Apr 22, 2004 05:23 PM
2886 Views
(Updated Apr 22, 2004 05:25 PM)
What can you say about a bank that is 150 years old and is the ?World?s Local bank? (Forgive me Erich Segal, for I have sinned!), that - it has now the experience to understand customer needs and that it understands local culture. Nah!HSBC needs to take a leaf out of ?how to satisfy customers ? by public sector banks? and rigorously follow it to the hilt.
Well, my personal experience with HSBC has been extremely bad. We (husband and I) have taken a home loan from them and the type of interest is ?floating?. In layman?s terminology (for that is what I understand), it means that as the market rate changes, the rate of interest at which the bank has given the loan would also change. Since the rate of interest has been going down in the last few years, we too opted for a floating rate of interest.
At the time of taking the loan, we were informed by the bank that any interest change would happen only after the 1st year. (we witnessed the fall from 9% to almost 7.25% without any excitement). So, after the 1st year got over, we happily waited for the change to happen in our monthly statement. Surprisingly nothing had changed in the statement! What happened? Why did we fall from HSBC?s heavenly grace? We had to wait because we were out of the country.
So, once we reached India, we trooped to the HSBC office and asked them to review the rate of interest and what we witnessed and experienced have been presented below as:
A. what we had to personally undergo
B. and what other customers had to undergo
A. We had to visit the HSBC office 5 times in 2 weeks for this issue. Also, I made innumerable calls to the call center. I have spoken to so many executives in the bank and the supervisors at the call center, that I can easily deliver mails to their office. The executive at the HSBC home loan counter kept assuring us that the change would happen the very next day and that she would give us a call regarding the change. We waited by the phone like lovelorn teenagers for the phone to come ? but it never used to come (?Cos, how could I have called you ? when the change had not happened?).The reasons for the status quo given were ludicrous to completely banal ? from ?employee in the back office was sick? (!!!) to the ?bank closes at 3 pm for customer queries so we could not have passed the request?). We threatened and cajoled the straight faced, unimpressed personnel to no effect. One of the executives made a call in front of us to her superiors regarding our case, and the jejune girl said this aloud ?Ok, so the change in their rate of interest is not mandatory and it is as per our wish?. Can you imagine an international organization having rules(?) like this? Then this girl offered a ?you scratch my back, I scratch yours? policy, i.e., take insurance for our house from HSBC and the process would be faster. We declined and therefore I guess the process got further hampered and took about 2 months time to finally happen. (it got done last week ? we got the news from my in laws).
Now the question is why do we not take the loan to some other bank? Reasons are
we are now wary of other international banks offering loans
HSBC charges a penalty if we shift the account to some other bank (by the way, it did charge us a processing fee for ?changing the rate of interest on our home loan?)
As we were in India for a very short time, we did not have the time to really look into offers given by other banks.
Foolishly, I have already closed my Bank of India account. (yes, I have kicked myself unconscious for this mistake).
B.Now about the other poor sods who had the misfortune to have an account with the bank.
As you enter the office, you need to register yourself with the employee standing in the ?May I help you?? desk. She writes down your name and type of enquiry in a huge register and then calls out your name as soon as the servicing executive is free. Sounds hunky dory? Another innocent system busted ? this employee actually has to turn every time to see whether the servicing executive is free or has to make a trip to their desk to find out whether she can send the next customer. In this high-tech era, the bank should save this employee from exercising so much and provide a phone. There were a number of customers who jumped on this employee, because she sent customers out of line and then had the temerity to say, ?I sent them first, because they had a very small question to ask?! Anyways once you become a pro in understanding this system, the advice is - jump the queue and barge in straight to the servicing executive.
Badly maintained online terminal to check account status. The mouse does not work!! A geriatric customer assumed that it was because he was not very proficient with computers and then the computer operator suggested that he should get his son or daughter along with him to check his online account.
Stained seating arrangements! I did not sit down for fear of catching bed bugs.
Other than my husband?s raised voice, on at least 3 occasions I heard other customers ranting and hyperventilating loudly about the mismanagement and bungling happening in the bank. I understand, that we are not ?key? customers, as we are not high net worth type for the bank. So should we be discriminated against in our own backyard?
Let me not bad mouth the Bank completely, after all they had good air conditioning (to allay customer tempers) and nice cold aqua guard water (to soothe customer?s anguished throats).
I do not know much about other International banks but I do feel that by just having a 24 hours call center and having employees answer the phone with a ?We apologise for the wait, Madam, How may I help you?? is not enough to earn accolades from customers. What do you say?
