The Gap

Following on from my theme of getting the user experience right, let’s consider how much money organisations invest in telling us what experience we can expect, only to deliver something completely different. Let’s take a point in case.
In my humble opinion NatWest has a great brand, despite, like most retail banks, having a poor NPS. Apart from the fact I’ve always liked their use of colour, it is a visible organisation I can interact with across multiple channels – strong branch network, good online and telephone banking provision and I think the first UK retail bank to launch an iPhone app.

Recent ads in print and broadcast have featured their mortgage advisors. Apparently the advisor will ask your child all about their new bedroom and fane interest better than most parents can. Actually, this wouldn’t impress me much as a parent if it was a reality; after all they haven’t actually given you a mortgage yet, so it would be a bit premature to be letting little Johnny or Katie choose wall paper.

That aside, the point is they are all chummy when you go in to make the application. I haven’t been able to test this as NatWest couldn’t see me in a branch on a Saturday for 4 weeks, so we had to do the application on the phone. That’s fine, it worked well and the guy that took my details was excellent. He did everything he could to make it easy for me, so far so good, experience kind of matches the promise.

Post application, when the additional information requests start, well that’s a different story. Clearly nobody showed mystical underwriters the ad. Now we are into the cycle of an IVR system, a front office telephone operator with little mortgage technical ability and zero visibility of what is happening in the back office other than to say “that’s a 5 day lead time, so it will be 5 days.” They have no ability to contact the part of the workflow doing their thing to qualify that lead time. You’re telling me the customer facing operators are the only person in the business with a phone?

I have dealt with more customer centric local authorities than this, granted not many. This is a case study in how to waste money on branding, how to set customer expectations higher than you can fulfil and how to drive negative sentiment about your business.

I think NPS has a real value to a business. It’s not the only metric, but for NatWest it’s crucial. Friends, family colleagues all know I’m in the process of moving. All ask how it’s going, knowing full well it’s a torrid experience. And guess who gets pointed to as my lightening rod for this frustration, you’ve guessed it NatWest.

Now compare that to Apple.