Challenges in customer service: Republic Bank in St Vincent under scrutiny

EDITOR: This article is to bring to the attention of Republic Bank and the general public of St Vincent, the inefficient, unprofessional staff behaviour and handicapped customer service system at Republic Bank, St Vincent.

I have been a client of the present Republic Bank and previous Scotiabank for over eight years. The staff, over these years, have been the same except that few new faces were added to the existing staff. The new faces act as trainees and occupy the teller counter area who are in direct contact with customers. Their ability of service is poor, the number of serving officials at teller counters are always fewer than the number of service windows.

The staff at teller counters are in the habit of leaving the counters very often in-spite of high volume of customers. The staff seem to be totally immune to the displeasure of the waiting customers. The average waiting time for customers is between 2 to 4 hours. The teller staff make multiple errors in their service and frequent call for senior staff intervention.

The present senior staff have working space in inside office cubicles. I have seen the present senior officers in the same teller counter area about five years back with poor work ethics and quality. I wonder how these workers get to occupy responsible positions of a reputed banking firm. I always wonder why the staff never retire nor leave the job for better opportunities. This system of staff placement has led to insensitivity of staff towards customer grievances and concerns. Out of my multiple visits to the Bank at an average of at least two visits a month for over eight years, I have never seen a day without expression of concerns of poor banking services by its customers.

The upstairs customer information and service area is another pathetic place to see. This area does not have a day in record without an argument going on between a customer and staff.

Unfortunate for the customers is that, this bank is the only bank in SVG with facilities of foreign currency account which are necessary for various businesses and foreigners serving in the island. Thus this is an important bank but with poor services.

I hope this article could correct the Republic Bank banking system at SVG to provide high class services to its customers.

I also wish the finance ministry of SVG give permission for international services such as foreign currency account facilities to other banks in SVG which are way better than Republic Bank in their services.

Customer

Editor’s note: Republic Bank is not the only bank in SVG to offer foreign account services.