The plight of a common customer in a branch of the SBI.

The plight of a common customer in a branch of the SBI---

                  You should also go there and smell the coffee.

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You can't have the real taste of the functioning of a system that specifically deals with public utilities unless you try to seek the benefits of its functioning in the capacity of a common man.

   Those holding a post of some influence in the system are requested to see to this while assessing system's working or performance through inspections in such post related capacity.

It is heartening to see that some ministers in the government have made a point to get a first hand experience of the functioning of the system by making visits to places where the system actually operates at the level that leaves people actually served.

Those who will solely rely upon things called feedback or reports-returns will certainly be duped.

 I hold that a report-return,no matter how accurate, does not provide the real picture of functioning of a system.

How beautiful would it have been if such visits of them were in the capacity of a commoner with the identity of the position or post concealed!

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My urge to write these lines is borne out of the feeling whenever by virtue of necessity I have to go to an-xyz-branch of the SBI for availing banking service. 

Given the volume of work-load upon employees, I fully understand that delivery of services is quite challenging and therefore deserves consideration on part of the customers too. 

But what would you say if an employee of the branch plays this work-load as an excuse?

           The problem lies in the incompatibility of attitude of the bank employees and their customers to be served.

 In fact I find in the branch some employees indulged in the nasty practice of subtly returning customers approaching employees' desk after they (customers) remained in the queue for hours. 

The poor-helpless customer standing in the queue is told upon approaching such desk that either his papers are wanting or incomplete in such a way that the same can't be sorted out at the desk.

         As a result the poor customer has to leave the queue after remaining lined there for hours only to start standing in the queue afresh after meeting such objections made by the officious officers chairing the desk to provide service.

When customers come fully prepared with the papers or documents so sought to bring with them; first these documents are checked with a motive to point out the defects in them and in absence of any such defects having been found,there comes the reply "server is down".

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The common customers in their eyes are disqualified from being treated properly since they are not the valued ones for reasons not beyond comprehension. 

Yet some others use politeness as a ruse in such a way that leaves a customer uncomplaining despite not being served for what he came to the branch.

It is not strange to see one visiting the branch more than once for a single work. 

Perhaps they treat a customer served by telling him to come another day for some reason or the other. 

          Needless to say in the eyes of banks only such customers are valued ones that have heavy deposit potential.

As a caveat I must say not all employees are driven by such urge to stagger.

 Of course some do respond with responses to your satisfaction but their numbers are few and far between.

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The Bankers' tactics remind me of my childhood days.

When I was a child my activities created petty troubles in different ways for which I was punished by teachers and my elders alike.

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               I remember how I would heckle my Bhabhi (the wife of my eldest brother). 

Having returned from the school in the evening, 

I would ask her-

भौजी! खाय ले कि सब अछि?(Bhabhi! What are there to eat?)

Before she could reply I would further ask her.

भात अछि?(Is rice available?)

भौजी(Bhabhi)-हं.(Aye)

रोटी?(Bread?)

आ तरकारी (and vegetables?)

भौजी(Bhabhi)-हं(Aye)

दालि?(pulse?)

नहिं; दालि ते खतम भऽ गेल छै.(oh sorry! Pulse is no more left to serve.) 

I would then insist--- "हम दालिये संग रोटी खायब. पहिने अहां अखन दालि बनाबू.(oh! Then I must eat the bread along with pulse only; the same must be cooked right now)

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 Somehow the banking personnel of the branch act with the same unrelenting approach to their customers as that of mine in my childhood.

Even the helpline desk or so-called Grahak Mitra (ग्राहक मित्र) in the branch seems to play only bare formalities without substantial cooperation.    

   Sometimes I imagine how people having no link of sorts or insufficient understanding of banking forms comprising lengthy and numerous columns of boxes with jargon manage to get their work done!

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I can say with responsibility that most of the SBI branches operate in the most insensitive way to the point of it being callous.

The inconveniences with the SBI expressed above is only the tip of the iceberg. 

In case you don't have any acquaintances or you don't like to encash your acquaintances in terms of reduction of your inconveniences, you stand to face the music in most of the branches of the SBI.

 

The sensible ones will advise that lodging complaint may be of some help but that also has limited impact only and that too with some cost of further inconveniences.

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In view of the fact described above, it is time to break the myth that offices in Bihar Government also function like this as someone may observe in absence of updated knowledge of the working in the government offices that has undergone a sea change.

Barring corrupt practices of sorts which earn bad names to the government offices, the functioning of the system under the government is not that nasty as is in the system run by the SBI. 

Upon sharing the feeling with a friend of mine he said- यार! अब तो थाना भी अपना इमेज सुधार चुका है. जाओगे तो पानी के लिए भी पूछेगा.आज के स्टेट बैंक में जाने पर कुछ-कुछ तब के थाना में जाने जैसी फिलिंग होती है!

(He said to me -O Dear! Even the police station today has changed its image from being a heckler to a co-operator. 

At least they would offer you a glass of water upon your going there. 

But go to any branch of the SBI as a commoner and observe your feelings that develop upon interacting with a Banking Babu.Less said the better.)

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Note- the opinions expressed above are entirely personal and need not coincide with those of others. 

 It may vary from person to person.

 It may be quite the opposite also if you are a customer other than a common one.

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With due apologies to all my close relatives & friends who are or have been employees of the SBI.

                         Good Night.

                                              R.R.Prabhakar.

                                                15.10.2022.