Maligning the culture !!

Of late, it has become a practice to attribute things and activities to  'Corporate culture'- mostly when they go bad or wrong. And this has become the whipping boy for everyone, even from those who would find it difficult to spell the word ‘corporate’. While every culture has its points for review leading to growth, the tendency to sweep this off with a single stroke is disappointing.  But then, amongst other things, there are also many practices in corporate that are worthy to emulate. Some such are 'Innovative thinking' and 'Art of Appreciation'. Unfortunately, the lack of these practices in some are hurting the current banking scenario and this is an attempt to highlight their need for the serving and retired bank men, whose comments could impact the bank staff morale.

Taking cues from the corporate or other culture, some bank men from a popular nationalized bank in Chennai have thought innovatively and decided to hit the road, catch the customer or prospects on their early morning walk to get first hand feedback and to propagate some of the bank's offerings as well . And so they were spotted at the Chennai Marina beach near Gandhi statue early in the morning by around 6 AM, with a proudly perched uniform cap that glowed with the bank’s logo prominently - seen distributing pamphlets of the products and encouraging the walkers to visit  the branch for further inputs.

At the outset, the staff involved in such innovative thoughts have to be encouraged as they have gone some extra miles to take the bank to the place where the common man throng. One is not sure whether it is done at the suggestion or prompting or behest of the senior management or on their own. Either way, it requires a friendly pat!

But, the amount of cynicism, snide remarks, pessimistic thoughts aired by the fellow bank men (in service or retired), towards such a step, shows the extent of frustration and negativism that has been allowed into their system.

Here comes the second of the Corporate Culture - Appreciation. The said bank staff have chosen to hit the road early in the morning towards improving bank's image, offering and also customer contact, instead of availing the hard earned second saturday which the Government has given to them for an extended sleep to compensate for the extra hours put in through the week. This gesture of foregoing an opportunity of family time itself calls for appreciation as a first step and a pat for that would help the otherwise beleaguered staff to keep their morale high.

Instead, sarcastic remarks of this being a 'circus', ' a publicity stunt' etc., from the arm chair critics, will really hurt the hard-working staff.

A valid point has been raised that the customer service at the branch needs to be improved and there can never be a second opinion on this. But then, such innovations need not be halted for an existing malady! I am not critical of those expressions and do not mean to say that they are wrong. But, their frustrated or high-handed expressions could dampen the spirits of the few who still believe that they could put in their bit towards the upliftment of the bank, otherwise battered from all quarters. 

 

Let us first learn to appreciate others’ gesture and their efforts in going that extra mile, instead of putting dampeners and road blocks. If we can, let us join and contribute or simply turn the other way instead of hampering positive progressions.

Dealing with shirking banks taking cover under black coats !

This was posted by me, today, in LinkedIn under the Group 'Banking, and Finance Technologies":

It was shocking to read the treatment meted out to the Squash champion Dipika Pallikal by the Axis Bankhttp://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Squash-champ-vs-bank-Verdict-on-February-20/articleshow/29677903.cms#write

Though the matter is subjudice , I would like to dwell more on such incidents rather than the specific case. 

Few days back one of my close relative too had this experience of a Nationalised bank rejecting money in ATM (reason "Unauthorised Access"), though she had sufficient balance in the account. The incident was reported and since there was not much help from the HepDesk, it was escalated to the CMD's office and even then the matter was resolved only after three days. 

Ultimately this turned out to be due a process failure within the Computer Dept and the branch, with both blaming each other, in open communications to the customer ! This was for a fairly urgent purpose and since it was a small amount, she could manage without the ATM support. 

There are few things on which I would like to pick the bankers' brains: 

1. What if such a denial happens at a very critical juncture, like one has to pay Hospital for the surgery to proceed on a Saturday night? How will the customer manage & what is banks' responsibility here for having denied payment despite a healthy balance in the account? 

2. The complainant's counsel argument in the above case was "A bank is a custodian of the consumer's money and denying the complainant use of her own money is a clear deficiency in service." He said Bank's argument of Force Majeure (chance occurrence or unavoidable accident) was not sustainable as no unforeseen event, like a power failure or snapping of communication lines, had occurred. The bank's counsel has said ".....it was "a one-off incident" and there was no deficiency on the part of the bank...." 

Having denied the service and putting customer in a soup, the bank's effort to wriggle off as 'one of situation' is really a shocker. 

Understandable that counsels could be engaged to argue in any manner for defence/prosecution and it is their job to make a killer appear like a saint . 

What happened to the moral responsibility of the bank? 

