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Mihar Dias (C) Copyright October 2022
Some banks are notorious for bad customer service.
We are sure you have had encounters at some point in your life with bank employees or managers who are poorly trained to face customers during that "moment of truth" which makes or breaks relationships.
"A moment of truth is simply any interaction during which a customer may form an impression of your brand or product." - interaction.design.org.
This impression may be either positive or negative. This is a true story that is about to break a relationship of over 40 years because of a negative experience.
Plaza Damansara at Bukit Damansara boasts of three banks: CIMB, Maybank and Public Bank. We chose to open accounts years ago with two of them because of exceptional service offered. The last was imposed upon us by mergers and acquisitions.
The best service I ever received from one of them was when it was still a small bank that moved its credit card customer services to this high networth neighbourhood.
They spoilt card holders to no end with special attention that no other banks could offer. It was amazing!
On another occasion it was raining heavily early one morning during the monsoon when nobody could get there except for me who lived down the road just around the corner from the bank.
So, my advice to you is use a small bank and go there during the monsoon seasons, you'll get the best of service.
Unfortunately all small banks have been gobbled up by larger ones in recent years. They're mostly uninterested in relationship banking anymore!
Anyway on last Friday my visit to this bank was peculiar. I arrived at 10 in the morning but there were may be 10 people ahead of me and a few more who just entered the banking hall.
I noticed there were two tellers at the counter.
I signalled to a new girl who was in charge of giving out call numbers and asked for mine. She said I had to wait.
Later, I asked her how long I would have to wait. She said she didn't know. I told her to ask her manager.
A lady appeared from her hiding place in an office where they used to attend to high networth individuals and told one of the tellers to get inside that cubby hole of hers.
Then she made a beeline towards me and another guy sitting right next to me in the front row.
She addressed him saying quite loudly, "Can you please go inside there's a long wait here."
That guy who had listened to my question earlier looked at me in surprise, smiled and walked inside.
He was an innocent bystander who just arrived and benefited from my enquiry.
Then without even glancing in my direction the lady turned and attended to another customer.
I asked her, "Excuse me can you please tell me how long is the wait?"
She curtly replied "I cannot tell you". Then she asked whether I have an online account and I said no then she walked off saying "I can't help you!"
But for a senior citizen just one day before Senior Citizens Day I thought I deserved more help.
I followed her and asked the teller whom she had moved from the banking hall the same question. The teller who addressed me by my name sympathetically said, "I am sorry I have a customer here".
There was no other customer inside except the one who was sitting next to me earlier.
Yet outside there were so many waiting for service and just one teller to attend to them. How absurd!
This particular branch has been notorious for bad service for years yet I tolerated it for purely sentimental reasons.
For years I have visited this branch in the middle of every month to pay for my credit card. But the counter service was always dismal with staff who were not at all enthusiastic with customer care worse off than one would get from a poorly paid waiter at a coffee shop nearby that is slowly dying because of better competition.
There were at most two tellers at the counter and untrained customer relations staff to attend to customers.
I have been keeping the credit card that was given to me by the Managing Director then as a token of our friendship but he is long gone.
I guess it's time I break off my relationship with this bank. I faced that moment of truth so many times at least 12 in a year. This one was the straw that broke my faith in the bank.
No wonder I have heard that many high net worth neighbours have moved their accounts elsewhere.
Mihar Dias is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav.
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