The retail banking market in the Sultanate of Oman has been undergoing rapid changes in recent years, with local banks coming under pressure to contain costs.

As part of its programme to improve performance management processes, Bank Muscat has embarked on a drive to build up and improve its retail banking processes in order to maintain its market-leading position. The bank has also introduced innovative electronic channels, including internet and mobile banking, in addition to its contact centres.

Bank Muscat is the largest bank in Oman by asset size and physical distribution network. It has 140 branches; 600 ATM and cash deposit machines; and 12,000 point-of-sale terminals.

The problem: better call handling

In Oman, banking is still heavily dependent on branch and ATM networks, with heavy reliance on call centres for transaction processing and inquiry resolution. Bank Muscat’s call centres had previously handled an average of 250,000 calls a year, or one call every two minutes 24/7 before implementation of its Interactive Voice Response (IVR) service.

Due to the heavy volume of traffic, the bank required an upgrade for its entire contact centre facility to the latest technology platform by revamping its self-service, computer telephone integration application. The bank wanted to make self–service interactions more reliable and secure while providing a hassle-free customer experience.

To enhance contact centre functionalities across all platforms, Bank Muscat tapped Servion to deliver an intelligent, intuitive, dynamic, and predictive self-service solution. Servion implemented ServIntuit, a solution that enables easy validation of customer identity, automatic transactions after the identity validation process, and a call-back option for clients who are unable to use self-service functions or who do not want to wait in a long queue.

The solution: transactional knowledge of custom...