How Nigerian banks can attract and retain customers

Posted by Felix Okoli on Friday September 2, 2016 at 9:59:27:

I can't remember the last time I went to a particular bank to deposit money and the reason I stopped doing so for about 6 months now is because I've found it more convenient to deposit money at another bank first and do a transfer to that bank later on using mobile banking. The reason why I still keep on banking with the said bank is because I work with a company that has a corporate account with the bank and so at times I do go there to deposit money. If I had my way, I would close the account completely because it has become really inconvenient for me to keep banking with them. The 2 main reasons why I hate banking with the bank is because they don't offer good customer service and are very slow in giving the service.

The reason why I'm unsatisfied with them is because each time I visit them to deposit money, they waste up to 30 minutes of my time. I wish they had more tellers to speed up the work so that I don't spent a lot of time just to deposit money at the bank. For me, I want a bank that offers me faster banking services.

Many Nigerians have a lot of things that they hate about their banks but for one reason or another, they just keep banking with them while some who have been pushed to the wall end up quitting that bank and looking for better services elsewhere. Nigerians banks have the power to attract customers as well as retaining the ones they already have. It's up to the management to keep an eye on what bank customers really want and provide it for them when they want it.

1. Offering Faster banking services: I don't think there are any serious bank customers in Nigeria that want to spend the whole day at the bank just to perform one or two transactions. People want to spend less time at the bank and more time at other places where they'll have better quality of life. It's only a few bank customers that want to spend most of their time at the bank just to get a free air conditioning service. Banks can do this by employing more bank tellers so that customers don't wait in line for too long. They can also deploy more machines that can accept and pay cash to customers.

2. Monitoring staff: Bank managers and supervisors should also make it a habit of monitoring their customer service staff so that they spend less time being idle or doing this unprofitable but more time attending to customers. I remember visiting a bank in the afternoon and they had only 1 teller on seat while the 3 others probably went on a break at the same time while there were about 20 customers waiting endlessly. What was the banking hall supervisor doing?

3. Accepting little or no documentation: A lot of Nigerians don't own or keep bank accounts because they don't have a government issued identity card such as National driving license, International passport or Voter's card as they can only provide a passport photograph. Banks can attract a lot of them by offering saving account and other banking services without requiring a lot from them.

4. Offer Higher interest rates: Nigerians are concerned about the value of their money and many see that keeping their money in bank accounts rather than in profitable businesses only make them poorer. It's disheartening that in Nigeria, the average interest rate on savings as about 3% per annum despite the fat that the Naira depreciates by more than 3 times that annually. Why would they keep money in the bank when they can invest in assets that can appreciate with more value?

5. Improve on customer service: it's good for banks to train their employees on the importance of offering a good customer experience. I've noticed that bank employees who offer bad service includes pregnant women, fat women, old employees and so on. The younger and physically fit employees tend to offer me a better service.

There could be many other things banks can do to attract and keep their customers and I just want them to do a good research that would help them improve on their service.