The House Of Puroy Enterprises

We went to PNB (Philippine National Bank) today to open accounts. My sister in Canada who’s helping me migrate there is sending money for me to use in the processing of my papers. Unfortunately, her choice of bank is PNB. Why unfortunately? You’ll see why as you read on.

We came at around 12:00 noon, there were few clients, so I guess we would have no problem. We will be opening two types of accounts - a regular savings account with passbook and a time deposit account. As we approached the counters and inquired, we’re fortunate to approach the right person to open our time deposit. For the regular savings account however, we were told to approach another clerk!

Yes, this really surprised me, because we have to talk to two different people for our transactions. And we need to provide two sets of documents! One for each account! Like the title of this post say, I should know, because I was a banker! Worked with Far East Bank for more than five years and I was already a junior officer when we were sold… err, merged with BPI where I stayed for another five years or so, as an Assistant Manager.

Anyway, like I said, talking to two different people is a very poor customer service. While they may be two different transactions, they are related ones, both are account opening. The Trader or Marketing Assistant (that’s what we call clerks who assist clients in opening placements in our bank, don’t know what they call them in PNB), should have handled both our transactions instead of directing us to another clerk. Bad… really bad customer service. And why the hell do we need two sets of documents?! Once we have shown proof of identification for one account, do we still have to prove our identity to open another one?! On the same day at that! Very poor judgement… from one that carries the name of our country. I thought this bank was already privatized?!

Anyway, to continue with the ordeal, we just went on with our purpose. Surprise, surprise! There were more follies to come. I was asked to fill up the deposit slip and proceed to the teller to have our initial deposit validated! While I am not exactly expecting a royal treatment, I know that filling up of the initial deposit slip is done by the new account’s clerk, and that she will be the one to have the initial deposit validated! That’s customer service for new accounts! Any transactions from there on… that’s when the client will be on his own. You don’t need to be a banker to know that!

And did I say we initiated communication? Yes, as we approached the counters, we weren’t greeted nor acknowledged. We have to ask! There were no eye contacts and somehow you will sense a feeling of indifference. And yes, I know bankers are supposed to smile… but obviously, this bank didn’t have that policy. So I guess, it is also reflective of its management.

But there is one thing that I should thank this bank for this experience… they gave me something to blog.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 7:53 am and is filed under banking, customer service, feedback & reviews, management.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.