The Charm of Happy Service:

The success story of He Xiao, Star Performer of CCB Shandong Branch

 Named “Ten Outstanding Young Staff” by CCB Headquarters

Miss He Xiao started off as an ordinary frontline staff in the CCB Lixia Sub-branch in Jinan, Shandong.  Though she has been serving at counters ever since joining CCB, she has the magic of transforming her mundane work at the counter into an arena of happy service.  She blends traditional work ethics into what is considered mechanical service by demonstrating professionalism and a passion for work, by complying strictly to regulations and codes of conduct, by putting customer interest first and by exhibiting sincerity in her services.  What was once regarded as passive and mechanical now becomes energised and happy—services which are carried out with concern, sincerity and wisdom.  Built on the basis of constant reflection, innovation and refinement, this unique “He Xiao Methodology” has won high acclaims from clients and made strong impacts in society.

Touching clients with happy service

It started in1993.  Then in her prime years, 24-year-old He Xiao walked into the door of CCB Lixia Sub-branch in Jinan.  And in the following 14 years, she has never left frontline work, serving at the counters of Chaoshan Street Banking Sub-unit, the accounts department and the Yangtaoyu Banking Sub-unit (currently the Kaiyuan Sub-branch).

Before entering CCB, He Xiao had pursued her studies in a nursing school and worked as a nurse for a time.  Until today, she still has a vivid memory of what a nursing tutor once told her: “A patient is already living in pain.  And if the nurse doesn’t even wear a smile, it would only add to his agony.”  With these words in mind, she just put herself in the positions of her customers out of her habit once she entered CCB.  “When customers come to CCB, they have to fill out numerous forms, undergo all sorts of procedures and wait endlessly, which is frustrating enough.  And if we keep pulling a long face, it would only make life more difficult for them.”

As a result, smiling has been internalised as a habit for He Xiao ever since her first day at CCB.  Likewise, deftness and quickness in carrying out work become the guiding principles she quietly sets for herself.

Hence for more than 10 years, He Xiao enters the door of her office at 7:50 am sharp every working day and starts her daily routines: carefully cleaning up every corner; meticulously checking the automated machines for customers; giving a last touch to her uniform; putting on her name card; tying up her long hair and, most important of all, getting psychologically ready for work.  Then at 9:00 am sharp, she opens the glass door of the lobby and welcomes the first batch of customers with her familiar “signature smile”.  During my interview with her, I had tried very hard to unlock the secrets of her perpetual smiles.  However, in response to my searching eyes, she merely smiled slightly and replied, “What I am sure of is that if we do not treat customers nicely and offer our best service, they will not visit our bank again, simple as that!”

In her long years of service at the counter, there were moments when she felt frustrated and downcast, but whatever her mood might be, she was always able to pull herself together and never let her emotions influence her work.  One spring, a man came to the Kaiyuan Sub-branch on a remittance business.  While he was filling out forms, He Xiao served the next customer during that short interval.  To her surprise, the man jumped up in anger and yelled to He Xiao, “Aren’t you supposed to be serving me?  How could you serve him instead?”  In his fury, he became more and more abusive in his language and simply refused to listen despite He Xiao’s apologetic smiles and explanations.  In the end, even those customers around could not stand his insolence.  The next customer after him voluntarily suggested that “I’m not going to conduct my business.  Please go ahead and handle his first.”  Then He Xiao just handled his business quickly with the branded smile on her face.

When the customer was gone, He Xiao was overwhelmed with emotions of being unfairly treated.  She went to the ladies room and wept.  When she finally calmed herself down, she phoned the customer and apologised.  Upon hearing that, the customer apologised in return and admitted that his attitude had been less than desirable.  In the end, all the basic accounts of his work unit were transferred to CCB.

Other staff at the sub-branch often remarked, “Every day, He Xiao’s counter always has the most people because customers want no one else but her.”

He Xiao stayed on her counter post for 14 years, during which she never argued with one single customer.  Her superior had suggested promoting her and transferring her to another post quite a few times but was invariably turned down by her.  She said, “The more I could serve at my job at the counter, the more happiness I could give to my customers.  Whenever I see customers leaving with satisfaction, I will feel extremely happy and realise my own worth.”

Service innovation “with concern, sincerity and wisdom”

In daily work, He Xiao is a systematic thinker who reflects critically on whatever experience she has gathered.  She has summed up a set of work processes by integrating the service codes and standard requirements in the industry with the unique features of counter service.  With this set of processes, the seemingly unsophisticated and tedious work of counter service is broken down into smaller units of procedures which, if carried out seriously, could not only increase efficiency but would also mean more attentive and meticulous services.  People call this “He Xiao Methodology”.