Having said this, the bank also tries to wriggle out by questioning the authority of the honourable court / Forum by saying "...As the incident occurred on foreign soil, the forum did not have the jurisdiction to try the case...", despite the fact an International Debit card was being used !! 

It is highly desirable that such high profiting but mean minded and less customer friendly banks are taught lessons by the court in pulling the highest executive for having the cheek to put those in hot waters, whose only fault was in choosing the bank for parking their investments

Inconsistent Customer Service

State Bank of India has taken an unique step in extending its working hours today, the 24th Jan, as three consecutive bank holidays follow from tomorrow. It is appreciable that the bank has taken steps to extend its services through its own way of extending the working hours.

What comes to the mind of a bank customer is, if SBI feels that its customers will be impacted by consecutive bank holidays, what is preventing the other banks also to follow suite?

If all the banks are bound by a central agency , why can't that agency think of applying this uniformly across all banks ? After all this practice is not new as on some 31st of March in many years, this has been done to facilitate the customers to pay their taxes.

By allowing individual banks to define such sops, the banks no doubt create a healthy competition amongst themselves. But on the other hand such needs, if genuine, are left at the mercy of individual banks. This is where , I feel the central agency has failed in keeping the banks together, as has been done hitherto.

In the current scenario of ATMs and Internet banking , I personally feel that this is not necessary as the customers could definitely continue to do their activities without visiting the banks. One also wonders as to whether the bank extended the same gesture last week when the banks closed for consecutive days around Pongal.

Such arbitrary decisions could also trigger displeasure from the bank staff, not all are likely to be compensated for the extended working on such days. Will the concerned authorities think about it?

Differently Abled Banking System?

This is to highlight an instance of apathy and calculated indifference of a Bank to the voice of an employee turned customer.

A certain additional facility was being extended to the retired employees in a bank and the communication to the eligible, I felt, was not properly done. Being a prime facility, I was of the opinion the bank was slack in even communicating the same.  I was also concerned that the facilities being extended after much deliberations should not be deprived to a section of the eligible due to communication issues, in this era of technological and communication advancements.

Not knowing whom to address, I wrote to the Chairman of the Bank copying one of the Executive Directors to the email ids available in the bank's website, politely drawing their attention to the shortcoming. My email of 12th Sep was not even acknowledged despite a reminder on Sep 18th. On the 22nd Sep, I connected to another ED of the Bank drawing his attention to the lack of response and requested for action, as the scheme was to close shortly. As this also fell on deaf ears I was at a loss as to where else I could go above the Chairman & senior executives for a genuine grievance against the bank's practice. Browsing through the website, I decided to knock at the doors of the Ombudsman and on the 23rd Oct I drew their attention to the indifference of the bank to the issue and the discourtesy of not even acknowledging a mail even by their highest officials.  

The Ombudsman office acknowledged fairly quickly but closed the issue yesterday (18th Dec) stating that the '. . . issue raised in my complaint does not fall under the purview of the Banking Ombudsman scheme. . . '.

What I fail to understand are:

•  If a bank is not responding to a communication from its customer, what is the recourse available?
•  In this computerized era, what is preventing the bank from acknowledging customer mails?
•  Why is that the office of Chairman was not even having an automatic reply facility which even an ordinary start-up company could boast of?  Should this be treated as ignorance of technology or indifference to customers?
•  Ombudsman might have been set up by the Apex body to look into some specific, identified categories of complaints and as such their claim of 'not falling under such categories' is understandable. But then, is this not an aspect which the Central Bank of the Nation should first insist upon? How is that, this is not in their ambit? People concerned must realize that in addition to grievances resulting in financial losses customers are also entitled to basic courtesies and have a right to be peeved if it is denied.
• As a matter of courtesy,  they were kind enough to forward a copy of the complaint to a General Manager of the Bank for' information and necessary action'. I am sure being forwarded from this office, I will be getting some response now. Or am I hoping too much that the Ombudsman's communication will be responded to!
•  But, then is this not the suggested solution for the issue reported - Ombudsman directing the bank to respond? What is preventing them from directing the bank in doing this as a solution instead of ducking the issue citing technical reasons about which a customer is neither aware of nor interested in?
•  To the most misused cliche , 'Last but not the least', if I still do not get any response, pray tell me which door is left for me to knock at?  When a bank is deaf to its customer's woes, its appointed authority is blinded by rules, should the customers remain mute to such insults of poor business ethics?

Is our banking Industry so severely crippled with deaf banks and blind authority producing dumb customers?