Customer isn’t king

Picture the scene. It's 8am. The room is full of around 300 men, and tensions are already running high. Suspicious glances are exchanged, that lead to conversations, that lead to deals.

"What's your best price?" I am asked.

"Two hundred dirhams," I reply.

"Ha ha ha. Good joke my friend. Five hundred, no less. I have plenty of takers. You choose."

So, where I am? In the Dubai Financial Market, looking for a punt on a soaring share? Or trying to flog a pair of Justin Timberlake tickets?

As it turns out, neither. This, rather sadly and worryingly, is a typical morning at the Dubai headquarters of Standard Chartered. What happens is very simple: each morning, at least 300 people want some kind of banking service, and they want it now.

The queuing system involves punching a ticket and waiting for your number to be called. This usually entails a wait of between one to three hours - as bad as four hours on a Thursday, as the weekend approaches.

Dubai's more astute entrepreneurs have of course began their own brand of customer service. They queue up from 7.30am and punch as many tickets as possible, before selling them on to genuine customers. By the time the likes of me get there, we have a simple choice: wait for four hours, or pay 500 dirhams from a banking "ticket tout" and jump the queue.

How could this shambles happen? We are not talking here about a new bank that has just arrived in town and is trying to get its customers services department in shape.

We are talking about a company with shares that are trading at an all-time high of US$36 a go, has a history of 150 years in banking and employs 60,000 people in 50 countries. It is not exactly short of cash: in 2006, the bank's operating income was up 26% to US$8.62bn, profit before taxation was up 19% to US$3.18bn and its total assets were up 24% to US$266bn.

But somehow, when it comes to Dubai - and I guess by association the Middle East - the likes of Standard Chartered seem to play by different rules. Such is the drive for profits and revenue growth - largely through selling credit cards and personal loans - that little, if any investment or basic effort is being made on the most basic of banking needs - having enough counters.

This has allowed the ticket touts - whose entrepreneurship I have to actually applaud - to flourish in this environment.

And I fear things will only get worse. With Barclays having just entered the UAE market and at least two other banks set to follow its example, the lending market has never been bigger. And lending being lending, it's not something anyone likes to do in person. A few nice phone calls, some paperwork biked to your office and hey presto, you have a loan, or a credit card (or usually both).

It is here that the banks are putting their investment - into aggressive, commission-driven sales reps.

Yet the most crucial element of personal banking - decent customer service - has been left behind on the shelf somewhere.

As we have seen with property in the past three years in the UAE, the banking sector is on the verge, if not already into, spectacular growth.

Two years down the line, there is likely to be a period of consolidation.

With so much choice on the market, it will all come down to customer service - an area that right now, no single bank can claim to be winning.

Print | Email | Discuss this article

| Share |

READERS' COMMENTS

Customer isn’t king
Posted by Firozali A. Mulla MBA PhD, DUBAI, UAE on Monday 5 May 2008 at 18:22 UAE time

May be you are in the wrong trade. The motto these days is, “Delight your customers”. You are not in business if you have no customers, good or bad.
Firozali A. Mulla MBA PhD

Click here to post a comment

Add your Comment All posts are sent to the administrator for review and are published only after approval. ArabianBusiness.com reserves the right to remove any comment at any time for any reason. Please keep your responses appropriate and on topic. Arabian Business would like to point out that only comments relevant to the story will be published. Any containing personal insults or inappropriate language will not be approved.
Name *
Remember me on this computer
Email *	(Your email address will not be published)
City
Country
Subject *
Comment *
Notify me of further comments
Enter the words above *
Please click post only once - your comment will not be published immediately.

MORE FROM ARABIANBUSINESS.COM