HSBC has, in my opinion, among the weakest customer service processes in India. Even public sector banks are more responsive and intelligent than them. While at the top level, HSBC is proactive in developing new products and using IT for better banking, they hire only people with an IQ of 12 at the lower grades.
n the past 5 years, I have never resolved any issue with them without escalating to the highest level. In most cases, the issue is a no brainer but the executives are too lazy to go beyond the stock replies. Either they are very scared of deciding in favor of the customer or they are not interested in the job.
Other problems with HSBC includes their poor branch and ATM network. Entire Bangalore has only 3 branches! Plus they are not very helpful when you visit the branch and actually look at you as some sort of distraction or annoyance.
Further they have charges like 1% penalty for early break in Fixed Deposits, annual fee for credit and debit cards, fee for visiting branch, etc without really a better service in return. HDFC has no such charges, still their financial health is better than HSBC.
In the long run, size and marketing can only fool some of the people some of the time. In my limited experience, the foreign banks have really been having a field day abusing customers in India in the absence of any biting regulation from RBI. The Indian government must use the meltdown as an opportunity to teach these shaking giants that they must shape up or ship out, if they wanna do business in India