Column

“Sorry, sir. The new RBI rules say that we need a letter from the college, a college photo ID.” I was standing at the crowded counter of one of India’s celebrated private banks, and my patience was wearing thin. My daughter had just turned major, and what was meant to be a proud moment — converting a minor account into her own full-fledged bank account — turned out to be a fiasco.

The bank had sent me scores of reminders asking for a few documents, including a photo ID card, and I had brought them all. A college photo ID wasn’t mentioned anywhere, but I had brought along a passport. But the polite man at the counter wasn’t getting it. If she was a student, she needed college identification, he insisted. “You know how it is. The RBI has issued new KYC norms, sir.”

KYC, short for know your customer, is the exact opposite of what it means. You may have known your customer for years — or at least your system does — but at the end of the day documents are what prove who you are. Nothing wrong in that, but banks today have expanded so fast with whatever talent was available that they have had no chance to train them adequately on customer service. In my daughter’s case, after fuming about it for half an hour, I decided to close the account. It was only then that someone in the higher echelons saw that the system had labelled her account as ‘priority’ that something clicked inside their heads. The paperwork got done with profuse apologies.

I bank with three private banks, but I find that there is not much awareness about what a customer really needs in any of them. Suited and booted, and armed with plastic smiles, they think they have a good handle on customer service. Let me tell you another story involving another private sector bank. The bank had obviously figured out from my transaction record that I was a good customer. So it decided to assign me a relationship manager.

Initially, I was thrilled. I was a VIP! But that was before I saw three relationship managers come and go. No sooner had one introduced himself to me than he would disappear, with another one taking his place. Obviously, there is a huge demand for their services. So, they seldom stick around long enough to form a bond with the customer. Nowadays, when they send me emails informing me about a new relationship manager, I delete it on arrival.

Recently, I got two confusing calls from the first bank I talked about. One caller told me I was eligible for Rs 1 lakh personal loan on my credit card which I could repay through EMIs. A few days later, a less than polite caller told me that my last credit card bill wasn’t paid, and would I pay up urgently, please? I know that these responses are all system-generated, and the call-centre agent only knows that a due date has been missed and the defaulter has to be told to pay up. But do they know my overall payment record, and whether I needed to be treated like a habitual offender?

Some years ago, a foreign bank kept sending me account statements for a loan I never took. I had put in an initial application and paid the application fee, but before the loan was sanctioned I decided to give it a miss. But somewhere in their system, the loan had apparently been logged in as cleared, and the back-office kept sending me a dues statement even though they hadn’t lent me a single rupee.

It was only after several calls — all put through exasperatingly long IVRs — that I managed to convey the idea that there was no loan outstanding, and there was no need to bug me with statements.

To be sure, poor customer service isn’t the monopoly of banks. One of India’s low-fare airlines has this stupid system where no seat numbers are allotted when some others allow you to book your seat number while buying a ticket on the net. The unedifying result: there is a mad rush for seats when boarding is announced, almost like a second-class unreserved compartment on the railways. I know we are getting low fares, but does that mean customers have to be forced to behave like cattle? In fact, if the airline had any sense, it could make additional money from it — window and aisle seats could be charged more.

Ultimately, the dross of bad service cannot be hidden behind the glitz of new technology.

Email: r_jagannathan@dnaindia.net