Organization Overview
Headquartered in London, HSBC Holdings plc is one of the largest banking and financial services organizations in the world. It began operations in Hong Kong more than 130 years ago. The HSBC Group’s international network comprises more than 8,500 offices in 86 countries and territories in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, the Americas, the Middle East and Africa.
With listings on the London, Hong Kong, New York and Paris stock exchanges, around 190,000 shareholders in some 100 countries and territories hold shares in HSBC Holdings plc. The shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange in the form of American Depositary Receipts.
Through a global network linked by advanced technology, including a rapidly growing e-commerce capability, HSBC provides a comprehensive range of financial services: personal, commercial, corporate, investment and private banking; trade services; cash management; treasury and capital markets services; insurance; consumer and business finance; pension and investment fund management, trustee services and securities and custody services.
HSBC Bangladesh
The HSBC Asia Pacific group represents HSBC in Bangladesh. HSBC opened its first branch in Dhaka in 17th December 1996 to provide personal banking services, trade and corporate services, and custody services. The Bank was awarded ISO9002 accreditation for its personal and business banking services, which cover trade services, securities and safe custody, corporate banking, Hexagon and all personal banking. This ISO9002 designation is the first of its kind for a bank in Bangladesh. The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Bangladesh Ltd. primarily limited its operations to help garments industry and to commercial banking. Later, it is extended to pharmaceuticals, jute, and consumer products. Other services include cash management, treasury, securities, and custodial service.
Realizing the huge potential and growth in personal banking industry in Bangladesh, HSBC extended its operation to the personal banking sector in Bangladesh and within a very short span of time it was able to build up a huge client base. Extending its operation further, HSBC opened two branches at Chittagong, one branch in Sylhet and other branch offices at Dhaka- Gulshan, Mothijheel, Dhanmondi, Banani, Uttara, Lalbag, Narayangonj and Mirpur.
HSBC Bangladesh is under strict supervision of HSBC Asia Pacific Group, Hong Kong. The Chief Executive Officer of HSBC Bangladesh manages the whole banking operation of HSBC in Bangladesh. Under the CEO there are heads of departments who manage specific banking functions e.g. Personal banking, corporate banking etc.
Currently, HSBC Bangladesh is providing a wide range of services, both to individual and corporate level customers. In the year 2000, the bank launched a wide array of personal banking products designed for all kinds of (middle and higher-middle income) individual customers. Some such products were Personal loans, car loans, etc. Recently the bank launched three of its personal banking products – Tax loan, Personal secured loan & Automated Tele Banking (ATB) service.
HSBC in Bangladesh also specializes in self-service banking through providing 24-hour ATM services. Recently it has introduced Day & Night banking by installing Easy-pay machines in Gulshan, Banani, Uttara and Dhanmondi to better satisfy the needs of both customers and non-customers. In total HSBC currently has 19 ATM’s (12 on-site & 7 offsite) and 4 Easy-pay machines located at various geographical areas of Dhaka & Chittagong.
Introduction to the Report
HSBC has launched VISA PLUS enabled ATM card for the first time in Bangladesh. This card can be accessed to any bank`s ATM booths where the VISA PLUS system enabled. The research has chosen to find out the customer`s satisfaction about this new card and for the first time this kind of research has been held. The research included the whole process of delivering the card to receiving the PIN (personal identification number) from the home branch where customers opened their account. This research has a great scope for the business students and also the organization to understand the approach of the customer about a new product.
Statement of the Problems
This research is undertaken to understand the customer’s perception about a newly launched product and their satisfaction, so at the end of the research, it definitely answered some questions.
Some specific questions answered by the study like-
– Are the customer`s actually satisfied with the new ATM card?
– Is the charge of new ATM card affordable
– What is the lacking of the new card or in its service?
– If they discontinue the card or surrender it, what are the reasons and what are the reasons of discontinuations?
– What are the initial steps that should be taken to improve it and what services should it adds to make it more lucrative?
The main objective of this study was to find out the customer satisfaction level about the new VISA PLUS enabled ATM card and whether HSBC could reach the customer`s desired satisfaction level or not.
HSBC has launched the new ATM card without prior market research. So there was always a question whether this card fulfilled the need of the customers. The research found out the customer`s satisfaction in delivery process, PIN collection process and getting expected level of services.
The research also took the feedback from the customers. This research found out the lacking of the new card and took appropriate suggestions from the customers. This will help the organization to launch any new product successfully in the future.
By studying all the factors and the customer`s satisfaction level, this research has been recommended some points where HSBC can modify themselves and develop their service level.
Scope & Delimitation
The researcher was doing his intern in HSBC Gulshan Branch while the research was taken. The HSBC Gulshan branch has a huge customer both corporate and individual. They successfully attracted a huge market over here in Gulshan. HSBC will be benefitted by this research as it helps them to launch any new product in the future. This will also help the business students to understand the customer`s attitude and perception towards a new product. It will also help them to do more research in this topic in the future. As this research is based on customer satisfaction, so only the customers reached by the researcher have been considered as respondents. The research was aim to have a good coverage in terms of customers` demographic background because though the coverage has been limited in terms of geography.
