RBI Plans to Conduct a Customer Satisfaction Survey

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has come up with a way to measure the success of recent state-owned bank mergers. RBI has decided to conduct a customer satisfaction survey to figure out the impact of these mergers on banking services offered to retail customers.

The key question that will be asked in the survey is whether the merger was positive from the customer’s perspective. The respondents will have the following options to choose from—Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree, and Strongly Disagree.

A total of 20,000 respondents from 21 states, including Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Bihar, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat, are expected to answer the survey.

As per the plan, the survey includes 22 questions, out of which a set of four questions are drafted to assess customer service and grievance redressal issues of customers of the banks that were merged in 2019 and 2020.

The recent public bank mergers include

• Oriental Bank of Commerce and United Bank of India with Punjab National Bank
• Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank with Bank of Baroda
• Syndicate Bank with Canara Bank
• Allahabad Bank with Indian Bank
• Andhra Bank and Corporation Bank with Union Bank of India

Similarly, Lakshmi Vilas Bank was merged with DBS Bank. 

One of the questions in the survey intends to find out if the respondent faced any problems in availing services after the merger. If yes, the respondent should select the products, services, and areas where the problem occurred and specify the nature of the problem. Further, the respondents will also be asked, “Overall, the merger has been positive from a customer service perspective”. The respondents are supposed to select one option to state their level of satisfaction.

The regulator has asked the survey conducting agency to conduct interviews over the phone to record customers of bank branches falling in identified states to carry out the “Bank Customers’ Satisfaction Survey”. The Central Bank will be sharing the contact numbers of customers of bank branches selected from 21 states.

Once RBI selects an agency based on quotations, the selected agency will carry out the survey and submit the report by 22 June 2021. According to the Request for Quotations (RFQ) document, the questions are framed with the key aspect of customer experience and perception regarding grievance redressal mechanism in mind. It also captures the customer awareness about the grievance redressal mechanism in place for bank and banking ombudsman.

For any clarifications/feedback on the topic, please contact the writer at apoorva.n@cleartax.in