He Xiao’s set of innovative processes covers areas such as pre-work preparation, post-work follow-up, daily service as well as VIP service.  It subdivides daily routines into smaller operational units; the latter then broken down into individual steps of procedures.  When she is busy, He Xiao will resort to the motto of “One Efficiency, Two Steadiness and Three Xs”, which reminds her to stay calm and alert while working as fast as she could to keep customers from waiting.  Every day after the bank closes, He Xiao will tally the cash and important blank vouchers; balance the books; log down the day’s routines and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the day’s performance, which may prove useful for future benchmarking and improvement.  It is based on this pre-work preparation and post-work follow-up that He Xiao formulates her set of personalised and standardised work processes that lives up to international requirements.  This new methodology not only minimises working time, but it also greatly enhances service efficiency and significantly lowers error rates.  It fulfils her pledge of the ‘3Xs” by having no mistakes (X), no violation of rules and regulations (X) and no complaint from customers (X) from among over 460,000 transactions.

Other than serving her customers with passion, He Xiao is also skilful at helping them solve problems through concern, sincerity and wisdom on her part.

“Concern” refers to having genuine care for the welfare of the customers.  For instance, the Kaiyuan Sub-branch used to provide distilled water for customers for their convenience, but very few ever touched it.  After carefully turning over the phenomenon in her mind, He Xiao posted a notice on the water dispenser: “Dear customers: The distilled water is replaced every day.  Please help yourself with it.”  This yielded effect as expected: more and more customers were drinking from it.

Customers very often had to fill out forms by themselves.  Without professional background, many customers responsible for financial matters in their respective work units found banking procedures difficult to handle.  Hence they often made repeated mistakes in form-filling and wasted a lot of time.  Seeing this, He Xiao took special care to brief these customers thoroughly right from the start and even labelled with pencil the parts that most customers were likely to get wrong.  In addition, she also filled out the items left for the bank before giving the forms to the customers.

When He observed that the cheques issued by one client had been bounced back twice because the company stamp was unclear, she immediately bought a stamp pad after work and gave it to the client as a present.  Then she reminded the client to avoid bounced cheques as far as possible so as to avoid delays in depositing cheques.

There was also a case with a customer with a relatively large deposit who is keeping a low-profile.  Every time that customer went to check his bank balance, he asked He Xiao to tell him the balance quietly.  He Xiao surmised that doing so was necessary for the sake of confidentiality.  So, whenever she came across similar customers again, she would write the balance on a sheet of paper and show it to them.  Soon after this, the Sub-branch even acted on He Xiao’s suggestion to provide VIP Rooms to cater for the needs of those customers who wanted their privacy protected.

“Sincerity” is to get to the hearts of customers.  For example, in order to meet the needs of VIP customers, He Xiao specifically kept a portfolio of each of them with their information and demands clearly recorded.  When a new product was launched, she would make house calls or return visits regularly.  And on their birthdays or festivals, she would send her good wishes through telephone or SMS.

“Wisdom” is to gain the trust of customers strategically.  To win over high-end customers, He Xiao would tailor-make wealth management plans for them.  In order to promote CCB’s bill acceptance and discount business, she would accompany customers to the acceptance house to conduct businesses such as making enquiries.  On top of that, she would also recommend electronic products such as telephone banking and e-banking to her customers to make banking more convenient for them.

Mr. Tang Keshuen was an old man who lived in Kaiyuan Mountain Villa in Jinan.  Every month, accompanied by his old wife, he came to He Xiao’s counter to have his salary statement printed out, make a deposit for a fixed sum and buy treasury bonds.  Whenever they came, He Xiao would serve them with great patience.  Then after a period of time, they stopped coming.  Learning that one of them was bed-ridden, He immediately rang them up and conveyed her regards.  From then on, all Mr. Tang needed was to make instructions over the phone and He would have it done in no time.

The above examples demonstrate the meticulous attention He Xiao pays to her work.  Never putting up with the slightest imperfection in her work, she always tries her best to provide impeccable service for CCB customers.  “This gives me great happiness and a feeling that time just flies by, and I find myself younger and in better spirits.  This is the greatest pleasure I get from my work.”

Risk Avoidance in Standardised Services

As a frontline counter staff, prevention and avoidance of operational risks is a matter of great concern for He Xiao.  For this reason, He is constantly summing up her experience to devise service processes for preventing criminal offences such as fraud or money laundering so as to safeguard the financial stability of the CCB.

To prevent fraud from the false application of bank credit cards, He Xiao would verify the applicants’ personal data and financial background meticulously and make an overall assessment of their repayment ability.  For unsecured applicants, she would take special precautions to scrutinise the validity of their personal identifications and income proof.  For high-risk cardholders with prior records of incurring penalties or overdue payment, she would alert the business department to take such prudent measures as aggressive payment recovery or lowering credit limits to minimise the risk of fraud.

