Customer Service of MCB

Customer Service still needs a lot of improving in banking sector here. Take MCB for instance. Fed up of its rude service (the New Garden Town Branch, LHR), I've decided to switch to another bank. More than two times I've been mistreated; even though I was a regular customer. And I'm not alone. I've seen them behaving this way to a lot of other customers as well.

Hiring a helpdesk officer doesn't help if your staff is not well trained to talk to a customer. And its not the customer's fault if you're having a bad day. Never heard the phrase, "Customer is the king"? And it especially holds true for banks where customer service is a major ingredient.

I really hope MCB starts its training sessions soon. Otherwise they're going to lose a lot of customers like me.

Universal Language

In his novel 'The Alchemist', Paulo Coelho talked about a strange phenomenon called Universal Language. I'm not here to discuss his views and ideas about 'univeral language'; rather, I'm more interested in the term itself since it triggered me to reflect about the concept.

I think we all have or know one universal language. I don't want to dive into the depth of this subject and so, will try to keep it as simple as possible. This is how I think universal language exists. The biggest prove of existence of universal languge can be found through the existence of body language. All around the world, every human being poses some specific gestures common to all. When angry, we all frown. When nervous, we all fidget. When lying, almost all can't look into the eyes of the other person. To show an uncaring or indifferent behavior, we all shrug.

These behaviors show that there is some language we all understand. However, I think there's more to this language than just silent motions and gestures and we need to do an extensive research into this phenomenon to discover that universal language.

Need for Case Studies

We study various case studies and research papers of Harvard and Oxford. What I don't understand is, why doesn't anybody write case studies for the Pakistani companies or even the multinational companies based in Pakistan?

I was talking to my friend the other day and we were discussing the sudden jump in sales of Gourmet Bakers and Sweets and its rapid diversification into various products. I mean, I am amazed - mashaAllah.

First, they followed a kind of proximity marketing strategy where they penetrated into the market by spreading their chains in so many localities within close spaces. Secondly, they launched products that became the cause of trouble for market giants like Pepsi and Nestle. For example, their ice cream came into head-on competition with Walls; Gourmet Cola with Coca Cola and Pepsi, Gourmet Milk with Nestle Milk, Haleeb and all those and Gourmet Water with Nestle Water and other such companies. They had been gradually making their way into the market leadership and now they've attained that position; leaving Nirala and Shezan Bakers behind in this industry.

Now this can be a wonderful case study material! But who is there to write it and why should anyone bother? I agree that teaching foreign case studies is the best thing to do and we are way too behind the foreign countries in strategy formulation and implementation. Yet, by studying our own companies, we would be able to better comprehend the local trends and identify the shortcomings. Plus, we would be assuring our students that there is some hope for the Pakistani companies and that we, too, have great strategists and marketers present amongst us.

This leads to another point - who should write a case study? I believe this should be the subject matter of universities and colleges. Obviously, how can one write a case study when one doesn't know how to? Therefore, our scholars and academics need to realize this need and embed it in their course contents.

What do you think?