ICICI Bank to improve retail customer service

ICICI Bank today admitted that it needs to improve the quality of customer service for the retail segment to a great extent.

"We know that we have gaps and deficiency in the customer service that we are providing and we are trying to bridge the gaps and overcome the deficiencies," Nachiket Mor, executive director, said.

The bank has acquired around a core of customers and has only 12,000 employees "" which translates into the fact that one employee handles 833 customers. This has in fact lead to a reduction in quality of service at ICICI Bank which is now grappling with the large number of customers.

"Although we do not plan to increase our employee strength, we are planning to introduce rotation wise office hours. For example, rush at branches located at residential areas are at early morning and towards the end of the day, while for branches located at commercial places face the rush towards the middle of the office hours. We are therefore exploring the possibility of rotating employees between branches that have different rush hours," Mor said.

"ICICI bank has cornered around 30 per cent of the retail banking business. It is also number in all the related business it has entered like ICICI Prudential is the number "" one in life insurance business," Mor said.

The bank, however, also outsources a large portion of its processing from other agencies. It has a separate agency that follows up bad loans in housing. The bank has also decided to reduce outsourcing sale of home loans through agencies.