It happened in the afternoon of January 25th this year.  A man hurried to the Kaiyuan Sub-branch with a Chengdu savings card and requested for a withdrawal of 4,600 yuan.  While handling the transaction, He Xiao felt something peculiar with the client.  Seeing that, she deliberately briefed him on the relevant stipulations on out-of-town withdrawals and found that the client did not care about the handling fees at all.  Then while keeping the conversation going, He Xiao made a quick check of his account details and discovered that he had made numerous withdrawals from various branches that same day.  When she pointed out that the money could only be paid on presentation of his personal identification documents, the man declared that he was not carrying any and made an excuse to leave to fetch his identity card.  When he was gone, He Xiao learnt from her long years of counter service that there must be something wrong.  She immediately made a thorough investigation of the client’s account and eventually got in touch with him personally.  The client verified that he had never applied for a savings card and never made any withdrawal.  He Xiao promptly advised him to declare emergency loss and file the case with the police.  Her alertness had avoided a case of impersonated withdrawal and protected the interests of the client concerned.

Recently, most money laundering plots finds its way through the banking system.  Criminals “legalise” their illicit money through large sum cash deposits or counterfeiting commercial papers.  To guard the first gate against money laundering, He Xiao came up with a method that had proved to work well: whenever a client involving a large transaction showed up, she would take a quick browse at his personal background from the bank system and make a careful assessment of the client’s overall day-to-day transactions such as the opening of new accounts or the making of deposits and settlements.

At the same time, useful information such as the purpose and the beneficiary of the deal could be gleaned through casual conversations and enquires while situations involving atypical transaction counterparts, atypical flow of funds and atypical transaction sum are brought to attention.  When a suspicious transaction is detected, He Xiao would note the personal identity of the client and make prompt report to her superior for further investigation and validation.

During her 14 years of counter service, He Xiao had handled more than 460,000 transactions with a clean record of zero error and full compliance of rules and regulations.

Mr. Liu Lin, Senior Economist and Chief Secretary of Shandong Association of Banking Industry, made the following remark: “Nowadays, a frontline counter officer in a bank typically has to handle at least 200 transactions a day.  Reckoning on a basis of eight working-hours a day, only an average of three minutes is spent on each customer, which shows how hectic counter service is.  At present, the banking industry in China is still lacking in a set of operatable service standards, but He Xiao has managed to raise service efficiency through her system of pre-work preparation and standardised operations.

According to statistics, ever since He Xiao Methodology was implemented in 2005, marked improvement in the quality of service has been observed in CCB Shandong.  This is proved by the fact that only five complaints were lodged with the Lixia sub-branch, a drop of 85% from the previous year, while the number of commendations from customers increased by 200 or 10 times as much for the previous year.

Adoption of the Signature Service:

From CCB to the Banking Industry & Society

He Xiao and her He Xiao Methodology exemplify the “I serve, therefore I’m happy” concept.  He Xiao sets a role model for all staff by integrating individual values with the values of the CCB and the needs of staff and customers.  The Party committee of CCB Shandong Branch is highly appreciative of He Xiao Methodology, hailing it as the realisation of the “customer focussed” service approach; the magic weapon for achieving competitive leadership; the epitome of a secure and harmonious CCB; the living example for political and ideological education.  Consequently, a campaign to learn from He Xiao Methodology has been organised throughout CCB.  Likewise, CCB Chairman Mr. Guo Shuqing, President Zhang Jianguo, Chairman of the Board of Supervisors Mr. Xie Duyang, Vice President Xin Shusen and Vice President Chen Zuofu all have high regards and expectations of He Xiao Methodology.  In August 2006, during a national-wide summer conference for CCB presidents, Chairman Guo and Vice President Xin paid a special visit to He Xiao at the Lixia Sub-branch in Jinan.  That same month, Mr. Lin Tingshang, Standing Member of the Shandong Party Committee and Deputy Governor of Shandong, and Mr. Wang Min, Propaganda Department Head of the Provincial Party Committee, have successively given out important instructions on how to promote He Xiao Methodology and praised it as “a significant model in the practising of the socialist concept of honour and disgrace“.  All of a sudden, media such as the Shandong TV Station, Shandong People’s Broadcasting Station, the Dazhong Daily and the Qilu Evening News made extensive coverage on He Xiao Methodology.  On 10 May this year, the CCTV Syndicated News also reported on the progressive stories of He Xiao.  On the same day, Mr. Liu Minkong, Chairman of China Banking Regulatory Commission also made important instructions on He Xiao Methodology.  In the Assembly on Civilised and Standardised Services of the China Banking Association held on April 29th, He Xiao was invited as guest speaker.  She has won numerous awards including the national May 1 Labour Medal for finance sector, the Shandong 10 Outstanding Young Persons Award, the CCB Outstanding Contribution Award and the CCB Headquarters “10 Outstanding Young Staff Award”.  As the result of promoting He Xiao Methodology, a team of customer service stars have emerged in CCB Shandong Branch.  Today, He Xiao Methodology is widely practised throughout the CCB system.  Counterparts from other banks in Zhejiang, Hainan, Shaanxi and Heilongjiang all came for professional interflow.  This not only enhances the image and reputation of the brand name but also intensifies the impact it radiates on society at large.