Network marketing makes Games more convenient

Bank of China (BOC) is making every effort to make the financial service during the upcoming Olympics more convenient by using its network marketing.

Network marketing is now a common practice in the banking industry. Bank's outlets are their faces.

The service quality of those outlets, through which customers and the bank interact, is of vital importance in terms of maintaining sound customers relations, customer loyalty and improving the bank's image.

BOC had a total of 10,834 outlets, including branches, sub-branches or offices, by the end of 2007, of which 689 are based overseas.

The geographically widespread network BOC boasts is a unique asset for the bank.

Making the best out of this global web of outlets can not only help BOC explore more market opportunities and provide high-quality financial services to its customers during the Beijing Olympic Games, it will also push forward the business and management development of the entire Chinese banking industry.

State-of-the-art facilities

The financial sector, banking included, belongs to the services industry. Therefore its brand value is, to a large extent, determined by its quality and level of service.

However, it is also true that the state-of-art hardware facilities always contribute to excellent services.

Striving to offer sound financial services to athletes and visitors alike during the Olympic Games, BOC has already built a 100,000 sq m Olympic-dedicated information and data center in the western suburb of Beijing, which is part of the bank's 10 billion yuan IT upgrading project.

Since becoming the official bank partner of the Beijing Olympic Games in 2004, BOC has launched a network service marketing strategy, focusing on the host and co-host cities. So far, BOC has put in place 300 outlets and installed more than 1,800 ATMs or self-service banking terminals in the six cities.

More than 1,300 BOC staff working at the outlets and 100 staff working at the call centers in these cities will provide direct financial and banking services to athletes and visitors during the Olympics and Paralympics.

In addition, BOC has designated 36 outlets to provide one-to-one exclusive financial services to 36 venues of the Olympic Games. The bank also signed up nearly 20,000 merchant entities that are able to accept BOC's credit card business, among which 773 can offer foreign exchange business.

In Beijing alone, BOC added 600 ATM machines and set up 26 self-service banks. The bank has also set up five temporary outlets in or around the Olympic venues -the Olympic village, media center, international broadcasting center, the main media center and Olympic Family hotels for the International Olympics Committee.

BOC also set up two temporary outlets in Qingdao, host city of the sailing event, which covers both individual and basic corporate financial services.

All these efforts are aimed to meet the financial services need expected to arise in the core Olympic areas.

Taking a "people-centered approach, Bank of China, in line with the needs required for the Paralympics, has launched sweeping reconfiguration projects in its nationwide outlets.

During the summer Games and the Paralympics, BOC will open "green passage" services in its outlets which are close to the airports, Olympic venues, designated hotels and major sites of scenic spots in Beijing and the other five co-host cities.

The bank will also set up passages for disabled people, non-barrier signs and offer guiding services.

All the ATM machines installed in the Olympic host and co-hosts cities have a bilingual (Chinese-English) interface and the ATM machines in the Olympic venue areas offers Chinese, English and French language services, making it the first Chinese bank to do so.

Service-oriented approach

How to improve the service at its outlets and make customers satisfied with the services is the paramount focus of Bank of China's network service marketing initiative.

In an effort to meet the financial service needs of those institutions or individuals who will come before or during the Olympic Games or Paralympics, BOC introduced Olympic Temporary Account (OTA) services, making it the first Chinese bank being able to open temporary local currency or foreign exchange accounts for non-Chinese citizens.

Through this service, foreign institutions or individuals who are staying in China temporarily during the Beijing Games will be able to meet their financial and settlement needs.

In addition, BOC has refined its procedures in foreign exchange, travel checks, safes and foreign currency businesses.

The bank's customer hotline 95566 is now able to offer Chinese, English, French, Spanish, Japanese and other foreign language services, making it the first Chinese bank able to provide multi-language services. Such services will make it easy for foreign visitors to inquire about financial services in China.

Moreover, the bank has issued handbooks for standard counter services in Olympic host and co-host cities, standardizing services among its outlets during the Games.

It has also printed and distributed a Chinese-English brochure detailing Bank of China's financial services and procedures, providing athletes and visitors with a detailed description of its services and procedure such as the foreign exchange, travel check, ATM, global money transfer and the BOC Olympic credit card.

(China Daily 08/05/2008 page25)