The queues were a mile long at the bank and Sipho Zulu who was on his 30 minute

Question

The queues were a mile long at the bank and Sipho Zulu who was on his 30 minute lunch break was getting extremely frustrated. He needed to speak with a finance consultant about certain documentation that had to be submitted to ensure that this account would be kept open. If this issue was not resolved, his salary would not be transferred into his account and he had bills to pay. Tempers were flaring in the queue and he could hear several customers complaining about such poor customer service. In fact, many of them were threating to close their accounts. The bank staff did not seem to be too concerned with the situation and even the bank manager was nowhere to be seen. Sipho, who had studied Operations Management knew that this was a capacity problem. If you were the bank manager: 3.2 Develop an action plan on how you would resolve this problem. (13)

Explanation / Answer

The queue was a testimony to the fact that

(a) Either the bank is only one to serve a huge population, thereby causing a demand supply issue leading to such situation.

(b) The crowd is seasonal and rushes to the bank during some days of month at the same time.

(c) There is no mode of communication / interaction between customer and bank except in person visit, causing every customer to visit the bank for any kind of service, even it is an enquiry.

Whatever is the case, the situation needs immediate attention and action. Some are given below.

(a) setting up of alternate modes of enquiry like through telephone and internet. It will reduce the customers from the queue who have just come to enquire about a service. If it is not possible, then setting up different counters for addressing different functions.

(b) Recruitment of more staff for increasing of counters and reducing the waiting time after careful study of the pattern of arrival of customers for different purposes and time involved in each function.

(c) If there is seasonality in the arrival patterns, the additional contractual / daily wager staff should be employed to increase capacity during rush time.

(d) Initiate the internet connectivity across the branches. If the banking system is already connected through the web, the customers should be encouraged and trained for use of internet for banking services. For this a facilitation unit may be opened within the community on temporary basis.

(e) issue of e cards to the custoemrs so that they can withdraw money from automated teller machines.

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