by
Editi Effiong
For the larger part of the last decade, GTBank has been the most
loved bank in Nigeria. It is fact also, that most of us – most people
who got GTBank accounts, did so without any form of marketing. We walked
in with our feet, got our forms and joined the queue at the customer
service desk.
The allure of GTBank was easy. The brand was slick, cool and the
service was fantastic. Most people who got GTBank accounts did because
it was cool – it was almost like being associated with the GTBank brand
made one cool in extension. All the cool kids had GTBank accounts and
brand loyal folks like me endured hundreds of “why don’t you have a
GTBank account?” type questions.
Eventually, the wife and I needed to consolidate our accounts on a
bank platform with the right services, and choosing GT was easy. The
platform let us do most of the things we wanted with our money,
including international transfers. And that Mastercard was additional
value – we didn’t need to fund an international account to use a US card
abroad – we could spend from our local account with little fuss (and at
CBN rates, which didn’t please out mallam). Both Naira and Dollar
Mastercards worked on most merchant platforms online.
The allure of GTBank doesn’t end with the middle class, and aspiring
young people. Even the Mallams and artisans were caught in the hype
(back then, it wasn’t hype, it was the sensible thing to do). My Mallam
has a GTBank account, my shoe store has a GTBank account, my new tailor
has a GTBank account. Recently, I needed to pay vendors working at our
office, and my carpenter suggested I “do a GTBank now?”, meaning I
should do an online transfer for him instead of giving him cash.
But all that, is dead. Dead and gone. At the peak of its
brand might, GTBank was like Apple – it was the perfect bank, it could
do no wrong. Any complaints about poor service were done in hushed
tones. But not anymore. Rumours of poor services started slowly, hush
hush, and then gathered strength when influential customers found the
will to complain publicly. Then came the internet banking crashes (which
are still going on). Almost overnight, almost every mention of GTBank
on social media was in relation to some form of bad service. The
mystique of infallibility, built on brilliant service is gone.
Why?
There’s too many reasons why the value of the GTBank brand is
falling. A quick sweep of social media tells a tale of frustration, pain
and disappointment from hitherto satisfied customers.
A Google search of variations of “gtbank problems” will supply
endless links of customer complaints. But what makes these complaints
worse is that the customer service reps at the branches seem to have
suddenly stopped responding to customer troubles. Even worse still, the
courteous staff we had come to associate with GTBank all seemed to have
moved to a parallel universe, leaving behind clones who didn’t inherit
the all important customer first genes.
Was there ever a time until recently, when we associated sweaty customers on endless queues with GTBank?
The third party transfer on savings accounts debacle is another case
in point. While I know this was possibly a routine maintenance issue
that maybe extended its scope, the PR associated with that episode was
so horrible, it did no favours to the brand.
The fact that there was a general failure on the internet banking
platform before then just served to make the situation look worse than
it really was. However, the biggest failure here was GTBank’s customer
care department. They did not forewarn, they did not communicate
properly during the episode, and they did not mop up after the issue was
resolved.
The real question now is: what happened?
Is it a leadership problem? Is the retirement of Fola Adeola
and sadly, the death of Tayo Aderinokun, the reason GTBank’s culture of
efficient customer care been eroded?
Becoming bigger comes with bigger issues. GTBank is about
the best performing banking stock in Nigeria. The GTBank brand has given
it the push in the markets, and fueled the ban’s growing stature and
expansion. The question that remains, on the back of another solid year,
will be if GTBank’s customer care commitments can keep up with its
growth. A stronger brand means more customers, and more issues emerging,
and more problems to resolve. If stupid people in large groups can
wreck havoc, there’s no saying what can happen in a congregation of
‘smart’ people piling-on on one bank.
A big selling point for GTBank had always been technology.
The internet banking platform was great. But again (this is becoming a
recurring term), not anymore. The internet banking platform failures are
becoming everyday issues. This afternoon, I got three SMS notifications
for one transaction, and no email. At other times, the notifications
are delayed by a day or two. The transaction failures at ATMs probably
should be left for another day.
The reality for GTBank, like Apple today, is that the competitors are
no longer sitting on their hands, doing nothing. Other banks are doing
stuff too. Of the other internet banking platforms I’ve tried out,
Zenith Bank and Diamond Bank provide better services than GT. Zenith
Bank transfers are sharp and stress free. Diamond Bank’s internet
banking interface is much better than GTBank’s.
I am still wondering when GTBank’s interface will improve across
platforms, and their transactions will go asynchronous – Diamond Bank
has done this already. If you have ever tried to log in to the GTBank
internet banking platform on an iPad, you will find the process
cumbersome and annoying. One has to zoom about 4-levels up to the get
the right sized tap buttons for the password input.
By the way, it takes me a couple of browser refreshes to get to the
GTBank website, and I don’t know if this is a social experiment, or just
another problem with GTBank technology.
The sum total of this GTBank case is that we have gone past when we
just want our money to be safe with a bank. We know GT will keep our
money safe. But we want better services, and we want it with GTBank.
Anyone who really loves a brand feels sick when the brand disappoints –
this is what most GTBank customers are feeling. We have got to the point
where GTBank and Zenith Bank are mentioned in the same breath, with
regards to technology. There’s nothing wrong with Zenith Bank by the
way, but it’s a big fall for GT though – because they had reigned
supreme for so long, and we had come to look up to them as an icon of
technology and service.
No amount of cool stories on NDANI will replace the simple part of
the customer who yearns for simple, stress free customer service.
I have a small story from GTBank of back in the day. I had gone to
the bank to make a deposit that was obviously larger than what I could
make over the counter. However, the queue from the bulk counting room
was spilling over. There was obviously nothing the bank could do about
the number of people trying to deposit there, but when I decided I could
just slide my card in at the counter, deposit my cash, and save the
bank one more person on the long queue, I expected the teller to apply
some logic and see I was offering a solution rather than cutting
process.
The teller however said he would rather I went to bulk counting
because I was over the limits. I pointed out the lines, and how bad it
was for image and how I was offering a solution – no budge. Then branch
manager happened to pass by and overheard this conversation. She came
over, told the teller I had a point, and even offered to run my
transaction. In two minutes, I was done. The manager then went to the
line spilling from the bulk counting room, and announced that if any of
the customers there was paying into their own accounts and had a card,
then they could come over the nearly empty banking hall, and have the
tellers help them out.
This story of course is from 2012. But this is the kind of story we
often heard about the GTBank of old. Efficient operations which always
kept the customer happy.
So if anyone knows where the old GTBank has been kidnapped to, could
you kindly return to 635 Akin Adesola Street, Victoria Island, Lagos,
Nigeria (found using
Google cache because the main page was down).
YNaija.com
