NCB Jamaica turns customer feedback into innovation

How NCB Jamaica transformed customer engagement with a cutting-edge mobile experience

National Commercial Bank Jamaica Limited (NCB) is redefining customer engagement by revolutionizing its mobile banking experience. By integrating Alchemer across teams, NCB has elevated customer interactions, streamlined communication, and accelerated product development—delivering a more seamless and personalized banking experience.

Stronger engagement drives loyalty
0 %

Open rates from
in-app prompts

From 2 -> 4 stars in the app store, conversion rates and customer satisfaction were boosted.

About NCB Jamaica

National Commercial Bank Jamaica (NCB) is one of Jamaica’s largest financial institutions, offering a range of banking, investment, and insurance services. Established in 1837, it has grown into a leading player in the Caribbean’s financial sector. NCBJ provides retail, corporate, and digital banking solutions, with a strong focus on innovation and customer service. It is a subsidiary of NCB Financial Group Limited (NCBFG), which has regional and international subsidiaries in a full range of financial services.

“Alchemer is incredibly adaptable and user-friendly. Since implementing the tool, we’ve seen significant improvements in communication with users and consistent high app store ratings.”

— Stacey-Ann Hesson, Senior Product Owner for NCB’s mobile app

Challenge

Like many banks, NCB has embraced digital transformation to better serve customers on the platforms they use most – online and mobile. With the launch of their mobile app in 2018, they aimed to improve accessibility, retain existing customers, and expand their digital presence.

Following the app’s launch, NCB initially focused on reporting issues but soon recognized the need for a more robust solution to gather customer feedback and provide a seamless way for the user to communicate and get important updates. As customer adoption and engagement grew, so did the bank’s digital needs.

To support this growth, they required a secure and integrated approach to:

Solution

NCB needed a feedback solution that seamlessly integrated into their app, enabling real-time notifications and communications. They also needed a system that supported bug and issue reporting to enhance user communication, build trust, and improve the overall experience.

Their key buying criteria included cost, support responsiveness, data privacy, integration capabilities, scalability, security compliance, user experience, and role-based controls.

Alchemer Digital met all of these criteria but stood out particularly for its strong focus on security. Security is vital for banking apps to protect sensitive financial data, maintain customer trust, ensure regulatory compliance, and prevent fraud. Alchemer prioritizes security by proactively protecting customer accounts and data from threats, ensuring compliance with global security and privacy standards. Alchemer automatically encrypts data both at rest and in transit for all customers to safeguard it from unauthorized access, critical for any banking app.

Plus, Alchemer’s seamless integration, scalability, ease of use, and exceptional support made it the ideal choice for NCB Jamaica’s evolving needs.

They leveraged the following key features in Alchemer Digital:

  • In-app Notifications: Used by the Communications team for release updates and security alerts.
  • Prompts: Enabled targeted user engagement, significantly outperforming email and SMS campaigns.
  • Surveys: Allowed the Product and UX teams to gather user input for feature development and build strong business cases.
  • Message Center: Facilitated direct responses to customer feedback by the Customer Care team.

How Alchemer Helps

As they implemented Alchemer, they discovered even more applications across many departments. Here’s how they put Alchemer to work:

How Alchemer Helps
Increased engagement with Prompts

NCB’s marketing team used the Prompts feature to better engage with customers in the app. Historically, they faced challenges with low email and text messaging open rates, often falling below expectations, which made it challenging for them to gain a comprehensive understanding of their customers’ needs and preferences. By reaching customers directly in the app with Prompts, they saw a significant improvement, with open rates consistently reaching 50-60%. Now this is an essential part of their process so much so that the marketing team utilize in-app message as the primary way to communicate with users.

In one instance, the NCB product team collaborated with the Wealth Team to promote an upcoming webinar that had initially seen a low response rate–only 10 registrants instead of the targeted 500. After using Prompts with an eye-catching image, they quickly boosted registrations to over 5,000!

How Alchemer Helps
Make data-driven product decisions

The UI/UX and product teams use Alchemer to gather feedback that influences the development of new features. NCB harnessed the power of in-app surveys to guide their decision-making and align their product roadmap with customer needs and preferences.

How Alchemer Helps
A targeted approach to customer campaigns

Another creative way the marketing team leverages Alchemer is through its NPS (Net Promoter Score) program. By sending in-app NPS surveys, they capture customer feedback and identify promoters, those customers who advocate for the app. The marketing team then targets these promoters with tailored in-app campaigns, ensuring that they are engaging their most loyal customers. This data also seamlessly integrates this data into the bank’s CRM system, allowing the marketing team to quickly identify key customers and initiate further engagement. The product team leverages Alchemer surveys to gather insights from targeted customers whenever a feature requires justification for development to business leaders. This approach not only streamlines the decision-making process but also provides UI/UX designers with valuable insights. They regularly and quickly gather feedback from 15-20,000 customers, which helps them build a strong case for new features.

“Alchemer has significantly improved our ability to communicate with app users, with a 92% improvement in user engagement for FY 23/24. Alchemer has been instrumental in gathering actionable feedback, enhancing customer satisfaction, and driving retention through timely and effective in-app communication.

— Stacey-Ann Hesson, Senior Product Owner for NCB’s mobile app

Key Outcomes

By continuously finding innovative use cases with Alchemer, NCB achieved many positive business outcomes.

  • Improvement in User Engagement: Average in-app engagement rose to 10,000–15,000 users.
  • Higher App Store Ratings: The app’s rating rose from 2 stars at its launch in 2018 to a consistent 4 stars or higher today.
  • Enhanced Communication Efficiency: In-app Prompts saw 50–60% open rates, outperforming traditional email campaigns.
  • Customer Retention: Improved engagement and timely updates fostered user trust and app retention.

Conclusion

Alchemer plays a crucial role in enhancing the customer experience within NCB’s mobile app. The secure and flexible platform has led to significant improvements in user engagement, customer satisfaction, and app ratings. The company expects continued growth in these areas, demonstrating how digital innovation, when paired with a customer-centric approach, can drive exceptional results.

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