A customer is the most important visitor on our premises, he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us an opportunity to do so. -- Mahatma Gandhi
Computerisation is the latest mantra of bankers, both in the private and public sectors.
Never mind that most times computers don't work. The rest of the time, bankers don't. And when they do work, they work at cross-purposes leaving customers completely exasperated. And from time to time they also employ their other weapon: a strike.
Try depositing a cheque at, purchase a draft from or deposit cash in a bank; you would know what I mean. Remember, these are routine matters that the banks are supposed to handle day in and out. God forbid, if you have to handle some stray cases of foreign remittances or expect some other exotic services from banks!
No wonder, every time after his monthly visit to his bank my aged father, a retired banker himself and a Gandhian -- who never believed in violence all his life tells me -- "I need to shoot these guys!"
The most obnoxious part in the entire exercise is that bank employees often join us in our ranting about the abysmal quality of services. Little do we realise that in the process they claim a co-victim status when they are in effect responsible for the mess in the first place.
Should you think that you could get things rectified by lodging a complaint with a superior on the dismal state of affairs, you are sadly mistaken. Most of the superiors would invariably in some meeting or out of town. One wonders whether it is a ruse to run away from ground zero.
Once we often chided our nationalised banks for the poor quality of services. Then came foreign banks and private banks in India. The whiff of fresh approach to banking brought about by these organisations flattered to deceive.
While the nationalised banks have learnt to bill virtually for every 'service' provided by these new generation banks (the only thing banks do not charge their customers is for the air you breath and water you drink inside their premises), the latter have learnt the art of providing abysmal service and getting away with it.
In effect, the lines that separated the nationalised and the private banks, between Indian and foreign banks and between the old and the new generation banks have become increasingly blurred. In the process, the Mahatma's quote about customers -- that used to be displayed so prominently in the main business hall of banks -- has become a mockery.
