Lloyds Banking Group crowned best business bank in FD excellence survey 2020

The survey, which is now in its 20th year, asked the UK’s leading finance directors and financial decision makers to rate their satisfaction with key service providers. As such it provides a definitive analysis of how well UK businesses are being served.

Paul Gordon, Managing Director of SME & Mid Corporates, Lloyds Banking Group, said: “As a bank, we put our customers at the heart of what we do and strive towards providing the best customer experience possible, so having this type of feedback directly from our clients is the strongest possible endorsement of the service and expertise we provide. In what has been one of the most challenging years for both our clients and us as a bank, this award is a real source of pride.”

He said that key to the bank’s service to its customers was building strong relationships with them: “Our clients are at the heart of everything we do and the relationship between all of our colleagues and our clients is crucial to our success. We frequently ask our clients for feedback using various external and internal surveys and use this information to ensure that we are challenging ourselves to deliver a market leading experience.”

He added: “We are a relationship led bank with a national network of Relationship Managers who have a thorough understanding of their clients’ needs. Our Relationship Managers provide local knowledge and support to their clients across a range of product solutions. We also have Relationship Managers who are sector specialists, for example in Agriculture and Healthcare, who can support clients who sit within these specialisms.”

Paul said that Lloyds Banking Group was able to foster these relationships by providing its business customers with a multi-channel offering, both through its online services and through its retail branches, which made up one of the largest retail branch networks in the UK.

He said: “We continually work to be by the side of business and this can be seen through the hundreds of case studies we published throughout Covid and our recent By the Side of Business media and TV campaigns.”

Paul said that the bank had worked hard to support and service its clients during the Covid 19 pandemic crisis. “When lockdown hit we immediately had to move to working from home arrangements and, of course, that was the point that demand for support hit unprecedented levels. Our Relationship Managers have done an amazing job over the last seven months to be there for their clients and at the same time, like many businesses, we have accelerated our digital focus to cope with demand and have spent a huge amount of time this year dialling up our digital capability and ensuring that we are set up so clients can interact with our services in the way they choose.”

He said the bank will continue to place its relationships with its customers at the heart of what they do in the future, saying: “We are a relationship bank and always will be, so supporting the development of our Relationship Managers is a priority. We will also continue to build out our digital channels and self-service options to give clients the choice on how they would like to engage with their relationship bank. We recognise that the current situation will have changed the way that our clients seek to interact with us and we are making the most of the technology which is available to us, such as Webex, to keep in touch with our client base while we are unable to offer physical face to face interactions.”

We would like to thank all participants for their time and contribution to the FD Excellence Survey. Please do join us at our next Finance Leaders summit which takes place online on 10th December.