RBS and NatWest Customer Charter 2011 results

In 2011 we opened over 840 of our branches every Saturday and in November we increased this to over 1,200.

During 2011, over 200 of our busiest branches were open for longer during the week, either in the mornings or evenings. In November, this figure increased to over 240 and now all these branches are open until at least 6pm every night during the week.

We served 88% of customers in 5 minutes across all our branches in 2011. In the busiest 300 branches we served 82% in 5 minutes, up from 75% in 2010.

Eight out of ten customers rated our service as friendly and helpful. We are working hard to support and train our branch and telephony staff to provide consistently great service and meet this target.

We have rewritten all of our branch literature, standard letters and main product web pages making them simpler and more transparent for customers. These were all in use by the end of 2011, except for some credit card letters. These were rewritten by the end of the year and sent to customers from the 20th January.

We sent personal account statements to over 1 million customers in 2011, giving them a full overview of their account activity and making recommendations on how they could make their money work harder.

All our telephone banking centres remain in the UK and are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Every customer has an option to talk to our staff anytime they want.

We answered 90% of customer telephone calls in less than a minute.

In line with our security promise, we have refunded every customer who had money taken from their accounts fraudulently when banking with us online or on their mobile.

We have continued to provide free security software to our customers and it has been downloaded over 1.6 million times in the last 12 months. There have been no incidents of online fraud for customers using this software.

We sent over 1.4 million replacement debit cards to customers the next working day after the loss or theft of their card. There was an exception in January, when two cards took an extra day.

There were nearly 35,000 customers who needed a new PIN in addition to a new card. The PINs were sent within 24 hours and the cards a day later in line with our security policy.

More than 50,000 customers, who had lost their debit card or had it stolen, used our unique Emergency Cash service. The service provides immediate access to a customer’s cash through our UK ATMs.

During 2011 we did not increase credit limits for any customers who were struggling to meet their existing credit card payments.

Last year, our team of over 80 support staff spoke to more than 190,000 customers facing financial difficulty and provided them with help and guidance on ways to reduce their debt.

In 2011 we sent more than 2.6 million Act Now Alert messages to over 980,000 customers, giving them time to move their money into their current account and so avoid charges.

Throughout 2011 we continued to offer mortgages of up to 90% for first time buyers and, since May, these offers have been valid for 6 months rather than the usual three. Overall we lent £2.2bn to first time buyers in 2011 with more than £750 million lent through our 90% offer.

We have remained open in all 168 locations where we are the last bank in town. We have listened to customer feedback and we have clarified the definition of this goal for 2012.

In August we reported that we had been forced to close one branch. After further investigation we found the town had two other banks, so this year we have not actually closed any last banks in town.

We have 19 mobile banks travelling more than 7,000 miles a week to serve over 400 remote communities.

During 2011 we continued to support financial education in schools by providing over 34,000 MoneySense lessons reaching more than 380,000 pupils.

In addition, free MoneySense materials are available online for all schools to use.

We launched CommunityForce in July 2011 and, by the end of the year more than 470 winning charities and projects received their share of our £3m fund.

In 2011 our staff used their day of paid leave to provide more than 16,000 days worth of support to charities and good causes in their local communities.

In 2011, 59% of our customers who complained were satisfied with how their complaint was handled. This is an area we want to improve, and to that end we have changed the way we handle complaints, including introducing specific training for our staff and increasing the number of dedicated complaint handlers. In addition, we continue to make progress in driving down the causes of complaints. This is working: In the last six months of 2011 complaint volumes dropped by 22% compared to the first six months of the year.

Fixing the causes of complaints remains a priority for us. We are addressing the five most common complaints in the following ways:

1. 1. Payment Protection Insurance
   We have not sold payment protection insurance products for over a year, and indeed stopped selling so-called 'single premium' products in 2008. To deal with complaints we have employed additional staff to ensure customers receive a fair outcome.  In October we also introduced a text service to help customers see the progress of their complaint. By the end of the year we had sent over 70,000 messages.
2. 2. Charges on current accounts
   We want to help customers avoid charges whenever possible. Our text alert services are designed to help customers manage their money better. We have contacted 4 million customers about our Act Now Alerts and just under 1 million are making use of this service regularly. Find out more about text alerts.
3. 3. Credit card fees
   We have clarified our payment timescales and trained our staff to help customers avoid late fees wherever possible.
4. 4. Complaints about staff knowledge
   The biggest cause of this complaint area is our staff not providing information about charges and how to avoid them. So we have created a new system to give staff easy access to the information they need. From January 2012 we have been monitoring the service our staff give individually so we can identify and address any specific issues locally and quickly.
5. 5. Collections processes
   Our collections team are now assessed on how well they have listened and helped customers to understand their repayment agreements. During 2011 we also simplified the repayment plans, which will be widely available from March.

We have held nearly 40 events in 2011, bringing together customers and staff to discuss topics such as complaints and the helpfulness of our staff. We are using the results to make changes so we become a more Helpful Bank.

In addition, we continue to run large regular surveys to understand customers' views. This year, more than 390,000 customers have taken part in these.

In September we asked more than 2,000 people what they thought about the content of the Charter and what else they would like to see included. We have used their responses to shape the commitments for the 2012 Customer Charter.