Saturday 16 / November / 2024
Muscat: Bank Muscat, the flagship financial services provider in the Sultanate, in line with its vision ‘To serve you better, everyday’ and commitment to setting new standards in banking excellence, has reinforced operations of the state-of-the-art Contact Centre.
The bank hosted a media tour of the world-class facility to showcase the dynamic operations of the largest call centre in the banking sector in Oman.
Amjad Al Lawati, AGM – Cards & eBanking, said: “Aimed at achieving the customer-centric objective, the bank has embarked on innovative solutions to add convenience and enhance service. Bank Muscat is a first mover in the Oman market in deploying various alternate banking channels to add convenience and provide remote banking access. The Contact Centre extends support to all alternate banking channels, including Internet banking, Mobile banking, ATMs and CDMs. The bank is proud to operate the top-notch Call Centre as part of its commitment to excellence in providing innovative banking solutions. A keen perception of customer requirements enables the bank to develop and sustain products and services in line with the current and emerging needs.”
The Contact Centre operations are driven by state-of-the-art integrated voice response (IVR) systems for a host of services. With the best in class technology, the Call Centre handles an average 10,000 calls a day and serviced over 3 million calls in 2017.
The language options for the IVR facility include Arabic, English and Hindi.
Using the robust IVR system, customers can help themselves to obtain all information or make requests for services and products. Notably, customers can report card loss and block themselves their cards through the IVR system. The Contact Centre is the first contact for risk mitigation in the event of card loss or card block and dissemination of product and service information.
To use the IVR facility, callers contacting the Contact Centre are required to follow the audio instructions. The instructions to press relevant numbers on phone facilitate the required options for information and services.
To enhance the IVR facility, Bank Muscat offers the use of Debit card and ATM PIN as a unified PIN for IVR Services, which is a unique service provided only by Bank Muscat in Oman to facilitate 24x7 phone banking service.
The IVR-based financial transactions volume recorded a phenomenal 315% increase during the last three years from OMR16.4 million in 2015 to OMR35 million in 2017.
The Call Centre handles all calls with the fastest processing time not exceeding 20 seconds and successfully respond to 95 per cent of calls. Despite the high call volume, the service level is one of the best as most of the calls are answered within service time.
The 100% Omanised Call Centre is manned by 140 Omani employees with an equal ratio of male and female staff. The phone bankers are professionally trained in soft skills and customer relations to handle the operations.
The Contact Centre activities mainly cover inbound operations, solutions, fraud monitoring team and card merchant support. The Call Centre has dedicated teams on constant vigil to monitor card fraud and high-risk PoS transactions. The Fraud Monitoring Team scrutinizes debit and credit card transactions on all channels with high-end fraud monitoring tools. The team monitored over 180,000 fraud alerts in 2017.
Merchants using the bank’s PoS terminals are supported by the Call Centre with respect to their queries and complaints. Presently, the bank has 4000 plus merchants with 18,000 plus PoS terminals, which is projected to grow year-on-year basis.
The bank’s high net-worth asalah Priority banking customers are serviced by the Call Centre on an exclusive number with a special welcome message, fast-tracking of calls, festival and birthday greetings.
The Contact Centre provides assistance to customers for hot-listing of cards, account opening, enquiries on account balance and transaction details, credit card transactions, loan details, issue of cheque book, fixed deposit interest rates, currency exchange rates etc. Customers can also obtain information on account statements, credit card statements, money transfer and loan status.
The Call Centre assistance is highly important, especially during non-banking hours, to report card loss or other urgent requirements. The Contact Centre assists customers with a host of utility bill payments, including internet, telephone, water and electricity, school fee payment, fund transfer and remittance abroad. Account related services require the mandatory use of a valid personal identification number (PIN).
The accolades won by the Contact Centre include the ‘Best Self Service Banking Project in the Middle East 2015’ award by The Asian Banker and the ‘Insights Middle East Call Centre Award 2017.’ Bank Muscat customers can contact the Call Centre on 24795555 any time, from anywhere in the world.
