By Babajide Komolafe

When you are not satisfied with the services of your bank, you can do either of the following.

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You can terminate relationship with the bank, and go to another bank. Many bank customers have done this, but for two major reasons, it should not be first option.

No bank is perfect or there are not perfect banking services in any bank. As indicated in previous articles, incidences of poor services abound in all the banks.

So,there is high possibility that you would also encounter poor services in that other bank. Secondly, by changing your bank, you may have denied the management of the bank the opportunity to know that the staff is not treating customers well.

Though poor services abound in many bank branches, it is not the desire of the management and hence they don’t tolerate it. Hence when they are informed about such incidence, they take decisive action to correct it.

This is what informed the chief executive officer of a defunct bank to direct that his telephone lines should be displayed in all the branches of the banks for customers to report any incidence of poor services.

It worked like magic. I also remember the experience I had in the branch of a defunct bank. There was the long queue of customers and only one person was attending to the customers. When I observed that the bank’s staffs were insensitive to the plight of the customers, I sent a complaint to the Managing Director via text.

Within a minute, a senior official (maybe the branch manager) appeared and deployed two more staff to attend to the customers. That is why changing your bank because of incidence of poor services should not be the first option. Ultimately, it does not help the system.

The second thing you can do, which is what most bank customers do, is to accept the poor service being meted to you by your bank. You lament to friends and families but you refuse to take action. This also is not good for you and the industry.

This would encourage more poor services, and increase your suffering. Also it would lead to reduction of confidence in services of banks such that people would now prefer to keep money under their pillow, and hence be vulnerable to loses from theft, armed robbery etc.

The third thing you can do is to complain and be determined to pursue the matter to the highest authority, which is the Central Bank of Nigeria. How?

Based on the directive of the CBN on how banks should handle customers complaint (published in the last edition), the first step is to make a verbal complain at the Customer Care Desk of your bank, or   call the Customer Care Center. However, if you are not satisfied with the response or solution, the next step is to formally write to the management of the Bank.

Address the complaint to the Managing Director/Chief Executive of the bank, but make sure you copy your branch manager and the Director, Consumer Protection Department of the Central Bank of Nigeria.

You should also copy the Head of Complain Units, Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC). Further send a copy of the complaint to the Help Desk email of the CBN. (To be continued next week)