I just returned from a business trip to India. I landed in Mumbai on October 2nd, a Friday and accidentally locked my ATM card up by re-trying the wrong pin over and over again. October 2nd was a bank holiday in India (Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday). Cashless, and concerned I went online to my Indian banks web site and filled out a ‘desperate request’ for cash.
Within 15 minutes a branch manager called me up, empathized with me about my situation, and came to my hotel room an hour later with some money. This man made a personal loan to me from his own bank account. I felt like absolute royalty and ended up repaying the manager on Saturday morning.
‘Rajeev’ the bank manager has been promoting his online and mobile banking sites to his customers. Since he has a personal stake in good service, he gets alerted anytime a request for service is filled out for his branch online. He monitors this and the email requests that he gets. When he got my request, he simply saw my account, confirmed that I was good for the money, & then made a personal decision to help me out.
He said he does this to show his customers that online is effective and there are people who are paying attention to what is happening and not just providing lip service. I was merely expecting a note from the bank that would have said they understand my situation, but since it was a bank holiday my issue would be resolved the next business day.
Incredible service! And yes a very good lesson for marketers – monitor your feedback, it will drive the success of your marketing programs.
