooks planted on their online business channel but she informed me her employers did. Well we are out of that trashy Internet fraud ridden channel they call U-Direct.

One bank I will and cannot recommend ever - UBA.

Meanwhile @ poster, why such a long post to say that UBA sucks? Even their big HQ stinks - cobwebs, no maintenance, no class no panache, nothing.

And to think I liked that bank as a kid especially their sweet and melodious TV ad...ashay na scam in waiting.

BabaAlabi: It's the CNN advert of that creepy afro guy that's killing UBA....He is scaring potential customers.

This got me cracking lol, seriously UBA is dulling they need to wake up from their slumber.

UBA is the worst bank ever! Their customer service is EXTREMELY POOR!!! Anytime i am going into any UBA branch my heart skips and i must have completed all my tasks for the day because i know i would be spending my entire day there.

If i wanna pay in money to your account and you give me a UBA account i can start crying because i can't stand them. They are soooo slow in attending to customers and they have a nonchallant attitude.

I went there to cash a 200,000 naira cheque and the lady at the counter gave Me in #50 notes with the excuse That they don't have higher denominations. Are you kidding me!!! So I should walk around with two nylon bags or more carrying cash.


I wanted to pay money into an account and the person at the counter was a pregnant woman. After attending to one customer, she went inside to make tea while we were still on the queue. She later came out and was sipping the tea without so much as a glance at us. You can imagine my fury.


I want absolutely nothing to do with UBA. I have begged my father to change his back because all his cheques are to be cashed at UBA.

So sorry for any inconvenience this might have cause you. Was a member of UBA ITCARE,1st floor,est 201. Left UBA last year for personal reasons,but still ave a good contact with them. Dnt no if I can help to forward this to them. You shld undstnd how our ppl behave when they are in need of job, and once they got it, that's the end. So painful have left the office, if not I will personally logged this report against the office in question. But I need your go ahead to do this.

dabigwalls: These idiots pulled out my wife's money via their useless online banking portal. She needed a password reset which was never effected and while she waited for the password reset, her money was stolen by UBA insider crooks. And of course, nothing was done.

I questioned why my beautiful wife would ever have an account with a bank that has no control on crooks planted on their online business channel but she informed me her employers did. Well we are out of that trashy Internet fraud ridden channel they call U-Direct.

One bank I will and cannot recommend ever - UBA.

Meanwhile @ poster, why such a long post to say that UBA sucks? Even their big HQ stinks - cobwebs, no maintenance, no class no panache, nothing.

And to think I liked that bank as a kid especially their sweet and melodious TV ad...ashay na scam in waiting.

wetin de do this one

Blame Bamanga Tukur and Jonathan

hmmmmm

They'll give you 100,000 in 50naira multiples (torture )

BabaAlabi: It's the CNN advert of that creepy afro guy that's killing UBA....He is scaring potential customers.

. No comment

The statement, "our network is down"