Daily Times

Amid pondering from customer care to customer nightmare in our banking sector, a ray of hope envisions and emanates towards customer-friendly and mutually rewarding bank reforms for a change.

It is a question of a slow and gradual transformation from deep-rooted and die-hard immobilisation and procrastination to a customer-friendly mindset. Easy said than done!

If the sun were to shine over our banking horizon, it would only be, with the seriousness of purpose and penetrative thinking, to allocate and economise time and resources on customer-friendly and value-adding bank reforms.

Let it be a gradual once-in-a-quarter process in a customer-friendly week. It is a matter of getting gradually accustomed to and acclimatised with understanding customer psychology and expectations. Gradual, yet effective given deep-rooted practices.

Indeed, our illustrious and innovative bankers as well as the cherished gurus of our banking sector are capable of helping devise and implement effective and enthralling counselling and training sessions in customer-care for the staff down the management line! The top management has to lead from the front to be trend-setters in this connection, please.

Looking for a change for the better in national savings and resource mobilisation is a challenge indeed!

It has to be borne in mind that all management and staff are humans, who, themselves, need motivation despite all loyalties, commitment and altruism. It is, particularly, a question of rewarding bank staff and workers with incentives or bonuses for customer-friendly performances.

Anticipated to pay rich dividends is once a quarter, four times a year customer-friendly week with incentives and bonuses for staff on result-oriented performance on customer confidence, satisfaction and motivation in all banking operations like Information, account opening, chequebook chores, account activation, ATM service, bank drafts, pay orders, bank statements and resource mobilisation as crux of the matter.

Let quarterly customer-friendly week be feasibly characterised by warm-hearted smiles and cheers, entertaining short videos and documentaries, hospitable hi-tea parties, refreshing and rejuvenating celebrity sessions, captivating gifts and give-away. It has to be inventively ensured that normal and routine banking continues unabated during the proposed customer-friendly week.

Looking for a change for the better in national savings and resource mobilisation is a challenge indeed! It is a tough ask deviating from the straight and narrow practices of honestly and logically purposeless and meaningless banking when the majority of promising but ignorant national population encounter lack of information, red-tape, tough and tedious procedures even in opening a bank account what to talk of its follow-up.

The sun will shine over our banking horizon only amid mutual rewards with facilitation to our senior citizens, widows, sick and handicapped from principle to practice, taking on board beyond upper strata our masses, the overwhelming majority of our illiterate population and to revive in letter and spirit children’s banking for economising and resource mobilisation mindsets towards a better and brighter Pakistan.

The writer has wide and varied experience in educational and media management. He contributes to print and electronic media and pursues CSR and philanthropic work