Bank Customers Frustrated Despite Successful Issue Resolution

Hanan Friedman, CEO of Bank Leumi, recently solicited feedback on improving customer service via social media, receiving numerous responses detailing customer difficulties and frustrations. Friedman personally responded to some customers, promising to review their concerns. While this initiative is commendable, it raises questions about what insights a CEO can gain from social media that the bank's internal service and oversight systems fail to provide.

A February 2026 survey by the Bank Supervisor revealed high satisfaction with digital services (around 90%) and branch services (82%). However, the survey also highlighted dissatisfaction with problem resolution and phone wait times. This discrepancy prompts an examination of whether measuring service quality by channel alone adequately reflects the customer's journey across multiple channels to achieve a solution.

For instance, a customer requesting a document to remove a lien might involve the service center, a professional unit, and a branch. Each department handles its part, but information on the request's progress isn't always available to the customer-facing banker. When the customer inquires, a new round of investigations begins. Although the document is eventually produced and the issue closed, the customer's experience involves delays, transfers, and repeated inquiries, eroding trust even if no direct financial loss is quantifiable.

The author, drawing on experience in knowledge management and service within the banking system, notes a gap between solving isolated problems and learning from them. Complex requests requiring behind-the-scenes professional or legal handling often mean the banker must track progress, but the accumulated knowledge isn't always transformed into accessible guidance for other employees. This issue persists despite the presence of customer experience professionals, knowledge managers, process experts, and digital teams in large financial organizations, as fragmented responsibility can prevent a holistic view of the customer journey.

This paradox leads to organizations repeatedly generating issues that have already been resolved. The value of identifying recurring failures is significant; a 2022-2023 Bank Supervisor report on public inquiries indicated that approximately NIS 33.2 million was returned to customer groups due to systemic deficiencies identified during individual complaint investigations. One case, involving a complaint about early repayment fees on a mortgage refinance, uncovered improper charges in other instances, leading to corrections and refunds of about NIS 2.8 million to 8,000 customers. This illustrates how a single complaint can reveal a broader problem and suggests that mechanisms for systemic correction already exist.

The proposed solution is not necessarily more surveys or complaint management systems, but rather creating information and responsibility continuity between all parties handling a customer request. A request moving between the call center, professional unit, and branch should be treated as a single process with a shared status and integrated alerts for employees. This would allow bankers to track progress without repeated investigations. Furthermore, a learning mechanism is needed to identify where requests get stuck, which inquiries are repetitive, and which processes require change. AI tools can aid in pattern recognition but do not replace managerial responsibility and inter-unit cooperation. The CEO's public outreach is an opportunity to emphasize that listening involves transforming complaints into knowledge and knowledge into change, with the ultimate measure being not how many issues are closed, but how many are prevented from reopening.