The researcher worked only three months to complete the research and during the office hours it was almost impossible to work on research. So limitation of time hampered the flow of the research. The customers of this branch are always in hurry, so it was difficult to get their consent for the survey. But the researcher tried to take the feedback when they were served.
Methodology of the Study
In this research both primary and secondary sources has been used to collect data. In primary sources it included personal interview of customers and executives of the company, questionnaires filled out by the customers. In secondary data it included different journals, magazines that expressed much information about ATM card and the customer satisfaction level.
In this research random sampling technique especially convenience technique has been used because it was easier to do the research and the objectives were fulfilled and it was not bothered the respondents also. For this research sample size of 100 was appropriate because it covered up the maximum perception and attitude of the customers.
The research has been done in two phases. Firstly, interview of the line manager has been taken to find out some factors that affected the customer’s satisfaction level and then put those factors into the questionnaire. The researcher made a few questions for this interview and it was a face to face interview. Then by questionnaires, the main survey has been conducted and that was customer survey.
For this research questionnaire was an essential component to collect data. For this reason questionnaires made very carefully and in a structured way. There were different types of questions in the questionnaire like multiple choices, dicotomous and likert scale questions.
Multiple choices has been used over here to offer three or more answers – and allowed a greater breadth of response. Dicotomous was yes/ no question and used to generate descriptive data. Likert scale has been used as the respondent asked to rate the importance of an issue to them on a scale of 1 to 5. Likert examines how strongly the respondent agrees with a statement and helped assess the feelings of customers towards issues. These three types of techniques have been used because these brought the maximum response from the customers about the new card. These three types of questions have been used to find the appropriate feedback and important suggestions.
The main survey that has been collected from the customers through questionnaires put into the SPSS (Statistical Packages of Social Sciences) software. This software helped the research to find out the relationship between factors and satisfaction level of customers which was the main objective of this research. Here ANOVA has been used because respondents were exposed to more than one condition. In this research correlation and covariance also needed because correlation expressed the strength of different factors and covariance answered the change in satisfaction level if a single factor changed a bit. Regression technique also adopted in this research to find out the relationship between some independent factors and some dependent factors of customer`s satisfaction level.
Analysis and Interpretation of the Data
The main aim of this report is to find out the satisfaction level of the new card. Here the analysis for the satisfaction level of the new card.
From the table 1 the data showed the correlation among different variables. If satisfaction of the current card takes as dependent variable then it expressed that the correlations with other variables are .128, .131, .027, -.041, -.042, -.190, -.108, -.158. It said that there had not been strong relations with the satisfaction of the card and sometimes it said that they were negatively correlated with each other. From table 2 the data showed covariance among the variables. The covariance levels among those variables are .027, .027, .006, -.007, -.007, -.037, -.017, -.027. These mean with 1 unit of change of those independent variables the customer satisfaction will increase very less and sometimes it will decrease the satisfaction level.
From table 3 the data showed the significance among level of the satisfaction of the card and the other variables. The values are .102, .097, .393, .341, .340, .029, .142, .058. When the Alpha is less than .05 then the relation is significant and when it is more than .05 then the relation is insignificant. All the value show that the relation with the satisfaction of the new card is insignificant except one and the value is .029 and the variable is level of convenience to collect PIN. This variable is having significant relationship with the satisfaction of the new card.
From table 4(a) and 4(b) the data showed that the charge of new card of TK345 has not a good relation with the satisfaction of the new card of the customers. In the table 4(b) the covariance also showed that with the change of each other`s unit it will change in the negative way. But without this data, the raw data showed that charge of TK345 was affordable for them.
From the table 1, 2, 3 it was clear that new card has lots of lacking like delivery of the card, user manual of the card, obtain the information about the card, collect pin from corresponding branch, speed of delivery and level of convenience.
Table 5 showed the reasons for customer’s discontinuation of the new card. The variables like physical shape of the card, delivery the card, number of ATM accessed, environment of the ATM booth, accessible ATM booths of the other bank are having weak correlation with the satisfaction of the new card. When the customers are not satisfied then they definitely discontinue the card.
From Graph 1 to 9, the statistics showed us different recommendations and customer`s responses to those recommendations. Surprisingly all the data showed that customers are either strongly agree or moderately agree with the suggestions. These mean customers need those modifications in the overall system of the new ATM card.
When the research has done in terms of demography like gender, age, occupation and income then there was nothing noticeable. This meant in terms of satisfaction there was no difference among the customers. Demographic variables did not affect on the customer`s satisfaction and the data showed it very clearly.
