Customer Feedback – SBI Best Practice

Couple of months ago I was at a conference organized by Conscious Capitalism Institute in Mumbai. Easily the best session was by Mr. O.P.Bhatt the chairman of the State Bank of India. The man being credited with turning around the giant public sector enterprise. He spoke in depth about the “Parivartan” (meaning “change”) program which touched every single employee at the bank. The strategic initiatives of getting their basics right are obviously visible with the bank’s stock performing much better than the market.

There are a couple of things that he said I would like to highlight before talking about the SBI case. One was the initiative to sensitize the staff of the bank that the average customer who has a savings bank account with Rs.5000 balance or a Rs.50000 fixed deposit, its lakhs of these average customers who provide the bank with required cash to conduct its earning ways. The other was about Parivartan2, a program to help the employees of SBI find purpose in their job.

To see SBI and its functionality for myself, few weeks ago I stepped into a newly opened branch in Hyderabad. Quite expectedly I had to move from one counter to another to another in a small branch of 6-7 employees to open a savings bank account. Finally the assistant branch manager gave me a form and thats all he could do. He couldn’t tell me about the features of the account, detail forget selling it to me. Obviously disappointed with I began to walk out while i noticed a print-out stuck on the wall which read “If not satisfied with our service please SMS “UNHAPPY” to 8008202020 I immediately messaged UNHAPPY to that number, not expecting much from a Govt. run bank.

Much to my surprise I got a call from the local head office enquiring about my grievance. Once I explained to them what had happened, the assistant branch manager called me to ask me why I complained. I tried to reason that I was present in the capacity of a customer and was to be treated like one, not as a burden. Thoroughly disappointed by their rather rude behavior again I text messaged UNHAPPY.

Within half an hour I received a call from the branch manager politely enquiring about the incident. After giving me a patient hearing, he apologized and invited me to pay a visit again to the branch the next week with in which period he wanted to “counsel” his staff about behaving better with customers. Not convinced by his explanation (which I truly thought was very appropriate) I said I required to open an account immediately and couldn’t wait for his improvement of service and that I needed to choose my banker soon. He immediately as a gesture offered to personally come down to my office, take the required documents and open my account.

This was an excellent experience but it didn’t end there. Couple of days back I received another call from the Local head office enquiring about the status of my complaint, if it had been resolved, if I needed to escalate it etc. This follow up was again impressive.

The entire experience left me spell bound. A Govt. Run enterprise, with supposed red tape, with one of the strongest banking employee unions was able to deliver this kind of service. First round of applause for the bold initiative to take up asking customers to complain at will through a simple text message. Second round of applause to the branch manager, who would be a fairly senior officer, dealing with smallest of customers (just a savings bank account with a minimum balance of Rs.1000), carefully treading the path of managing his staff who would be protected by very strong labor laws & unions by not taking action but by “counseling” them. Third applause for following up and making sure the grievance is being attended to.

Since the experience my respect for the banking giant, SBI, has grown a notch higher. It makes me wonder what stops every business in the service industry from putting in place such a strong feedback system. It is more than worth investing in feedback from customers. If an elephant like SBI can do it, so can everyone else. Looking forward to my clients of the service industry implementing such robust feedback mechanisms and that this fever spreads across the world. Businesses which are not customer centric will have to fade away into oblivion.

UPDATE: SMS UNHAPPY has been nominated for eIndia mGovernance initiative of the Year Award. It is being implemented across 1100 SBI branches in AP serving over 14 million customers. In 6 months they have received 11000 complaints and have resolved 96% of them. ISB has taken up the project as a case study and is likely to implement it as part of course curriculum. Read more. Vote for SMS UNHAPPY.

10 Key Learnings of 2009

The difference between knowledge and wisdom is doing. So the learning I’m going to share are not pieces of read text, but the wisdom I gained in the year 2009. Hope many can relate, few can contradict and many more can quicken their journey’s to wisdom through this post.

1. Starting-up is good fun: I myself started two enterprises (NxT Bizness Solutions & Dot Now Social), and worked with few others in 2009. From taking the decision to start-up from understanding of market need, potential customers to actually finalizing the name, registration its all good fun. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the freebies of starting up too; the learning, the hiccups, the obstacles, the glamor etc. I explored my inherent affection for startups in 2009.

2. SMEs are a HUGE market: Studying SMEs for the entire year, taking off from my stint at Milagrow, I realized the potent market of SMEs in India. Realized how much of market need exists, how little is getting met. It was very nice to see many entrepreneurs across the country dealing with this opportunity in their unique way. I also touched base with how little is known about SMEs on the whole. There is a huge gap to fill about understanding SMEs in India.

