Kotak Banking promotes the Pro and Edge accounts ensuring that you will lead a worried free life. These accounts has some features like DD Delivery and Cheque Pickup which you think will take the stress out of you of going to the bank.
My last experience is with Pro-Account Netbanking Service Request is as # Opened 2 service tickets before 12 Noonon 5th for Demand Draft and Cheque pickup ( as I was busy and thought to save some time) - by the way the Pro Account needs to have a 20 K minimum balance and so thought to use this facilities. Kotak mentions that such requests will be catered to within 4 hours.
This decision became a NIGHTMARE for me as I spent huge time and energy to follow up and get the request closed # At 6 PM I called the 1-800 Toll free number - They assured me that I should expect the deliverables by 8 PM IST.
# At 8PM IST - the customer service person did not have anything to say and I had to force him to give me a ticket number
# on 6th Morning I contacted the branch who informed me that the back end support team takes care of this and he will escalate
# A follow up with the 1-800 number and I forced the representative to hand the call to a Sr. Person. A Sr. Person came on the floor and assured me that he would check and call me in an hour
# The person called me in 1.5 hours and informed me that the courier person were out of staff and hence could not deliver on the 5th but promised that they would deliver by 1.30 PM IST
# At 2.30 PM IST - I called the toll free number to check another customer service person assured me that somebody would call me in an hour - I’M STILL WAITING
And yes NOBODY FROM THE BANK monitors service.bank[at]kotak.com - so sending emails to this id is a waste of time
In short, don’t trust and lock up your money in the Minimum Balances. The Bank does not have systems in place and they do not care and is not equipped for the customer services they promise. This means that for example there is no way for the Bank Managers or Customer Service Managers to know that for example out of X Drafts to be delivered to a particular location / Y was not delivered.
Also, while they assure you of a full time customer service point of contact, they keep changing and the bank does not inform you - at least in my case
The so claimed Pro-account Features are only for marketing and getting your hard-earned money locked
While I wrote a bad experience, let me also recall some good ones
# The first time I requested for a cheque pickup about a year back, marketing person who sold me the account ensured that the task was done
# the online scheduled payments ( automated ) work the perfect way
# the branches I visited were not so crowded so its faster over in the branch - I even recall office boys picking the cheque on your behalf instead of making you stand in line.
# The 1-800 customer care are very courteous and do not drop the call if you there is an escalation - I have some other experiences with other service providers where customer support will drop the call
BUT as I went for the Pro account and locked some good money for the services ( DD Delivery/Cheque Pickup) which I thought would save me time and energy during emergencies was not worth as I spent more time following up.
Appreciate if somebody can tell me of other banks who provide these services and whom I can rely on!