Ensure customer access and communication

Due to the economic impact of the crisis on each individual customer—both commercial and private—and the resulting uncertainty, securing customer access and customer communication is now especially important for every bank.

Many customers are uncertain because the economic risks and their consequences cannot be foreseen. For this reason, it is essential first of all to guarantee accessibility and establish a transparent, ongoing and broad customer approach that actually responds to customers’ needs. In the first few days and weeks, measures will focus in particular on the current crisis situation and emergency services, e.g. in terms of financing and liquidity. Additionally, it's advisable to carry out specific and individualized communication to stabilize customer relations (maintaining contacts, offering assistance, etc.).

For this purpose, the prerequisites for improved accessibility and a ‘normalization’ of customer interactions must be created in the short term. 
This includes:

• Shifting capacities from stationary sales to remote channels, such as call centers / customer service centers
• Enabling or expanding online and remote consulting,
• Short-term increase in usage rates for digital channels,
• Short-term adaptation of digital channels in case of missing essential functionalities and
• Ensuring the continuous availability of those digital channels

 
In the medium term, establishing new offerings as an alternative to traditional branch sales should be examined. This might include permanent expansion to the customer service center in terms of performance, expansion to the digital branch and, if necessary, downsizing of the branch network. These measures will help to stabilize ongoing customer interactions in a prolonged crisis, increase call frequencies via digital channels and successively establish genuine sales offers.