Sustainable success of a bank depends upon the goodwill of its customers: MD & CEO
SRINAGAR: Sustainable success of a bank depends upon the goodwill of its customers. And after more than a year at the helm I see J&K Bank enjoying a huge reservoir of that client-goodwill among its valuable customers across operational geographies in the country.
MD & CEO, J&K Bank, Baldev Prakash made these remarks while chairing the main function of Bank’s second nation-wide customer-outreach program under ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ at Zonal Office Mumbai in presence of Zonal Head and other officers.
On the occasion, he said, “Therefore, in addition to embracing technology to serve the changing needs of our costumers we are paying adequate attention to fundamental aspects of our service delivery mechanisms that primarily include respecting the dignity of customers we serve while we make banking simple, swift, accessible and flexible. Besides, the Bank has a robust customer redressal mechanism in place to swiftly address all the concerns and promptly resolve all the grievances of our valuable customers.”
“As custodians of public trust, the fundamental role of banks is to maximize value of its stakeholders through efficient delivery of its products and services. And that efficient delivery can only be ensured through a regular exchange of views and feedback between the bank and its customers”, Baldev Prakash added.
Notably, Executive Director Sudhir Gupta presided over one such customer-meet in Srinagar. Meanwhile, it is for the second time in last six months the Bank organized country-wide customer-meets to listen, understand and resolve the issues faced by its clientele across its operational geographies. Around 3000 valuable customers attended 30 such meetings that were also conducted simultaneously at Cluster and Zonal levels of the Bank across the country.
Earlier, welcoming the participants at their respective places, the Bank’s General Managers, Divisional Heads, Zonal Heads and Cluster Heads apprised the participants about the Bank’s recent performance, consistent progress and highlighted the need for continuity in Bank-customer communication. The Bank’s leadership underscored the importance of feedback for achieving excellence in service delivery systems and emphasized upon the symbiotic nature of relationship between the Bank and its customers besides seeking cooperation of the participants for further strengthening of the bond.
On the occasion, the participant clients were also informed about the various customer-centric measures taken recently by the Bank. “Besides, out of 5,429 awareness camps conducted by 35 Banks under RBI’s Nationwide Intensive Awareness Programme in November 2022 in the UT, J&K Bank – as the Principal Torch Bearer in J&K – conducted 2,746 camps, wherein public awareness was enhanced about financial customer rights, Internal Grievance Redress (IGR) as well as the Alternate Grievance Redress (AGR) mechanism of RBI. During the campaign people across segments and regions were also educated in detail about the rising incidents of cyber frauds being perpetuated on the customers and were urged to exercise caution to stay protected”, speakers informed their audiences.
Appreciating the Bank for the massive customer-outreach, the participants welcomed the Bank’s efforts at making their services better besides airing their concerns. They urged the Bank to carry forward the two-way communication so that their relationship with Bank keeps refreshing and strengthening with passage of time.
Summing up his experience about the Bank, Majid Baba, a client who attended Srinagar meet said, “I am a long-time customer of the bank. And I feel appreciated and respected in these interactions. I am happy to see JK Bank making good on its commitments made during the last customer meet. While the Bank has over the years taken its customer engagement levels to new highs but last few quarters have been exceptional and I can say with confidence that ‘I am Listening’ campaign launched by the Bank around 14 years back looks more relevant and apt today”, while as Vinod Kumar, who was part of Mumbai meet said, “The bank is doing a fantastic job and going above and beyond any standards established by its clients.”
In another such meeting in Jammu, Daleep Pandita asserted, “Being a loyal customer of J&K Bank, I salute the management for convening such candid forums and put on record my appreciation for services of the Bank especially its doorstep banking service provided to sick and old people.”
“I urge the management of bank to address few processing issues and improve digital banking further to motivate other customers to join our bank”, added Delhi client Meetha Ram while acknowledging his long and deeply emotional bonding with the Bank.
Pertinently, the meetings started with a power-point presentation providing an overview of the Bank, its business share in UTs of J&K, Ladakh and RoI, its distinctions, grievance redressal structure and remedial measures the Bank takes for addressing customer grievances. While highlighting the features of Bank’s main deposit, retail loan products and major business loan schemes, the presentation also detailed the recent customer friendly initiatives like migrating to Finacle-10, facilitating settlement of Bad Loans through OTS schemes, improving IT platforms further for customer convenience besides ensuring zero waiting time for registration of grievances.