Saturday, December 17, 2005

I will be good from now onwards

Work today was absolutely horrible. In the three past months I have been here, this is by far the worst Saturday I have ever experienced.

Reason? Stanchart has lowered the requirement for a fixed deposit for 1 year at 2.75% from $50,000 to a mere $5,000. $5,000!!! Who doesn't have $5,000??!!!

Today, I heard, is also the first time the Q-matic system has generated nearly 120 numbers and this is excluding the over twenty numbers generated from the Priority Banking queue.

At one point, there were 60 over people in the queue and the waiting time stretched to 89 minutes.

And when the doors were closed at 11.30am, there were still at least 40 people crammed in the small banking hall, still waiting to be served.

With everyone so hard pressed for time, we just have to suay suay encounter problematic customers.

Some very common examples:

1) Do we really have to open a transactional account to enjoy this promotion? If I put in $50,000, can you waive this requirement?

No! I don't care if you put in $5,000 or $1 million, this requirement has to stand.

2) I want to open a joint account with my father, one with my mother, one with my husband etc.

Erm, Okay... Man! You don't know how much paperwork that entails...

3) If I open this account now, what will happen to the money if I die? Will it be confiscated by the bank? How would it be distributed?

I am not a lawyer. I don't know how it works. And when they do this, I have to "smoke" a lot. But the bank will definitely not confiscate the money.

4) I want to add another name to this account.

This is bad. Not only does it entail lots of paperwork, there is no value derived from this at all.

5) Customer presses for a Priority queue number. When asked for his Priority Banking card for verification, he conveniently mentions that he has left it at home.

Hello.. We can always check whether you are a Priority Banking customer from our system. If you are not a PB customer, you jolly well press for the normal queue number and wait (long long) for your turn!

6) Customer asks for a plastic bag to put her esavers kids piggy bank. We tell her we don't have plastic bag and offer to tie it with nylon so it is easier for her to carry. She declines. Because she doesn't want people to see that she banks at Stanchart. Duh. We manage to get an NTUC plastic bag for her. She rejects it again. How come you all don't have your own Stanchart plastic bag? As if we are supermarket like that... -_-

7) Customers you talked to a long time ago and whom you have absolutely no recollection of suddenly comes down to look for you, while you are all busy and flustered. To open a fixed deposit. And because they think they are one of the privileged few to have an appointment with you, they do not need to get a queue number.

8) Customers sit down and you start explaining all the promotion mechanics to them. After all that explanation, they say: Let me think about it. I think XX Bank gives a better rate.

Then go to XX Bank then. I am amazed that some people are willing to queue for so long just to make enquiries.

9) Customer wants her fixed deposit to be automatically renewed for a similar maturity upon matuiry and after all the paperwork has been done and submitted, she changes her mind and says, "I think I want the interest to be credited to my savings account instead. Don't auto renew for me."

%$!@*&#

10) Customers leave for a while because "it is still a long way from their queue number." When they come back and realize their numbers have past, they demand to be served immediately.

I know that if the service quality surveyors were to come today to get customers to assess our service quality, I would fail terribly. Please don't blame me. You can't expect me to be in the best of moods after repeating the same words over and over again.

I promise to be a good customer from now on. I believe good service begets good service. You can't expect me to display good service if the customers themselves think they are oh-so-great just because they have $5,000 to put in a fixed deposit and start to act all high and mighty.

1 comments:

<$BlogCommentAuthor$> said...

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1:40 PM  

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