Who am I?!!, Wasn’t this question asked over the centuries by both learned and the not so learned people . May be this is my turn to ask the same to myself. Why am I asking this question to myself, for which I know very well that I have no answer! Sitting in the loneliness of my house I have developed this habit of mental blabbering. I assume that the lonely living will make a person, a middle aged person, like me think and ask all these kind of unnecessary questions to oneself. Well I assume not all would do the same with the onslaught of the technology and the wide choice of home entertainment. But considering the shameful quality of the programs available from the 100 plus channels of all Indian and English language, you might as well agree with my widely and aimless theological state of mind. I also can completely agree with the point that, not all will follow the wavered mind of mine. But with quiet a good number of people who are forced to be a couch potatoes due to medical or social reason will at least, to a small extend, agree with my points.

Talking about the print, visual media, where are we heading. Like our political state of affairs is the “media” also falling to the clutches of opportunism? And are they following the myth of eyeball catching? In the mad rush for the number of eyeballs are we loosing sight of quality and the need of the viewer?. In banking industry the same paradox is being played out. In the name of the customer friendliness the same customer is being harassed bruised and has to put up with the burden of both costs which are hidden, Partially hidden and not hidden.. It is not the dichotomy of the single or a couple of industry, the same is being played out around the word and if looked closely, I am sure that we can see the same being played out in almost all the industry and in almost all the organization. At this place let us travel back to the time of our parents or even grand parents. In those times, may be with the non-invention of ‘professionalism’ or due to the non invasion of urbanization, people had known each other. The local keraya store run by the person had a fair amount of idea of what each of his regular customer needs and even I think he had the curtsey of extending few days credit to the customer. He had the knowledge of the number of members in the family and used to do the job of today’s Tabloids with focus on the local who is who. Gone are those days. Today is the day of database and the Tec friendly retail outlets. When our local un educated dukandar had the knowledge of adding up a month’s grocery bill of a big joint family, present day professionals , inclusive of me, need the help of electronics to do the job.

Every corporate person would have heard about the word “Customer Orientation” What does it really mean. As I belong to Banking industry let first try and comprehend the word in a banking perspective and extrapolate the meaning to other industries. I fell it is better to understand the term when you look at the word from the ‘other side’, I mean from the customer’s view point. How many of us are ‘delighted’ on receipt of a wedding/birthday cad on the occasion. Well presently in filling up an application for either account opening/loan application these are the few data that we are requested to fill up, which may include the dates we thought as very personal, like your wedding day your son’s birthday etc. and the biggest fun is the greeting cards which follow with the firm/ company’s advertisement regarding their products. For may professionals and firms there ends the customer Orientation.

One another problem faced by an average customer is facing different individuals on each of his visit due to companies finding the perfect person for the job and the resultant change of personals. One another problem faced by the today’s average customers specially the customers who are from last generation or from a couple of generation back, is the lack of understanding about today’s “specialization & Professionalism” wedded with technology. At this point let me recall a small incident which I witnessed some years back. At that time I was young by approximately 10 to 12 years. The company where I started my profession , used to debit the monthly salary of all the employees, to the salary account with a reputed bank. On a good day Bank decided to provide Debit card to all the salary account holders of the company, with a write up about how to use the ATM machine for the ‘convenience’ of the account holders. What the bank overlooked conveniently, was that their catalog for the Debit card was completely printed in English. The lower cadre employees like the runner and sweeper was lacking the knowledge to read and understand the catalog. I still vividly remember the fear and perplex look of the face of Ms. Beevi (our Cleaner) when she went to the strange looking machine which was replaced for the familiar face of the teller from whom she used to receive her monthly salary, encasing her cheque. Still the practice of printing the user’s manual in English continues. Still I have not come across a user’s manual with printing in local language. It would have been much better if the banks under stand the basic theory that the cost of higher technology is not good if the end user is unable to understand the use of the same.

Another perplexing and un understandable practice of many new age banks which I fail to understand is the reluctance of customer interaction. Few banks even charge the customer on them walking in to the branch. Are we becoming non believers with regard to our own customers?. Well after 13 years in credit I can vouch one thing, belief of other people’s statements are questionable unless validated. Still I cannot agree with the idea of non- interaction with the customer. The Apex Bank does have put in guidelines with respect to understanding of customer. But will we be able to understand each other without interacting with each others. Weather it be asset or liability departments of the bank, with out a proper and formal and informal interaction. Just collection certain documents will not make the bank/institution know the customer, for witch, according to me, a formal and informal communication line has to remain open and both the organisation and the customer should know each other.