Prime locations, pricey properties, swanky furniture, plush interiors, young, hep staffers peering endlessly into the screens of endless bank of computers, or yakking away on plenty of phone lines, few of them busy on internet, fancy salaries and perks, slick ads in press and on TV, celebrity endorsements……is all that distinguishes ICICI Bank (Ibk) from your good old neighbourhood Public Sector Bank(PSB) in a dilapidated building, with worn out furniture, too many greying staffers busy doing nothing in particular, more happy discussing the latest VRS scheme, or expected IBEA strike call, endless pages of hefty ledgers gathering dust strewn all over….but at least someone recognises you and says hello in your language sometimes.
As far as Customer Service is concerned, that is the last thing on the minds of the bank employees whether of PSBs or Ibk. Customers are incidental, an unavoidable nuisance, a necessary evil.
Ibk spends crores on fancy ads in glossies, TV, internet, and pays Amitabh Bachan and KBC, (whose money is it anyway!) hoardings all over the city promise e-banking, phone-banking, WAP enabled services, and what not! If only ICICI concentrated its time and efforts on customer service!
My own experience with Ibk has not been a good one, and I have heard many similar opinions.
To get your pass book updated or a cheque book issued, it takes a max of 15-20 minutes in a PSB, Ibk takes 10 days! Account statements and cheque books are centralised in Bombay, everything has to come from Bombay, hence it takes 10 days.
When you go with a cheque for deposit , or a cheque requisition slip to Ibk, noone wants to touch it. Please drop it in the box, you are told. I did it. Some junior staffer must have accidentally detached or misplaced the pay-in-slip attached to my cheque of 150, 000 and the cheque never got credited to my account despite having been cleared. It was lying in suspense account, nobody tried to find out why, or look at the cheque itself which had all the details. My chequ book requisition was forwarded to Bombay, Bombay sent the cheque book to Bangalore branch, and the branch then couriered it to me, the whole process took 10 days! Wow, what service! Internet speed!
As against this, I have found that small branches of PSBs like IOB or BOB give you a personalised service with a smile and a cup of (however insipid) coffee!
ICICI Bank is much ado about nothing.