Business

Bank of Ireland to invest €34m in customer service improvements

Lender claims that the technology investment will lead to faster resolution of customer calls

Bank of Ireland said it is making an additional investment in improving customer services, with more than €34 million being allocate to in transform its phone and customer relationship management systems. Photograph: Cyril Byrne/The Irish Times

Joe Brennan
Mon Apr 29 2024 - 05:30

Bank of Ireland said it is making an additional investment in improving customer services, with more than €34 million being allocate to in transform its phone and customer relationship management systems.

The bank claims that the technology investment will lead to faster resolution of customer calls, enhanced self-service options for tasks from changing an account address to requesting a new card, and allow for more transactions to take place over its phone service.

The improvements will allow staff across branches and contact centres access to quick “single view of customer” data for faster call resolutions and use voice biometrics to improve customer authentication for better fraud protection and reduce call wait times, it said.

This latest announcement brings the total spend being made by Bank of Ireland on a range of customer service improvements to close to €150 million to the end of 2025, it added.

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“This is the largest single investment in enhanced systems and technology for our frontline colleagues in branches and contact centres that the Bank has ever made,” said Susan Russell, chief executive of the bank’s Retail Ireland unit.

“We receive more than 11,000 calls on average each day and when customers call us they want speed, expertise and security.”

In January, Bank of Ireland announced an investment of more than €60 million in a range of branch improvements, including the bank’s largest single investment in ATMs in the last decade. It followed up in February by unveiling spending of €50 million on customer fraud prevention and protection.

The group has invested heavily in technology over the past decade, including a €1.15 billion programme between 2016 and 2021, centred around replacing its ageing core banking systems.

However, even its new technology has had issues from time to time. Earlier this month, its online and mobile banking services went down for a number of hours due to a technical glitch.

Joe Brennan

Joe Brennan

Joe Brennan is Markets Correspondent of The Irish Times

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