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I promise to serve you in less than 8 minutes: UAE bank

November 20, 2012 9:49 by Muhammad Aldalou

Say what you will about banks in the UAE (we sure have) but you’ve got to hand it to them, they’re trying. From RAK Bank being the first local bank to compose their own song as a clever marketing stunt back in July to Standard Chartered announcing an ‘8-minute teller service guarantee’ to all customers; one simply can’t ignore their efforts.

“Teller service customers are now guaranteed to be served within an eight minute timeframe across six of its branches across the UAE,” notes SC in their media statement.

Are they fixating their efforts in the correct areas? That, my friends, is an entirely separate conversation.

As Emirates247 would argue – while this initiative may not necessarily be ‘bad’ – wouldn’t charging lower interest rates on loans or higher rates on deposits highlight commitment to customer well-being in a more tangible way? Still, Kipp knows how important customer service is in the UAE and – on occasion – is the key to winning a customer’s heart and wallet.

As the bank plans to roll-out this guarantee to all UAE branches by 2013 – while implementing a new queuing system to monitor and track the service pledge – Kipp is more curious than anything to see if they can actually pull it off. Of course, failing that, the bank promises to donate AED 10 to ‘Seeing is Believing’; a global initiative aimed at eliminating avoidable blindness by 2020.

It’s a clever marketing move indeed, we reckon. If the pledge is fulfilled, the customer gets through their day a lot easier. If the bank fails to meet its promise, they’ll donate money towards a noble initiative. Do you really want to be angry at a bank that does that?

If nothing else, one would hope that the mere sound of the initiative would prompt other banks to take a miniscule step in the direction of preserving a better customer relationship.

“Standard Chartered reviews our customer satisfaction constantly and always looks at ways to enhance their experience,” says Al Mazemi, GM of Distribution at the Middle East office. “The ’8-minute teller service guarantee’ is a result of our continuous investment in improving our infrastructure and capabilities in the UAE.”

Continuous investment in improving capabilities in the UAE, they say. Well the bank has been operating in the country since 1958 so an improvement is overdue.

Tags: RAK Bank Q4, standard chartered bank uae

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