2010 Guangzhou Asian Games lowered its curtain on Nov, 27 after all the matches and competitions. The 16-day event brought all exciting sports competitions as well as best-quality services, as what the reporters experienced. ICBC, being the only banking partner of the 2010 Asia Games, added color to the Asian Games with safe, best-in-class, professional and highly efficient financial services, and displayed the good image of Chinese banking industry to the world. During the Guangzhou Asian Games, ICBC maintained zero record on service complaint and production running and successfully passed the stringent test of providing high-standard financial services to Asian Games. Asian Games officials, athletes, media, and overseas visitors all applauded the ICBC services.
Behind all the laurels was the full preparation by ICBC in service enhancement, outlet deployment, channel set-up and other areas. ICBC took all necessary measures to ensure the highly efficient running of financial services for Asian Games to appeal to specific banking needs of customers coming from domestic China or overseas.
Pull out All Stops to Provide Financial Services
Being the only banking partner of Asian Games, ICBC as early as in May this year started the sales of Asian Games tickets and offered the services of ticket printing and collection at the outlets. Nearly 350,000 tickets were sold through the 400 designated ICBC ticketing outlets in the country and nearly 36,000 ticket orders have been successfully processed through Internet Banking. Asian Games Organizing Committee was deeply impressed by the orderly procedures of ICBC ticket sales.
ICBC launched a range of unique and innovative products designed for Guangzhou Asian Games. An example would be the ICBC Asian Games Card - a co-branded card based on the official mascot of Guangzhou Asian Games, "Xiang He Ru Yi Leyangyang". ICBC was also the only bank to launch Asian Games Commemorative Gold and Silver Medallion and licensed precious metal products such as Asian Games gold/silver bar, gold/silver coins, which were warmly received by the customers at home and abroad.
Considering the features of the international financial services in the Asian Games, ICBC has stepped up its efforts to improve its international services. Comprehensive foreign exchange services are available at more ICBC banking outlets in Asian Games cities. All ICBC outlets in Guangzhou region are able to provide currency exchange services in over 9 foreign currencies; nearly 70 outlets offering services in 18 foreign currencies, including Japanese yen, Hong Kong dollar, Macau pataca, Singapore dollar, Korean won, Thai baht, Philippine peso and new Taiwan dollars. Other available foreign exchange services are personal FX settlement, currency exchange, personal remittance in foreign currency, cash advance by foreign card and traveler cheques. Statistics shows that during the Asian Games, just in Guangzhou region ICBC has processed over 45,900 personal FX settlements involving a total of 120 million US dollars. ICBC outlets in Asian Game Town have received more than 9,000 foreign customers (in terms of person-times), an average of 340+ foreign customers (in terms of person-times) per day. A total of 7,900+ FX settlements have been processed involving 16 currencies to a tune of 3.64 million US dollars, 94 deals of traveler cheques exchange totaling 340,000 US dollars. ICBC outlets in Athletes' Village handled 213 currency exchange deals every day on average. Besides, average daily foreign card transactions of ATM in Guangzhou region were around 1,100, approximately RMB 2.3 million were drawn every day on average. A total of 15,000 POS transactions made by foreign cards with spending amount around RMB 27 million, over RMB 1 million were spent through 556 POS transactions on average per day.
Smooth Access to Services
During the Asian Games, ICBC designated 148 key outlets and 261 ticketing outlets located at the competition venues, airports, hotels, shopping malls in Guangdong province's Asian Games cities, large port cities, tourism cities. Inside the Asian Games Town, ICBC opened three temporary outlets in Athletes' Village, Technical Officials' Village and the Main Media Centre. These outlets stayed open even on public holidays. Some outlets in the competition venues closed 1-2 hours later after the competition of the day ended. Staffs at the three outlets in the Asian Games Town took rotating shifts to work extra hours. The outlet located at the Media Centre opened from 9am to 9pm and the other two at the Athletes' Village and the Technical Officials' Village from 10am to 10pm. The flexible opening hours well adapted to the schedule of the athletes, coaches, technical officials, media reporters and other service providers in the Asian Games Town. Due to these proper arrangements, in all the key ICBC outlets in Guangdong region during the Asian Games there were no long queues, no long hours of waiting by the customers.
While focusing on the outlet services, ICBC also leveraged its own IT expertise to offer services via electronic banking. As early as before the Asian Games, ICBC started to install more self-service devices. Since October this year, a total of 122 self-service terminals, either new or replaced, have been deployed, 18 new ATMs were installed at the Asian Games Town, taking the total to nearly 2,000 ATMs, 1,000+ self-service terminals in Guangzhou during the Asian Games. All the ATMs and self-service devices were running 24 hours non-stop. ICBC also set up a team to monitor the devices in order to ensure their normal operation. Staffs in the team were also on-duty on Saturdays and Sundays to keep track and monitor the self-services devices. At key locations such as Asian Games Town, dedicated staffs were on-duty 24 hours.
In terms of Telephone Banking services, in order to quickly handle the calls in peak hours during the Asian Games and ensure each call can be answered, more than 40 staffs from ICBC branches nationwide were transferred to add more call desks to the Guangdong region's Telephone Banking. The 95588 voice menu has been re-set to connect the call desk services to the conspicuous location under the first level of menu for customers to access easily. During the Asian Games, the answering rate of 95588 call desk services reached 98.99%.
Accessible Services for Addressing Problems
A story came up amid the Asian Games news. At the Xincheng sub-branch in Guangdong's Dongguan, a Swedish customer just walked into the ICBC outlet with two hands held up above the head with clenched fist. Customers around were greatly surprised. ICBC duty manager immediately came up and asked this Swedish customer in English if any help was needed. It turned out that this Swedish customer wanted to buy ticket for weightlifting competition. He used hands to express his wish since he was worried if anyone in the outlet understood English. What surprised this Swedish customer was the fluent English of this ICBC duty manager. In the end, he bought the ticket with the enthusiastic help from ICBC staffs. He was so happy that he made a thumb up and said to the ICBC outlet staff: "thank you, you are the best!"
In fact, in order to address the issue of language for overseas visitors coming to the Asian Games to use banking services, ICBC set up green channel in outlets located at all the key areas especially for Asian Games' athletes, technical officials and working staffs. Staffs well-versed in foreign language and good in handing complex services were assigned as the duty managers. Special service windows were set up in these outlets to serve the non Chinese-speaking customers.
Besides at the outlets, ICBC also assigned call desks in the 95588 Telephone Banking Center serving 24 hours a day in different languages (including English, Japanese, French, Korean, Arabic) to meet the specific needs of foreign customers. Moreover, in 95588 Telephone Banking Center a fast-response system was in place to address all enquiries on Asian Games services. 99.2% of calls coming to the Center were answered online.
Asian Games is a stage for all countries to compete in sports, but is keenly watched as a touchstone on the delivery of financial services by the banks as well, said an executive with ICBC. ICBC improved its own management, operation efficiency and service capability while at the same time offering top-quality, highly efficient financial services to the Asian Games visitors from China and overseas. Though the Asian Games has been closed, ICBC remains committed to its mission of delivering best-quality financial services. Especially during the coming Asian Para Games, ICBC will affirm the principle of "Customer above all else" and spent conscious efforts to ensure same high standard of financial services are found in the two Asian Games.