Findings of the Study
There are some specific findings of the study after the analysis has been done. These findings are come out from the interpretation of the raw data. The findings are given below:
a) The main aim of the research to find out the satisfaction level of the new ATM card and the first finding is customers are not fully satisfied with the new card. The factors like the physical shape of the ATM Card, the process of delivering the card to customers`
addresses, the effectiveness of the user manual of the card, the process of getting information about the new card, the process of collecting the PIN from corresponding branch, the level of convenience regarding collection of PIN, the charge (TK 345) collected for issuing the card, the speed of delivery of PIN by employees etc are not satisfactory enough.
b) The charge of TK345 may be affordable for the but the supplementary services are not those much attractive, so customers thought that the price did not give them the right value.
c) The overall process of this new ATM card has lots of lacking. The VISA PLUS enabled card has failed to fulfill the main aim of the organization. The overall service was not satisfactory enough to the customers.
d) There is a possibility that customers may discontinue the card any moment because of these kinds of services. The main reasons of discontinuation are cards are not properly delivered to the addresses, customers hardly get information about the new card, inconvenient to collect pin from corresponding branch, inaccessibility to the other bank`s booth, insufficient ATM booth across the country, the environment both in HSBC and the others bank`s booths and so on.
e) The main aim of launching this card is to withdraw money more conveniently. But The organization did not have a good liaison with the other bank and for this reason the customers faced so many problems like card retained in the ATM booth, other banks did not help to collect the card and so on.
f) The demographical change did not show any difference in the satisfaction. This means whatever the age, income, occupation and gender the satisfaction level do not change.
suggestions
Based on the findings of the study the research has proposed some suggestions to the organization for improvement and sustainability. This suggestions will strengthen the organization`s procedure and system. In a consequence the organization can revision their policies and it is for their future purpose. The suggestions are given below elaborately:
A) New ATM card`s PIN (Personal Identification Number) should be mailed to the customer`s corresponding address for collection. It bothers the customers to come and collects the pin from the corresponding branch. As the PIN is a confidential item for the customers, so it should be sent with more security and a good tracking system should be maintained. In the case of bouncing or returned from the address, the customer should be informed and deliver to him/her according to request.
B) The organization issued the new card enabling VISA PLUS, so that the customer can access to other bank`s ATM booth where the VISA PLUS is accessible. But the customers do not know which banks have this service or not. The organization should inform their customers where they can find this service. To fulfill this purpose, they can make a new brochure where the list of the banks is given including their address. It will help the customer to withdraw their money easily.
C) The ATMs both in the organization and the other banks should be more users friendly. The organization should make their ATMs system easy so that the customer especially the new customers can use ATMs without any trouble. The organization should maintain a good relation and liaison with the other banks, so that other banks agree to make their system more users friendly.
D) The environment of the ATM booths should be more attractive. The employees should be available in the booths for 24 hours. In this way the customer`s complains and different types of problems will be reduced. The organization should maintain a calm and quiet environment and have arrangement for their sitting. The booths should be more secured and other related information should be available in the booths.
E) For the customers convenience the organization should increase their ATM booths. As the organization has only 19 booths across the country, so it is not sufficient. The organization should reschedule their budget and arrange money to build new ATM booths in different areas across the country.
F) The employees inside the booths should be more helpful. The customers face so many problems while using ATMs. The employees inside the booths should be proactive in terms of helping the customers. They should help the customers for any kind of regards. The organization should give special training to their employees for handling these customers. The organization should have given special instructions to their employees in regards to these kinds of customers.
G) There should be separate ATM in the other banks ATM booths for the organization`s cardholder. It will give them feeling a special care from their banks. It will reduce the pressure to those bank`s booth. It will reduce the organization`s expenditure of making a whole ATM booth. It also creates a psychological pressure to those other bank`s customers. They may be having a tendency to open an account in the organization. This will be a valuable strategy for the organization.
H) HSBC has launched this new ATM card without any prior market research. For this reason it will create confusion among the customers. There should be extensive market research before launching any new product further. In this way the organization get access to the customers and get their feedback. From this organization will know the customer`s demands and desires. They can easily modify their products according to the feedback.
I) The organization should have that provision so that they can modify their services according to their customer’s expectations. They should not have very strict rules that cannot be changed. When the organization can modify their services according to their customer’s expectations, then the satisfaction level will increase and it will be benefitted for the organization.
Conclusion
The new VISA PLUS enabled ATM card has launched to make their customers life easier. After this extensive research it can be conclude that the new card was not perfectly successful but at least they reached to their customers with this new product. The customers tried to adopt the new card. Though the overall system has some lacking and the service was not much satisfactory, for this reason the charge of this new card could not satisfy the customers.
The customers may discontinue the card because of the delivery and the service system. Customers have the new card but they did not get the proper instructions and information about it. In a consequence the customers have a tendency to surrender the new card.
After all of this the whole system should be redesigned and modified so that the customers can know the main aim of launching this card. The organization should take necessary steps to perfectly reach their messages to their customers. When they revision their policies and make it according to their customers expectations, then the customer satisfaction level will be reach to the edge and the organization can build a very good image among the customers. In this way the customer can rely on the organization and adopt whatever the new product they launch.
Bibliography
Company Overview in Bangladesh. Retrieved August 08, 2010, from
http://www.hsbc.com.bd
Company Overview. Retrieved August 08, 2010, from http://www.hsbc.com
