Tinaani Nyabereka
Gweru- The move by financial institution ZB bank to rebrand its local branches into service centres has been described as a key step in growing the business to resonate with customer services.
The development was revealed by brand consultant Thamsanqa Moyo during the official launch of the Gweru Service Centre last week.
Moyo said that the branding concept was focused on shifting the position of the market through providing an all-inclusive service central point.
“The reason for the transformation was that they wanted to grow their business but in order to grow their business, they needed to change having learnt that the way they do the business has to resonate with their customers. How can you resonate with your customers without understanding what the customer need?
“To learn what the customers need, they learnt that maybe we are not configured properly without the audience. They were bold enough to then begin a transformation programme to say how do we reconfigure ourselves as an organization as a financial service, how do we transform ourselves so that we can match the needs of our customers.
He also said part of that was now brand repositioning to make their customers look at them a certain way.
“So when they did the examination to say how the market looks at us, they found out that they were synonymous with the old and slow, we were stable and strong and stiff like all other banks which are authoritative and friendly,” said Moyo.
“The organization decided to go through with the transformation. One of the things they did was to be digital, modern, want to be friendly and we want to be relevant. And now digital becomes a strong issue. They are the only ones with a mobile application that you can do banking, insurance and investment,” said Moyo.
He further said true branding was not changing the logo, but transforming the services.
“A brand is not a logo, it’s not a banner, it’s not a T-shirt, it is the gut feeling that someone has when they think of a product, service or company.
“So ZB decided to transform their brand to reflect how they want their customers to feel. What they have done is very bold world over; you will never see a financial service that will centralise the experiences of a customer.” he added.
ZB Bank Executive Head Projects and Programme manager organisational transformation, Patrick Tendai Huni said the transformation of Gweru branch into services centre was exciting as it was set on timelines.
“The transformation process was exciting, demanding and unique as it was done with set timelines. For Gweru service centre it was done on short space of time which is close to a month. In that phase, we say it is a life changing organisational transformation as it impacts on both customers , internal stuff as the same time bring convenience service to the market,” added Moyo.
The transformation brought in a new digital banking innovation which called ZB mobile application.
The application is an online convenient and secure platform to manage to money on the move around the clock. The feature packed app cater for things such as Logging into accounts from anywhere, around the world, checking account balances and transaction history, bill payments, Transfers, Viewing and assessing loans and term deposits among other services.
