Bank of Queensland’s General Manager of Direct and Digital Channels speaks with FST Media about how the bank can draw insights from customer sentiment expressed on social platforms.

FST Media: What are your top priorities for the next 12-18 months?

Murrell: My priorities are threefold. We are focussing on enhancing the capability and customer experience of our main customer facing digital assets including our corporate website, online origination, and mobile and internet banking. We are also working to help fuse the online and offline world to provide a true omni-channel experience for our customers, particularly through the use of social data and advanced analytics. Finally, we are preparing the business for the introduction of the New Payments Platform (NPP) and overlay services.

FST Media: What technology advancements do you see having the greatest impact on the payments industry in the next 12 months?

Murrell: I expect mobile payments to gain more traction over the next 12 months but I think the introduction of the New Payments Platform and resulting overlay services will deliver a big shake up to the industry.    

FST Media: As the General Manager overseeing Bank of Queensland’s payments and digital programs, how does your dual role help you to develop and roll out payment innovations?

Murrell: The digital and payments worlds are converging, particularly through mobile. The dual role will help deliver better customer experiences and targeted solutions and innovations for our key customer segments.             

FST Media: What industries do you look to for inspiration with digital innovation?

Murrell: I do not restrict myself here but I would call out e-tailers, and the entertainment and travel or transport industries. I also look at the startup community for inspiration on developing and bringing to life new ideas and learning how we can address corporate innovation challenges.      

FST Media: You are delivering the opening keynote presentation at FST Media’s upcoming Technology & Innovation – the Future of Customer Experience & Business Intelligence conferences in Sydney and Melbourne; what can delegates expect from your presentation?

Murrell: I will spend time looking at where we are at as an industry from a digital, data and payments perspective. However, the most important thing I want to get across is my views on where we are going and the opportunities that lie ahead as these worlds collide. Perhaps, we can stop talking about being disrupted and start talking about disrupting the disruptors.    

FST Media: How will Bank of Queensland draw insight from customer sentiment expressed on social media?

Murrell: Our staff from our customer service team engage with our customers via social as they do via the phone or email. Customer sentiment expressed on social is included in our ‘Voice of the Customer’ reporting. We also use social to research issues or topics as appropriate.

FST Media: Bank of Queensland is working closely with the startup community, how has the bank benefited from these relationships?

Murrell: Our relationship with the startup community has been a very positive experience; one that we want to continue to build on. It has given us greater insight into the challenges startups face and how we can potentially work closer together for mutual benefit. From our perspective, there are some great learnings on how we can be much more nimble and innovative.      

FST Media: How will Bank of Queensland work to deliver on its vision of having exceptional customer experiences?  

Murrell: Customers’ expectations of financial services digital capabilities were initially fuelled by likes of Apple, Google and Facebook. Now, it is the likes of Uber, Snapchat and Netflix. My plan is to always keep the customer experience at the front of mind, looking at what they like and do not like from financial services and other industries. I am also looking at how we can be much more nimble and responsive to new technologies and changing customer demands.

Andrew Murrell will be speaking at our upcoming event, the 2nd Annual Technology & Innovation – the Future of Customer Experience & Business Intelligence conference, in addition to a distinguished panel of executives across financial services from 25th – 28th August 2015.