With Momodou Camara
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Welcome to the maiden edition of this column called CUSTOMERS EYE. The purpose of coming up with this column is after a long wait to see whether there will be improvements in our service deliveries from different sectors there is no choice other than to create this column to be able to help consumers expressed their experiences and concern regarding the services they received .
I believe one of the concepts that everyone believe in be it in the service industry or production we all say that the customer is always the king. This has in fact made be great concern for certain institutions like the GSM operators ,banks and other big institutions to not only provide customer service departments but as well create customer relationship managers or accounts managers that would serve the needs of the customers.
However despite all these yet still customers are feeling the worse of service deliveries experience by them and these comes from all sectors. In the GSM sector customers will always be complaining about their megabytes being taken off from them or there is network problems whilst in banks others will complain about their charges on various services which must of them were not informed about. These keeps customer’s changing from one GSM to the other or from one bank to the other and these are the same with smaller organizations as well.
Our todays discussion will focused on banks as looking at all the banks in this country service deliveries are different from one another as well as how they are able to react to certain deliveries’ could vividly recalled a particular platform raised the issue of customer care in the banks and lots of people complained about them but do the banks actually take these serious? One of the most difficult things for customers to get is information.
How many of our banks do actually have a very correct website where you can visit and know more about their services. Sometimes there are false advertisements on their call cards indicating the name of the website and if you goggle it does not show you any page. Is it not high time for them to get correct web pages that will have people who will manage it and will be responding to inquiries about their services?
However there are some banks too that will even not bother to reply despite you having send your inquiries. You will also realize that some of those having websites do not regularly update their pages and you will keep seeing the same information even though that product might no longer exist or charges may change. I think it is high time that all banks have proper websites and those that have it to continue updating them.
Another issue that keeps doubting me sometimes is how banks accept cheque payments. If you look at the cheque itself it will start with PAY and you have the line to insert the name and to my surprise most of the banks do not agree with what should follow after the word PAY.
You will go to some banks and the cashier will tell you that you should write your name after it despite putting SELF since it is your own cheque and you will be able to cash your cheque but with other banks even by writing the word Cash on the cheque is sometimes accepted it.
The issue of identification is another problem as some banks will still ask for your identification card whilst you are the very owner of the account and that baffles me a lot to and I therefore have a little doubt as to whether the bank definitely have the picture of the account holder. I can understand if it has to do with a third party but not the account holder himself. I have witnessed series of events regarding customers complaining about why they have to be asked with an identification card despite being the account holder himself.
Not only with cheque books but sometimes with your own personal savings account book where some banks will tell the account holder to provide an identity card if the withdrawal is above a certain limit and that makes it very difficult for some customer to understand. I think it is high time we look at some of these issues and resolve them and create a better enabling environment for our customers so that they will not be jumping from one bank to the other rather they become loyal customers
I also think there should be uniformity in most of these common services by all the banks as it will only bring good services to the customer and create very good and updated websites for their customers to be able to get more information.
The author is a Chartered banker and proprietor of OUTSOURCE marketing. He is also the country Rep for a British NGO called FOTGA. Sponsor and advertise on the page.