3. Power of Social Media and Social Technologies: Though I was an early adopter of social media while in college, then graduated into a laggard after I started working. Once on my own, I explored social media encouraged by a study by McKinsey. It is a revolution that is catching up, and what we have experienced is the tip of the iceberg. Social Media and social technologies can greatly aid business. This is beyond marketing and can prove extremely useful through all Conversations of Business.

4. Ecology is the new Business Ethic: Ecologies have existed in business ever since. I got introduced to linkages and ecologies in 2008 during my stint at Milagrow in an all new way. 2009 was the year to grasp the big picture. Co-Creation, Co-evolution, core competence taken to a new level, leverage of strengths (processes, customers, relations etc) and many more forms. I came in touch with very many and truly experienced the power that lay hidden. I’m more than ordinarily convinced that Ecology is the next Business ethic.

5. Culture is the secret of great organizations: Culture is very powerful. It has defined the progress of civilizations of the world. The combination of value system and belief system manifested into practices holds the key to not only civilizations but also organizations. During 2009, I came in touch with several organizations, some had weak cultures, some had strong cultures, some cultures were elevating and some destroying. It was the year of experiencing how culture defines the organization. I also learnt, culture is not for a wall poster, it cannot be “driven in”, it must be identified and not cultivated, in the context of an organization.

6: Relationships of Business: Healthy relationships are the key even in business. But understanding the relations of business goes beyond. Business is done between one who needs and one who provides. As long as the context is business, there is no more, no less. This is the most important lesson of 2009 for me. When there is an existing relation with a person beyond the purview of give and take, it is advisable to think twice about bringing objectivity that is required for business into such a relation. It was extremely difficult for me to build the objectivity (disclosure: I failed at it) into a relation that had business as the newest dimension.

7. USA is a nation built by Entrepreneurs: I read that USA had high business quotient, it was a nation pursuing personal liberty etc. When I visited USA, it was truly an experience (much to my surprise). It was an experience of how the power of individuals has been harnessed to build a nation. I had only come in touch with the fallacies and the ills of this excessive personal liberty leading to unprecedented greed, but experiencing USA was about realizing the collective potential individual endeavor.

8. Control is an Illusion: Like most of us I was one of them who congratulated myself for each achievement and blamed circumstances for all the failures (though I truly deep within knew neither was I totally responsible for success nor failure). 2009 is when I began to accept that events happen and I only did what I could do, I did not control or create any outcome. I began to practice letting go, practice not pursuing the end, but pursuing the means. I began to respect the Hindu philosophy of Karma one more notch higher for it gave the entire civilization the strength to let go and let come without attaching too much value to it. I’m slowly beginning to travel for the purpose of travelling in this journey called Life (be it professionally or personally)

9. Money is not that unimportant: Money to me was always a secondary virtue. Of a lower class of sorts. The year that went by taught me things about money I never properly understood before. 2009 was the year I began to give a lot more respect for money in a manner that I understand its value. I realized “Money can Buy”. Hence never discount it to second grade.

10. I’m not that much of a rookie after all: I began 2009 by moving on from Milagrow to start my own consulting enterprise. For a 21 year old it was quite an important decision, but I made the leap. Many times I thought to myself if at all I’m capable enough to take on the challenges presented by my clients and my startup. But I thoroughly enjoyed many of the solutions I gave to my clients all year through. My clients were much more experienced than me, few of them had done Graduation in Business, one of them in an top 25 B school in the world. But I too added value, enough value that they could acknowledge and appreciate. While I will always be thankful to all of them for having put faith in me and given me an opportunity, I’m also a lot more confident and don’t feel like a rookie anymore.

These are just 10 of the most important ones, and mostly only in the professional domain. 2009 was a bumpy year where I learnt many things both professionally and personally. Elaborating further is beyond the scope of this post, but I’m grateful for all the opportunities I got in 2009, I’m thankful I met the people I did, I’m glad it came, I’m happy it is over!

Americans turn to small companies

A survey conducted revealed 22% of American workers who were laid off from full-time jobs in the last year found new jobs with small businesses. Another59% would be interested in working for a small business, and29% are considering starting one of their own. The potential for job growth isn’t the only reason. 56% said that a “family-like” work environment appealed to them, and 48% felt they could make more of a difference in a small company. (courtesy CareerBuilder)

Hope the trend  reflects in India as well and more talent agrees to participate in entrepreneurial endeavor in Indian SMEs.