Life is full of ups and downs and so is my continuing relationship with ICICI Bank. I have had some exceptionally good experiences and certain ones that left an acrid taste in my mind lingering for
a tangible amount of time.
Here is a brief write-up of what I had met with at ICICI,
Account Transfer: My first Salary(& hence zero-balance) account gets all set on Nuv 2003 at Bangalore. My company transfers me to Chennai. I need to get a new A/C Number by having to visit the Cenotaph Road Branch in person - although my company has an ICICI Extension with-in the campus. That was a minor pain - but nothing more.
Cheque lost & Stop Cheque: I had once missed my mobile phone and a completely filled cheque at ICICI ATM near Ashok Pillar(Chennai). Within a few minutes of realizing that I had missed these, I hurried back to the ATM - but it was too late. I had then raised a stop-cheque after determining the cheque number which I lost after an extended conversation with a friendly Support rep. That was not bad - since I had lost my belonging and they’d be kind and supportive at the time.
Demat: I created a Demat relationship with ICICI sometime in 2006 and the rep told me to open another S/B account. He said this account too would be a zero-balance account like my Salary account. I was guillible and had bought this idea of his while opening the A/C. However, after some months I checked up with the bank at 42088000 and confirmed my gut-feel that this other account was not a zero-balance. It had taken me more than 5 months to have the first transaction into this account & yet there was no fine for not having maintained the minimum of 5k balance(quaterly). PLEASE NOTE THAT my salary account at ICICI almost always used to have more than 10k funds over these months. So, there was one other good thing about the bank.
Internet Banking: Though I was in the IT bandwagon, my entry to net-banking was slow. I was always a little concerned with the justice system in our country wherein if there was a net-banking fraud there might be a life-time involved in getting the thing corrected. However, once I started using net-banking, it was seamless. Till date I have found this to be best way to bank with ICICI - apart from visiting their always crowded ATMs for cash withdrawal.
Online Transactions: With an iota of increased confidence I was able to schedule Phone bill payments through ICICI’s Net-banking portal. I have booked Railway tickets using EFT and found it good. I have not been faced with any problems in this field - at least not till yet.
Credit Card: Although credit cards are not related to the bank in itself - however, this was the major pain area in my relationship. They denied a credit card - stating that they did not have service to my locality. That was really stupid because I already possess a HSBC Gold and there are others in my apartment complex who have ICICI Credit Cards. Even after 30 minutes over a call and umpteen number of e-mails(via their Net-banking portal), they weren’t able to provide the TRUTH as to why the card was denied. Any experts out there who could help me out & need any details, do let me know.
New Debit Cards: This was again a bad experience. Earlier when my old card expired they’d sent the new one to my home. However, the courier was sent back to the base branch(Cenotaph Road) because the door was locked. I had to visit them in person and prior to doing so(since it would require a travel of around 40 kms to&fro and at least 2 hrs of time) I had confirmed with their Phone-banking folks as to what would be the best time. It was the standard 8 to 8 and based on that I planned my visit to the Cenotaph Road branch one fine day and reached around 08 30 - mainly to make it before the crowd. I was good & found there were hardly any customers at the branch. I checked with the ICICI Folks out there and a gentleman wanted me to wait till the person-in-charge of the cards-distribution reached office. He added that this person would probably reach office around 09 45 or 10 15(since she was a supervisor or something). I then had to rely heavily on my communication skills, English-language hold and negotiation skills to get him to call her up, find a duplicate key of the locker which housed the card and provide it to me. That was not good because I expect that ICICI folks behave professionally and if there was an option to use the duplicate key then they should make the customer haggle over it for half-an-hour. That was really bad - but at the end of it - I had my new card.
Loans: I had also availed & fore-closed a Car Loan and it was pretty much event-less - except for crowd at the branch - Anna Nagar ICICI.
To sum all this up, you could go in for a relationship with ICICI if you are ready to put in some efforts from your side as well. DO NOT EXPECT TO BE TREATED LIKE ’CUSTOMERS SHOULD BE’. I expect that a premium banking firm to look at all its customers as valuable. I expect that the firm should work pro-actively to try and provide a better service. If you’ve got similar expectations, you’d find yourself with disappointing(at times even disgusting) experience with most of the Indian Service providers.
CONCLUSION: As long as I am India I shouldn’t be expecting to be treated like a Customer - at least not with Indian/India-based firms. Its like yesteryears Government officials treating the general public. THIS is called THE SYSTEM. The best way for you to get back, is to vent it out on the next tele-marketer that bothers you or take it in your stride and keep your head cool. I am trying my best to follow the latter idea.