Feb 07, 2008 03:08 PM
5354 Views
When you have weight in your purse, you are tall, dark, handsome person and you can sing too.Barclays is always on lookout of such customers. However, they do not understand different types of music, I think.
Just today I received a call from Barclays bank with a offer of personal loan. Well this was not the first time. In past, I have received approximately 10 telephone calls from Barclays. Everytime I refused business with them with a request to struck off my name and telephone number and please do not disturb me. Once, I registered my protest with their Mumbai office.
Music begins, today caller lady executive was hell bent on offering me personal loan. Preliminary enquiry questions - Sir are you salaried or self employed. My answer was business person. Sir, what kind of business you have. My answer was Public Relations i.e PR. Probably PR is new business to Barclays, as lady telecaller executive failed to understand what PR stands for or what does Public Relation means. Well that is obvious Barclays.
So, Sir do you pay income tax. Oh Yes and gravefully whole income tax department knows it. So sir can you provide income tax return? Sir income is available in top right hand corner of income tax return. So, Sir how much was tax paid. Well this is to personal question but we pay handsomely to Govt and true to our liability. Sir, if you have credit card or existing loans it will be easy for us do issue personal loan. No.......i do not have any plastic card. I believe in cash.
Then she transfers the call to seniors. Now its time to grill them. From where you get my number? Answer comes from Database. Who maintains Databse.....Barclays Bank. From where they collect the numbers....Sir it is available in yellow pages, from mobile companies and from Internet. Is there any published telephone directory of mobile phones...now this senior is puzzled with so many questions. Ultimately, it was impressed to this gentleman that I am not intrested in any kind of loan and you better do not bother me again. Please respect Do Not Disturb Policy and make sure that your executives too follow the same. Sorry Sir was the response.
To apologize is to build a platform for next offence, this fits perfectly to Barclays Bank. Everytime they say sorry and within a weeks time they harrass the tall, dark, handsome person who can sing too. This concert is going on. Do Not Call is least effective mechanism and telemarketers are choosing innovative ways and means to tap customers. Everything is fair. We too respect telemarketers who provide kind and courteous information. But when someone is not intrested, his number should be immediately flagged and removed from database.
Since music is really difficult to understand, I make my following suggestions to Barclays Bank.
1) Publish email addresses and direct mobile numbers of their Chairman, Director, General Managers on Barclays website and see to it that every call is attended in 3 rings. Do not get panic if you get a telephone call from complainants when you are in washroom, when you are in middle of something, driving a vehicle, etc and hear the complainant.
2) Penalize telemarketer for repeated offence and pay the amount to complainant by Barclays cheque. Learn paying compensation model from SBI.
3) Learn to apologize the way ICICI does.
4) Have some basic respect to privacy of others and human beings in particular.
Barclays may be in business of bancassurance but telephonecallsassurance is unsolicited.*
Hope Barclays Brand Manager enjoy this music.*
