Sales and service

From the beginning we were told that banking was part of the service sector. And it is also true that when we joined bank in early and mid 80s, service standards were pathetic to say the least. Passbooks would seldom get updated across the counter and simple banking transactions like withdrawal and deposit would take hours. However, with increase in customer awareness, proliferation of alternate banking channels and above all fierce competition, especially from new generation private sector banks, the customer service issues are now largely resolved and customer, in fact, is spoilt for choices

This has led to problem of a different sort. With customers using ATM, net banking and mobile app for routine transactions, they are not required to visit bank’s branch too often. However, for more unusual services such as address change, signatory change, change in mode of operation, re-KYC etc, visit to branch is usually not a fulfilling experience as most of these activities are moved to back offices and branches are not really aware of the requirements and procedures. When back offices find documents inadequate, there’s to and fro causing customer disenchantment.

Branches in fact have become more of sales outlets than service units. The branch staff carries target for selling bank’s own products as also third party products such as mutual funds and insurance. Transition to sales focus from service focus has, in a way, taken the customers back to pre technology and pre competition era of deficient service levels. But, as aforesaid, a customer being spoilt for choices changes his bank, leading to high customer attrition.

In a service industry, service must be the prime focus and cross selling a by product. A satisfied customer will shift all his business to a bank where he gets good service and in the process bank can meet its sale targets.