Expectations from bKash and the realities encountered

Sheikh Rafid Ahnaf

ID: 2115440660

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the course of MKT 621

Buyer Behavior
Section-2

Summer 2022
Introduction: Bkash is a fintech company established in 2011. It is a joint
venture between BRAC Bank and a Japanese Venture Capital firm SoftBank.
Since its inception, Bkash has changed how common people in Bangladesh
handle personal finance and the use case has transcended towards
payment, wages, bills etc. The advent of Bkash has led to other players
entering the market, however Bkash is still leading the market with over
80% share.

Bkash is used widely Pan Bangladesh and its customers range from Urban
to Rural parts of the country.

The following is an analysis of people’s expectations from Bkash and the

reality they face, based on a survey conducted on more than 10 people.
Most people feel that their phone’s quality, app interface as well as the
Bkash agent's appearances are an important factor to them. Bkash users
agree that Bkash can perform its promised services accurately and provide
timely services to their customers. According to the survey, Bkash
employees hold adequate knowledge to instill confidence and trust among
their customers. They are also known to give personalized care to
customers.

Bkash app is very clean in terms of user experience and customers believe
their quality of phone will not have any effect on their app usability. In
reality, customers have actually claimed that their quality of phone did not
have any significant effect on the user experience of the app. Customers
expect that the Bkash service points will be easily accessible, implying this
factor to be of great importance to them and in reality customers have
actually found the service points to be at hand’s reach.

Customers expect that Bkash’s adverts (print, posters etc.) will be appealing,
which implies that customers have a strong brand affinity towards Bkash. In
reality customers find posters, banners and brochures of Bkash to be very
appealing. Apart from this most Bkash users expect that the ads in the form
of brochures, banners will be easily understood by the masses and most
users also agree that the communications are actually easy to comprehend.

Most Bkash users expect that Bkash agents and employees will be very
presentable, at their booths. The reality meets, rather exceeds the
expectation. There is a high expectation among users that Bkash will
provide them with timely solutions when they promise it. However, most
users claim their expectations were not met accordingly. Similarly, more
people believe that Bkash will provide the right service the first time, but
fewer people actually claim to have found that. Also when asked what the
expectations of the users are in terms of Bkash employees showing interest
in solving the client’s issues, there have been a lot of people claiming that
Bkash employee’s have failed to meet their expectations.

Like any fintech user, Bkash users have high expectation of getting error
free transactions but most users claim to have not so error free transactions.
A staggering 57% of respondents (who selected most important to me)
expect that Bkash will provide uniform service through out the day, however
only 33% have claimed to actually have found the same service at all times of
the day. Similarly user’s also expect Bkash to solve their issues quickly but a
lot of people do not find this in reality.

Users expect Bkash employees to be willing to assist them but claims have
been made that they do otherwise. Also customers expect that Bkash
servers will never be unresponsive but many customers have faced server
issues. There is a high expectation that Bkash will always solve server failure
issues to keep customers satisfied, but there is a huge gap in positive
responses in reality.

Sadly customer’s are seen to be facing biases as customer’s when they

require service, while they expect to be treated fairly and given equal
service.

User’s have also claimed that most Bkash employees have a knowledge gap,
while aiming to answer customer’s questions, in contrast to their
expectation. Customer’s have extremely high expectations that transactions
through Bkash will be safe and the reality is a bit far off from these
expectations. That is customer’s don’t feel safe while actually performing
these transactions.

Customers expect that Bkash will make them feel confident even though
the payments are processed through a 3rd party, and it seems most users
actually feel confident as there has been little change in views in the survey.
Similarly when asked about the expectation to use the Bkash app smoothly
24/7, the responses for expectation are almost similar. These areas are
Bkash’s strength as customer’s expectations have been met.

Customer’s expect Bkash to understand the severity of transferring between

the app and a bank. While a lot of customers have high expectations in this
regard, a good number of users have claimed otherwise.

When asked about the expectation of transferring money between bkash

and other MFS a lot of people expect to use this service and a few more have
claimed to be using this service. However this service is not available yet,
which gives rise to an interesting phenomenon of Halo Effect, where users
feel all other aspects of Bkash is positive just because a few others have met
their expectations positively.

Many users expect using Bkash can help them save money, and a lot of
users are claiming otherwise.

Finally users expect to have a smooth user experience while using the app
and that the UI will be continuously updated to improve customer
satisfaction. However users claim to not have a smooth experience and they
also claim that Bkash are not continually improving their app interface.

The above claims show that most users have high expectations from Bkash
in terms of app functionality, confidence, secure financial transactions as
well as user experience, and for a few aspects users do not find their
expectations met. Bkash is a pioneer in establishing an MFS ecosystem in
the country and has the potential to be a superapp like its Chinese
contemporary We Chat. However Bkash needs to start addressing these
issues and build a better product by keeping its users in mind.