When there is a ‘you’ or ‘your’ in the slogan of a bank, you may tend to get carried away. Such words are used to convey a feeling of bonding between the bank and ‘you’, the customer. But the ground realities are often far from this.
“It is unfortunate that many banks in India use slogans such as “always with you”, “your bank”, “you in our thoughts” and so on, but never practise the same,” says M. S. Moodithaya, Director, Nitte Institute of Banking and Finance, Mangalore. “Shared values will help improve the quality of service,” he adds.
Echoing this view from Coimbatore is Easwaran, a pensioner waiting in a queue in a nationalised bank to draw money, says: “This sign board ‘customer is king’ has no relevance. Barring a few staff, no one really cares to understand the customers’ needs.”
“The staff at the ‘May-I-help-you’ desk may guide you, but the person at the counter invariably is not all that patient in attending to your problem,” says the pensioner.
Some customers say they have to wait 20-25 minutes to get their pass-book updated though the notice board says ‘5 minutes for cash withdrawal, 5-7 minutes for recording entries in pass book,’ as so on.
“Don’t go by these claims,” says a teacher, pointing to the notice board. An employee in an IT firm feels that many public sector banks are not nimble in product innovations or in improving online banking features.
T. R. Bhat, former Joint General Secretary of All India Bank Officers’ Confederation, feels public sector banks lack the professional skills needed to handle the tech-savvy new generation customers.
“They suffer from excessive bureaucratic and political interference, as manifested in the unilateral changes in settled promotion policies, restrictions on recruitment, and selection and posting of chief executive officers and executive directors,” he said.
According to Bhat, old generation banks suffer from an antiquated management culture.
Technology is no more a differentiator for banks. Though public sector bank employees are considerate, they are poor in using technology to customers’ advantage. New generation banks are very good at this, but the promise of ‘will come back to you’ is rarely kept, says Nitte Institute’s Moodithaya.
(To be continued)