Okay. Remember my post about GT Bank’s poor service a few weeks back? Yeah. They tried to make up for it in a most impressive way. If you did not read my rant about their poor service, here is a quick recap. I had been pissed off about GT Bank’s unimpressive service of which I was a victim, and had written them a Letter of Protest, then later bloggedd about it. In the Letter to them, I gave them 48 hours to apologise to me. They actually sent me an apology mail within 10 hours of my email to them, and even said the problem I had with them had been fixed. They also had one of their staffers from their Total Quality Management Unit call me up and apologise. The apology sounded sincere. So I forgave them.

This morning, the staffer called me up again to check if I had any other complaint or terrible experience. I mean this was like weeks after the apology. I was moved by this and decided to tell the world via my blog that GT Bank deserves a point for this. It’s rare to find big corporate institutions do this. The most that many of such corporations do is fix your problem after a complaint. Getting an apology from them is a plus. But here was GT Bank, fixing my problem (I would rather say “their problem”), apologise to me via mail, apologise to me via the phone, and call me up weeks after to see if I had any new issues with them.

Here are some lessons to other corporations out there:

1. The customer is King.

Don’t take your customers for granted. Many public and private institutions do this. They forget that they are actually there to serve the customer/client. You might say “to hell with this customer. His trouble is too much. We’ll get another customer” but the truth is that a customer in hand is worth two in the market. That customer might not be your most financially buoyant customer, but he/she could have the power to influence your market. Take for example myself.  I don’t have up to ten million naira in GT Bank (I would not tell you the exact figure because of EFCC), but I have a couple of readers of my blog and followers on social media who saw my rant about their poor service. And we all know the power of word of mouth reviews. It spreads like wild fire and it would only be a matter of time before it got to one prospective customer of the bank who would renege on his intention to use the bank’s service.

2. The customer is King.

When you know your service sucks, apologise to the customer and fix it!

3. The customer is King

Apologise to the customer again and ensure that the problem stays fixed. This has a way of endearing the customer to you. When GT Bank apologised for their shortcomings, I gave little thoughts to the idea about blogging about their apology. But when they called me up this morning again to apologise and ensure I was okay, I had a rethink. I know this post would be good PR for GT Bank. They’ve earned it. This is what quality service should be all about. How I wish they’ll compensate me for the troubles with a 100% interest on my account. Sigh.