Mahatma Gandhi emphasised that customers are the purpose for the very existence of a business.
Banking and financial sector services touch the lives of every citizen making the grievances of poor services in banks the loudest. Deficient service impacts the customer immediately and sometimes, harshly. Senior citizens and pensioners are loyal customers but they are handicapped as they can’t visit banks often. Despite Reserve Bank India’s diktat, they don’t get service at doorstep.
For deposits, loans, trade and commerce, including a host of international commercial deals or investments, no worthwhile safe and liquid alternative avenues are available. Has this led banks to believe that customers are dependent on them and not the other way?
Other essential service providers such as the Railways, telecom, health, power, civic services, travel, delivery of goods also cater to the needs of large segments of population. They too attract criticism and complaints. But for a few exceptions, the rest do not seem to be taking the complaints seriously.
Services have to be personalised to meet the needs of each customer. Marketing of products or services is not just about the product’s price and quality but must be accompanied by robust after-sales service. Ease of doing business is not for nations alone but for banks too. Ultimately, the quality of service is defined by the customer experience.
Service providers don’t pay enough attention to the grievances or complaints but come out with stereotype, readymade parrot-like responses that sometimes are completely irrelevant.
We have a recent example of a bank responding to a compliment for its service at a branch on Twitter by regretting the inconvenience caused to the customer and asking him to lodge a complaint on its website for quick redress!
The worst feature of the communications is that mostly they are digitised, cryptic and full of jargon.
For a customer, an employee with whom he interacts represents the bank itself and the employee’s behaviour and actions define the image of the bank for him. The creation of an Ombudsman, an outside independent agency, to goad the banks to act fairly and quickly has turned out to be mostly ornamental.
Many employees joining the banks now have other ambitions, consider their stint as transient and don’t make serious attempts to acquaint themselves with the bank’s products or procedures. Thanks to the mass recruitment post 1990s many not even understand the local language, essential for an emotional connect. The training inputs are focussed more on technology, cross-selling and personal development.
Improving service
To improve staff attitude banks can try making minimum holding of shares of the bank a condition for offering employment. Second, periodically banks should update the knowledge of their employees on new services and products and the processes for making them easily available across the counter.
Third, every employee should wear a badge with name and designation. Regular structured feedback should be obtained from customers, both online and in serially numbered printed forms made available at branches, not only on products and services but their experience at the branches, with the names of employees who dealt with them.
Action taken or proposed if any, based on the feedback, should be shared with customers. For positive feedback some incentives like choice place of posting and weightage in promotions can be introduced for the employees.
To inculcate a sense of belonging and loyalty, the training modules should include inputs on the bank’s history and outstanding executives with their success stories. Occasionally some respected and valued customers should be invited to speak at the branches and training centres to share their experiences and expectations. Pep talk by senior executives on the importance of customer service can help bring about attitudinal changes.
Times are a changing and customers value the quality of service more than a few pips of interest rate differential.
The writer is a former Managing Director of State Bank of Mysore