Access Bank has reiterated commitment to deepen engagement with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and promoting investments in technology to better serve its numerous customers across Nigeria.
The Bank recently organized SME Round-table in Abuja where it interacted directly with small business owners and clients drawn from different sectors of the economy.
According to the Deputy Managing Director of the Bank, Chizoma Okoli, the interactive session was part of Access Bank’s strategy to close communication gaps with its customers, ensuring that their feedback directly shapes the bank’s policies, services and technological innovations.
Chizoma stated thus:
“We want to hear from you, what we’re getting wrong, what we’re getting right, and what we should be doing differently. That’s how we can keep growing together.
“Sometimes it seems as if we take our customers for granted because we don’t engage enough or listen enough. That’s why we are here today, to have frank, honest conversations about how we can serve you better. We don’t claim to know it all.”
“For me, customers mean everything. We are nothing without you. We must be humble enough to raise our hands when we have not done the right thing and say, we apologize”
“We were one of the first banks to meet the recapitalization requirement, and that was possible because of your support.
“It showed how emotionally connected our customers are to our brand,” she told participants.
“And I’m sure that what will be going on in your mind is what are you doing with that base? We’re trying very hard to increase our investment in technology. Because we know that the likes of, not mentioning any names, Fin-techs, have begun to offer very excellent services that we are now struggling to launch.
“So, you see, what humility does for you is that you must also know when you need to do something radical to make sure that you remain competitive, because we are seeing that the digital space is the only way to go. So, we are investing a lot in technology. When people say, where is your money going to? It’s in technology. We upgraded our platform.
“But many of you didn’t know about it because we did it well. I know that if you’re banking with maybe some other banks, they also did upgrade at the same time that we did. We realized that ours was almost seamless. Again, thanks to you, because we had a lot of support and advice from our customers on which partner to follow in making sure that the upgrade went well. We’ve also done a few expansions. But I know that our story is that we have gotten to a consolidation phase.
“So, thank you again for staying with us with all the investments we have made. We think of our customers first. And so, when people ask, why are you going to all the places? We say we follow the money because we always look at the flow of money from our customers.”