Mystery Shoppers Named Šiaulių Bankas as the Best Client Service Provider in Lithuania

During the research, mystery shoppers went to the divisions of the six main banks in the five largest Lithuanian cities, and made enquiries on how to become a client, assessed the communication, the determination of the needs, provision of the offer, staff appearance, the start and the end of the contact, as well as other service criteria relevant to the clients. The mystery shoppers gave the highest evaluation to Šiaulių Bankas– its client service quality indicator was 94.9 %.

 “This evaluation is meaningful to us as it reflects how the Bank is doing at maintaining its strategic direction – to be nearer its clients, understand their true-life situations and needs. Financial services are often complicated, and the clients expect their bank to give attention, provide solutions and consultations adapted specifically to their situation when assuming long-term financial obligations. We believe that human relations with the clients are highly important therefore we invest a great deal in the staff training and the network of the customer service points – which is the largest in Lithuania”, says Vytautas Sinius, Chief Executive Officer of Šiaulių Bankas.

Šiaulių Bankas has over 60 Bank divisions in the entire Lithuania and is consistent at investing in their renovations. 21 Bank divisions were renovated in Vilnius, Kaunas, Šiauliai, Panevėžys, Marijampolė, Druskininkai, Palanga, Visaginas, Ukmergė, and other Lithuanian cities throughout the last year. This year Šiaulių Bankas is planning on continuing the renovation of the customer service points at the same pace.

 “Unlike other banks of the country, together with the digitalisation of the Bank services, we intend not to decrease but maintain a wide network of the Bank divisions - a lot of the clients feel the need for physical service at the Bank divisions, live consultations on financial matters with a specialist. The research showed that the clients truly value this”, asserts V. Sinius.

According to the research, out of eight criteria referred to by the mystery shoppers when assessing the client service quality, the most declined indicators are the start of the contact (by 16.6 %) and the end of the contact (by 13.8 %). The indicator with the largest weight in the assessment – the provision of the offer and the solution – also decreased (by 3.1 %), while only two banks exceeded the 90 % indicator bar, and Šiaulių Bankas was the leader in this category. 

 “Considering the situation of the entire sector, the staff and the environment appearance of all banks was assessed equally well – the same as the last year. However, the inferior assessment of the start and the end of the contact, and the provision of the offer or the solution shows that the clients did not feel welcome or valuable enough in the majority of the banks. This is what made the total service level deteriorate. The interesting part is, previous year the total client service indicator of the bank sector decreased the most in the last nine years. This was partially conditioned by making the survey stricter, increasing the priority weights for additional sales and the assessment of other sales competences”, comments the results Nora Zikaitė, Representative of “Dive Lietuva”, the company that carried out the research.

The mystery shopper research in the bank sector was initiated and carried out by the company “Dive Lietuva” for the tenth time. During the research, mystery shoppers visited 10 divisions of each bank – Šiaulių Bankas, “Citadele” Bank, “Medicinos bankas”, “Swedbank”, SEB Bank in the five largest cities from November to December last year.