Nedbank wins Forrester’s EMEA Customer-Obsessed Enterprise Award

Leading global market research company Forrester has named Nedbank Retail and Business Banking (RBB) as the winner of its 2024 Customer-Obsessed Enterprise Award for the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. 

Forrester's annual Customer Obsession Awards recognise organisations that place their customers at the centre of their business strategy to accelerate growth, customer loyalty and employee engagement.

Nedbank was selected as the EMEA winner for investing in, designing and delivering a robust customer obsession programme, which helps people across the organisation collaborate and focus on what matters most to customers, enabling systematic enhancements to customer experience (CX). In doing so, and despite tough competition, the bank demonstrated how its relentless focus on customers drives business growth in a market where consumers have extensive choice. 

Nedbank RBB’s chief client officer Anton de Wet said the bank was thrilled to be recognised by Forrester, one of the most influential research and advisory firms in the world.

“We believe that placing our clients at the centre of all that we do and focusing on delivering value for them makes Nedbank a great place to bank. We unlock[ed] value for the organisation too by implementing a structured CX programme across the business, which focuses on identifying and implementing regular improvements,” said De Wet.

“None of this would have been achieved without the support from our leadership who sets the tone from the top, super collaboration of business units across RBB, and the commitment and hard work from our employees. This award is an endorsement that we are on the right path to unlocking value through client obsession.”

Strategy and structural changes helped pave the way to success

The Nedbank Group strategy has client experience front and centre. In 2020, the RBB division pivoted its operating model from being product-led to client-led and client-focused — a shift that saw the orientation of its products, offerings and services centred on the needs of existing and potential Nedbank clients.

This, together with the appointment of a chief client officer and the creation of a dedicated CX Team, saw Nedbank benchmark itself against international best practice standards, as it worked hard to learn from the best.

People and technology at the centre of client obsession

“Our client obsession is the result of a culmination of our efforts across multiple streams that have created an incredible intersection point, with the client placed firmly at the centre of it all,” said De Wet.

“We have learnt from best practice, refined our processes and procedures, implemented service excellence programmes, and created a culture that is client-obsessed, which has become part of who we are as Nedbank.

“While this award is one that we are incredibly proud of, it is the people behind it, being our employees and stakeholders, who have bought into what we are trying to achieve, that make this accolade so much more rewarding.

“With banks under pressure to differentiate on client satisfaction and experience, we are delighted to have a recipe that is working, and we look forward to continuing our efforts to improve our offerings and delight our clients through service excellence as we obsess about them as well as their financial needs.”

This article was sponsored by Nedbank RBB.