(Across the counter) Nnewi: Union Bank woos customers with corporate ambience

By OBINNA EZUGWU

On Monday last week, Business Hallmark took a trip to the popular Bank Road Nnewi, the manufacturing hub of Anambra State to ascertain how the banks are responding in terms of customer service, facility and general performance. Nearly all the commercial banks in the country have branch offices here, such that it is indeed a banking cluster.

Union Bank:

The truly impressive bank here is Union Bank. The banking hall is spacious, serene, well equipped and neat. Indeed, customers here are kings, treated to well air conditioned hall and comfortable seats.

Union is on a re-branding mission, and this is not in doubt here. From the gate, the security personnel were polite, and neatly dressed.

But as at few minutes past nine in the morning, the bank had more staff than customers. Judging from this branch, the push by the bank hasn’t really paid off in terms of customer base. But they are pushing, almost to the point of desperation.

One of the staff, Samuel was ready to do anything possible to get our crew to open an account. The regulation says one must possess a valid identity card, but he suggested other ways it can be done, “I don’t want to lose you,” he says, when it became apparent that identity card would become a hindrance to opening the account. “Take my number so you can get back to me,” he asked resignedly.

With this push, it might be a matter of time before Union Bank returns to reckoning. But for now, it seems like a long, tough battle in a truly competitive environment.

Diamond Bank:

Our first point of call was Diamond Bank. As early as 8:30, the banking hall was already a beehive of activities, and from the door, it was immediately obvious to a visitor that the bank had poor crowd management.

Of the two doors, only one was working, albeit partially. After it had rejected one or two customers, the security guards had to leave it open to allow for easy entrance.

The bank operates two banking halls; one on the ground floor, the other on the first floor. The ground floor is for withdrawers and the other for depositors. But if you were a depositor, unless it occurred to you to ask a security guard or a staff for direction, you were sure to queue up in one of the poorly organized withdrawal points on the ground floor only to be told, when it was your turn, to go upstairs to make your deposit. This was the lot of more than a few customers who often grumbled as they went upstairs.

The ground floor was rowdy, almost like a mini market place, but not necessarily because of the number of customers, but because there was little attempt to organize them in an orderly manner, and the cashier were rather not in a hurry to discharge waiting customers. It took about three minutes to attend to a customer, but it could have been much less.

The hall had eight payment points, seven were manned and each had about six people queued up, not necessarily queues – it was not in the real sense, a line – but everyone knew who came before him for they would ask before standing just within the box. At one corner of the hall, there is the spot written “Fire Extinguisher Point,” but ironically, there were no fire extinguishers.

The good side however, is that there is at least customer service desk and those who were being attended to had a couple of seats to sit down, while others stood and waited.

To the second banking hall: There must be a reason it looks different from other Diamond Bank halls. Save for the fact that there was no bench and no chairs for the customers, it could have been mistaken for a court of law, one full of accused boxes. But these “accused boxes,” about 22 of them, actually housed staff members collecting deposits. The entrance said “Bulk Room,” but you were directed to the place even if you had N1000 to deposit.

Here, like the first hall looked disorderly, but the odd looking boxes were quite effective. Upon entrance, a customer would easily locate which had less number of people waiting to be attended to and head to the direction. There were no queues; each box had at most four people waiting, but mostly two and three. Such that, although the hall looks strange, customers were easily attended to, and this took between less than a minute to about three minutes depending, of course, on the amount for deposit.

The ATM points were working, and few people were on the queue.

UBA:

The nearby UBA was our second port of call. It was about 9am, and like Diamond, it had only one of two entrance doors working. But here, there was lesser crowd in the banking hall, about 15 people, and the environment looked quite conducive.

At customer service desk, only one of two tables was occupied, but there were really few customers to attend to and the only lady there was having no difficulty with that.

Fidelity Bank:

Next is Fidelity Bank. Here, there were about 50 customers all parked up and many looking forlorn . It is not difficult to tell why, the service was quite slow.

“This line is not moving,” one of those in the queue had said.

In terms of customer base, as far as Bank Road is concerned, it was obvious that Fidelity and Diamond were in the lead.

Yet, as was with the case in the two banks above, only one of the two doors was working. The ATM point had few people on the queue, some were dispensing; one was not.

First Bank:

In the order of serenity of the environment, First Bank comes second to Union Bank. Here, there is neat and specious banking hall, well air-conditioned, but with few customers, about 10. Service was good, and the customers did attest to it.

But outside the banking hall, the few dispensing ATM machines seemed to be slow as a crowd had already built up in the morning hours of the day. The bank did well to provide shed and chairs for ATM users who were seated while they waited for their turn.

Skye Bank:

Typical of a bank struggling to keep going in the midst of issues, this branch of Skye Bank is really neither here nor there.

There were a handful of customers, and the not-so-vast banking hall looked orderly and neat. Both entrance doors were in good shape and customers were promptly attended to.

Access Bank:

Here, there were about 10 customers in the long banking hall, which was really not a number to trouble the staff. It was, in fact, one customer to one staff, but it took about two minutes to attend to a customer.

Both doors were working well and two customers were being attended to by one staff at the customer service desk. The ATM had only a handful of people.