Customer is king. This is what the Finance Ministry wants all public sector banks to let their customers know. It has asked these banks to organise ‘customer contact week' in mid-December.
If you have a deposit with, or have taken a loan from, one of the 26 public sector banks (includes the five associate banks of State Bank of India), then don't be surprised if branch staff seek your feedback on improving services and make efforts to address your grievances.
Bankers say this is the first time that the Ministry has issued a communication asking them to observe a ‘customer contact week'.
This is to improve customer service, sensitise staff about attending to customers in a courteous manner, understand the grievances of staff, and motivate them.
Further, banks have to ensure that branches, regional offices and zonal offices are kept clean and aesthetically attractive without incurring any major expenditure.
During the ‘customer contact week', zonal managers, regional managers and other senior functionaries are required to visit various branches for at least two days. The purpose of the visit should be to gauge the customers' (big and small) impression about the bank's service and get feedback on areas of improvement.
The visiting officials should motivate branch staff and understand their grievances. Among others, they also have to check compliance with the ‘know your customer' framework, including those for small deposit accounts, and the ease/difficulty in opening accounts and loan sanctioning.
On days when these officials are not on branch visits, they should have video-conference with customers.
Acting on feedback
The Ministry has issued this missive to banks as it has been receiving feedback from time to time regarding, among others, deficiency in customer service, misbehaviour/harassment, malpractices by bank staff, and poor upkeep of branches.
It has emphasised that these are some of the issues that need immediate attention of bank managements.
As per the statement of complaints received by the Banking Ombudsman Offices across the country, the number of complaints in the case of PSBs has nudged up a tad to 42,724 in 2010-11, against 41,924 in the previous year.