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The Finance Ministry has asked public sector banks to put in place a uniform three-tier public grievance redress system within three months. This is to ensure that all customer complaints are resolved within 21 days.
The ministry said bank officers and employees should look at grievances/suggestions as an opportunity to improve the internal systems, thereby retaining customers and improving profitability/competitiveness.
The underlying message to banks is that they should not make customers go around in circles to resolve their complaints.
Redress mechanism
The primary responsibility for resolving grievances will be that of the branch manager. Branches will be allowed 10 days to redress customer grievance, said the ministry directive.
If the matter is still unresolved, it will get escalated to the regional/zonal office level, which will get five days to resolve the grievance.
If even after this the matter remains unresolved, the complaint will get transmitted to the head-office, which will get six more days to resolve it.
Multiple channels
Bank customers should be provided multiple channels — complaint book/register at the branch, letter/fax/email, toll free telephone numbers/call centres, mobile (voice and SMS), and bank Web site — for lodging their grievances, said the ministry.
All complaints will have to be lodged in a common digital platform in order to have an integrated information system for customer grievances. This will ensure that grievances are resolved expeditiously and monitored seamlessly.
To improve accountability, the ministry wants the 26 PSBs to acknowledge complaints, generate complaint numbers for future communication, indicate to the customer the likely time within which the final reply would be sent, and give details of the person to be contacted in case the reply is not given/not found to be satisfactory.
The ministry wants banks' call centres to proactively call back customers to give them feedback about the action taken, without waiting for the customer to call again.
When call centres are not accessible, customers should be allowed to make a call-back request by sending an SMS.
Reply in writing
The ministry suggested that when a grievance is resolved, a reasoned reply in writing or by email should be given to the complainant, clearly stating the action taken.
Where the complaint is not resolved to the satisfaction of the customer, a reply may be sent explaining the reasons under the bank's broad policy parameters due to which the request could not be acceded to.
Zero tolerance
Advocating a zero tolerance policy towards misbehaviour by bank employees with their customers, the ministry has asked banks to take appropriate administrative actions — transfer to posts with relatively infrequent public contact and adverse entries in annual performance — against erring employees.
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