Persona Development - Barclays Customer Care Centres

The provision of excellent and consistent customer service through direct channels is becoming a key area of competitive advantage for service industries. However this requires a massive and ongoing effort for an organization as large and varied as Barclays UK.

As part of a strategy for the improvement of customer experience of Barclays call centre operations Frontend provided Barclays with a comprehensive research programme across the UK including requirements gathering from internal stakeholders, customers and Barclays call centre agents.

Using the established Lean Six Sigma Business Improvement methodology Frontend worked with Barclays to determine requirements from approx. 160 internal stakeholders. In addition 36 call centre agents were interviewed and feedback was gathered from 40 customers through a combination of interviews and focus groups. 

All findings from the research were developed into series of personas for customers and call centre agents. These were supported with a number of scenarios illustrating how personas interacted with each other in a range of common situations.

This approach provided Barclays with a vivid picture of the sensitivities and motivations of their customers and call centre staff, allowing them to develop a truly customer centric solution.